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across Britain, but its

ethos – its beats, loops and

attendant ecstasy-fuelled

smiley culture – had yet

to infiltrate Creation. That

eventually happened in 1989

when, bored at an indie

club in Manchester, McGee

and crew decamped to the

Hacienda, where he had “an

epiphany” as he witnessed

several hundred revellers, led

by Happy Mondays’ gurning

totem Shaun Ryder, going

“absolutely mental” to the

electronic pulse of music born

in Chicago and Detroit.

As a result, McGee

temporarily moved to

Manchester, where they had,

he joked, “a better class of

drugs”, and he introduced

the new dance motion to

Gillespie, believing it would

work for Primal Scream.

Cue the February 1990

single Loaded, an Andrew

Weatherall remix of an earlier

Primals track called I’m Losing

More Than I’ll Ever Have.

According to early Mary

Chain bassist turned video

director Douglas Hart: “Acid

house reinvented Creation; it

reinvigorated it.”

It also turned Creation into

the music business version

of Babylon. “That’s when it

really went off the hook and

the party really started,” said

an onlooker of the label’s

offices in Hackney, a series

of mazes and staircases

that became the scene of all

manner of chaos. Somehow,

though, they still managed

to get the job done, mainly

thanks to stabilising force

Dick Green.

Loaded made McGee’s

dream come true: Primal

Scream on Top Of The Pops,

beamed into millions of

homes. It was also the record

that allowed Primal Scream to

truly explore Gillespie’s, and

McGee’s, record collections,

and their shared love of punk,

dub, disco, country, krautrock,

free jazz, PiL and Lee Perry,

Big Star and Beach Boys, on

the seminal Screamadelica,

which dazzled the critics

in September 1991 and was

voted Album of the Year

by NME. “It summed up that

whole era for a generation,”

proclaimed New Order’s

Peter Hook.

Within two months,

Teenage Fanclub had issued

Bandwagonesque – US

magazine Spin’s Album of

the Year and the long-player

most likely to sell Creation to

America – and My Bloody

Valentine had released

Loveless, whose protracted

recording brought McGee to

the brink of a breakdown and

was regarded as the ultimate

in electric guitar wizardry.

“It was the last great

rock record,” McGee said

later. “It’s all been going

backwards since.”

With the Primals’, TFC’s

and MBV’s respective

masterpieces, Creation

were higher than the sun.

The Stone Roses may have been what the world

was waiting for, in theory, but it was Oasis who

put it into practice. They were phenomenally

successful and became the biggest band since

The Beatles, sparking the Britpop movement

Noel Gallagher of Oasis sneers

behind brother Liam en route

to becoming the biggest band

since The Beatles

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