Stupid Stupid Stupidrelease date: Nov. 10, 1997
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,28]
producer: Danny Saber
label: Radioactive Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Get Higher" (4 / 5) (official video) - 2. "Squeaky" - 3. "Marbles" - 4. "Dadi Waz a Badi" - 6. "Spotlight" - 8. "Money Back Guaranteed" - 9. "Lonely"
2nd studio album by Black Grape following a little more than two years after the fine debut It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah (Aug. 1995) is like that released on Radioactive. Since the debut, the line-up has changed with founding member Bez leaving due to dissatisfaction with his paid royalties, and then the band has been expanded to a septet. The band's rapper Paul 'Kermit' Leveridge was hospitalised with blood poisoning during a tour and was replaced by Carl 'Psycho' McCarthy, who ended up being a stable member after the tour and after Kermit was back. Also live guitarist and keyboardist Martin Slattery [he should later join Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros] became a stable member before begining the recordings for the album. And Danny Saber, who had played a major part in making the debut is also new band member. In '96 Black Grape and Joe Strummer stood behind the football support song "England's Irie" and Saber was producer on the joint project. The majority of the songs here are credited Ryder, Saber and 'Manmade' - a joint moniker for Kermit and Psycho. The album contains a cover of the '72 Frederick Knight soul tune"I've Been Lonely for so Long" (by Posie Knight and Jerry Weaver), here just titled "Lonely".
Stylewise, it's a rougher and more rock-oriented album than the predominantly electronic and alt. dance, which shaped the debut, but there's still room for funk and soul as well as the usual sampling bits and parts. The album was preceded by the single release of track #1 peaking at number #24 followed by the European only release of "Dadi Waz a Badi" and lastly "Marbles" was selected as the third single.
Stupid Stupid Stupid was met by mixed reviews. Stephen Erlewine of allmusic.com says: "...it plays like 'It's Great', part two, only without its predecessor's infectious beats, mammoth hooks, and surreal humor". I don't fully agree on the "without" 'cause the album is not without good beats, hooks and humour but there's unquestionably just less of it. And yes, it is like a part two, which in many ways tries too hard to follow-up on the success.
The succeeding tour didn't last long and ended up being cancelled as Shaun Ryder in Dec. '97, allegedly after a fight of band members simply dismissed the whole band resulting in massive cancellations of already scheduled shows, and Ryder also sacked the band manager, which in the end meant that Ryder via rule of court ended up in receivership for the next 12 years. The end of Black Grape was stressed in the Summer of '98 when Ryder stated he should no longer be recording under that name [only he would much later, though].
This is not great and not entirely bad either. "Get Higher" is a marvelous track, and the album is worth a spin or more but it's not up there alongside the debut.
