Greatest Hits

Of all the shite gigs I've seen in my time, the most unrelentingly awful has to be Happy Mondays at Féile '93.

Shaun Ryder barely being able to form coherent sentences I expected. 90% of the music being pre-recorded I got over. What I couldn't handle was the fact that they obviously didn't want to be there. It was the same story a few weeks ago at the SFX where it wasn't songs they were playing, but £500 instalments off their tax bill.

The Mondays' alchemy was strictly of the studio-based variety. Or used to be. Having heard the dog's dinner they've made of 'The Boys Are Back In Town', Tony Blair must surely do the decent thing and introduce a mandatory retirement age for rock 'n' rollers. I'm no Thin Lizzy purist but the song - I use the word in the loosest possible sense - is a complete mess. Reunion hype or not, the record buying public have recognised it's a steaming pile of manure and halted its chart progress at a less-than-lofty number 29.

While it serves the money-grabbing bastards right, it'd be a shame if it indelibly stained the reputation of a band who were responsible for much of what was good about the indie-dance crossover.

Clarion calls don't come any louder than 1987's '24 Hour Party People', a giant slab of Joy Division-meets-Arthur Baker funk which, despite some rather ill-advised synth flourishes, still sounds fucking awesome.

It's a matter of taste of course, but I always felt that the Mondays were at their best when chaperoned in the studio by the late Martin Hannett - a producer who, according to Ryder, was as off his tits on pharmaceuticals as they were.

'Mad Cyril', in particular, has a darkness to it that was missing when Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osbourne arrived on the scene. Thus, I'd have preferred the original 'Hallelujah' to the jollied-up Perfecto mix featured here. Ditto 'W.F.L.' which gains nothing from having Vince Clarke's electro paw prints all over it.

With more and more Ecstasy coursing through their veins, it was no surprise when 1990's Pills 'N Thrills And Bellyaches found the Mondays upping the (idiot) dance quotient. If any song encapsulates what Madchester was about, it's the chemical reconfiguration of John Kongos' 'Step On'. It also marks the time when Rowetta stopped being a bit-player in proceedings and became almost as vital a vocal component as Ryder.

That's highlighted to even greater extent on 'Kinky Afro' and the sexiest song they ever committed to polymer, 'Bob's Yer Uncle'.

If required to pinpoint the moment when the Happy Mondays lost it, it'd probably be the post-Pills one-off 'Judge Fudge'. Released, from what I can remember, to tie-in with a big outdoor gig, it's the sound of a band starting to run on empty.

Or, in Shaun Ryder's case, heroin and crack cocaine. Bearing in mind what had come immediately before it, 1992's Yes Please! album was a disaster of Nottingham Forest proportions. Isolated from the rest of the shambles, 'Stinkin' Thinkin', grooves away quite acceptably, but with Ryder on God knows how many rocks a day, it was inevitable that the band would implode.

The hideous cover of 'Stayin' Alive' represents the fag end of the Mondays legacy - the band trying, and failing, to paper over the cracks with a big production job.

Underlining the fact that the compilation has been assembled with money rather than posterity in mind, there's no original artwork or, indeed, sleeve-notes to put the various phases of their career into proper context.

Thanks for the memories Shaun, but haven't you got a Daily Sport column to write?