THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

724-Primal Scream-Loaded.

1990-Number 16 single.

Best Bit-At 3.28. When asked by the ‘NME’ how all the samples were cleared, Bobby Gillespie said,’I don’t know what you’re talking about. (with a grin on his face) Imagine if we hadn’t got the Fonda one though. We wouldn’t be sat here now. I don’t know where we’d be, but we would not be sat here talking to you. The Gods were smiling on us that day.’

Primal Scream were formed in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1982, by Bobby Gillespie, and Jim Beattie, in total there has been 24 different members come and go, with Gillespie being the groups one constant, and at the time of writing they remain active with four current members. Primal Scream who took their name from a term for a type of cry heard in ‘primal therapy,’ created by the American psychologist, psychotherapist Arthur Janov, (1924-2017) started out life as an ‘Indie Rock’ group, before moving in to ‘Psychedelic Rock,’ and ‘Garage Rock,’ but it was when they incorporated ‘Dance Music’ to their sound, they finally achieved mainstream success.

Primal Scream have released 11 studio Albums between 1987-2016, and 26 singles between 1985-2016, there are also four official compilation Albums, and one live Album available. In the UK, 16 of their singles have reached the top 40, with ‘Country Girl’ from 2006 peaking the highest at Number 5. In America they have never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, but they have had four entries on the ‘Billboard Alternative Airplay’ chart, with ‘Movin’ on Up,’ placing the highest at Number 2 in 1992.

Bobby Gillespie was born Robert Gillespie, on June 22nd, 1961, in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021 he issued his book ‘Tenement Kid,’ which is a memoir relating to his childhood in the 1960’s in Springburn, Glasgow, his discovering of ‘Punk Rock’ music, and then his realisation as an artist, through until the release of the ‘Screamadelica’ Album in 1991, the book has been met with critical acclaim. Prior to going full time with Primal Scream, Gillespie had split his career with being the drummer for ‘The Jesus and Mary Chain,’ (see also best songs 878 and 336) playing on the groups debut Album ‘Psychocandy’ from 1985. After that the Reid Brothers who were two of the four members of ‘The Jesus and Mary Chain’ at that time, gave Gillespie an ultimatum to abandon Primal Scream or be replaced, Gillespie has said,’I never really enjoyed being in Primal Scream, but the Mary Chain is Jim and William’s band, and I knew I could express myself better in Primal Scream.’

‘Loaded’ was released in February 1990, some 19 months before the release of it’s parent Album ‘Screamadelica,’ from September 1991, in total six singles were released from the Album. ‘Screamadelica’ has received universal praise from music critics, and has been frequently named one of the best Albums of the 1990’s in various polls. It won the first ever ‘Mercury Music Prize’ in 1992, and has sold over three million copies worldwide to date. ‘Loaded’ was co-written by Primal Scream group members Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, and Robert Young, (1964-2014) with the production being by Andrew Weatherall, who was born Andrew James Weatherall, on April 6th, 1963, in Windsor, Berkshire, England, he died on February 17th, 2020, with the cause given being a pulmonary embolism. ‘Loaded’ came about after Primal Scream had got in touch with Weatherall, agreeing a £500 fee to remix an earlier song of their’s called ‘I’m Losing More Than I Ever Had.’ Weatherall incorporated many samples including spoken word, and the finished work is seen as groundbreaking in it’s fusion of ‘Rock Music,’ and ‘Dance Music.’

Andrew Weatherall reduced ‘I’m Losing More Than I Ever Had.’ to around a seven second loop, then added a heavy bass line, and a drum loop from an Italian bootleg mix of Edie Brickell’s 1988 track What I Am.’ Other samples include a vocal sample taken from American girl group ‘The Emotions’ 1976 song ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love,’ and Bobby Gillespie singing a line from the ‘Blues’ singer Robert Johnson’s (1911-1938) 1936 Blues song ‘Terraplane Blues.’ Perhaps the most memorable sample on ‘Loaded’ is the spoken word intro taken from the 1966 film ‘Wild Angels,’ which features an audio sample of the actual words spoken in that film by the actors Frank Maxwell, (1916-2004) and Peter Fonda (1940-2019.)

Bobby Gillespie has said,’We just did ‘Loaded’ as an experiment. There was nothing in it for us anyway, so we had nothing to lose, you know? There was no game plan with Weatherall at all. We didn’t think ‘We’re going to get famous and rich’ or ‘We’re gonna get a hit.’ It was just us trying to make a record that could ply in this scene and that people could dance to. But I remember when we finished it sounded f—ing amazing. We’d done it.’

‘Just what is it that you want to do? Well, we wanna be free, we wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time. And that’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna have a good time, we’re gonna have a party.’