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Primal Scream
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Primal Scream is a Scottish rock band that began in Glasgow in 1982 around the singer Bobby Gillespie and the guitarist Jim Beattie. Both were school friends and at first made rudimentary sound tapes: Gillespie banged two bin lids together, Beattie played fuzz guitar. Then they played covers of songs by The Velvet Underground and The Byrds and wrote songs of their own, based on bass lines by Jah Wobble and Peter Hook. The name comes from the title track of The Fall's debut album. Primal Scream played live for the first time in 1982.
Music and breakthrough
The career only really got going when Gillespie stopped being the drummer of The Jesus and Mary Chain, where he had for a time switched between two bands. In the mid-1980s the group belonged to the indie pop scene, and Velocity Girl from 1986 is an example from that period. It then moved on to a psychedelic and garage rock sound, with records such as Sonic Flower Groove (1987) and Primal Scream (1989). With Screamadelica in 1991 it added dance music and broke through to the general public.
Influence
On later albums the band kept searching. Give Out but Don't Give Up (1994), Vanishing Point (1997) and XTRMNTR (2000) show blues, trip hop and industrial rock. The most recent album, Come Ahead, appeared on 8 November 2024. For pop history Primal Scream is important because it showed that a guitar band from the indie corner could embrace the dance floor and the long party of acid house, without losing its rock side.
Listening
Velocity Girl · Primal Scream, 1986Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1987Sonic Flower Groove
- 1989Primal Scream
- 1991Screamadelica
- 1994Give Out but Don’t Give Up
- 1997Vanishing Point
- 2000XTRMNTR
- 2002Evil Heat
- 2006Riot City Blues
- 2008Beautiful Future
- 2013More Light
- 2016Chaosmosis
- 2024Come Ahead