Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile

Because it was made before the band really came into its own, Squirrel and G-Man… tends to be dismissed within the Happy Mondays canon. Produced by John Cale, the album fits easily into the wiry attacks of British post-punk in the ‘80s, but even in their early incarnation the Mondays were like no other. Sure, they were cribbing styles from their contemporaries — just check “Cob 20,” their Cure imitation, or “Olive Oil,” which is a delightfully warped interpretation of a Smiths song. But the songs that really hit home are the ones that precipitate the Mondays’ signature sound. “Kuff Dam,” “Tart Tart” and “24 Hour Party People” are harbingers of the queasy, swirling groove that would serve as the foundation for the burgeoning Madchester movement. The Mondays were still green, but there’s no dismissing Shaun Ryder on this album, as a vocalist or a writer. He sputters and spits and moans without regard for rhyme or intelligibility. As a singer and a writer he is the bastard offspring of Jim Morrison and Mark E. Smith — a caustic Mancunian boozer whose surreal visions are spiked with venom and fastened with black humor.