By Michael Baginski/ I sometimes feel like I was a little AWOL in the ‘90s – culturally that is. In my defence there was marriage, new home, kids (towards the end of the decade), dog, first job in travel (and lots of travelling) … You get the idea. And it’s how I undoubtedly utterly missed Primal Scream – my absolute favourite musical discovery of this year, 2025.
Fortunately thanks to today’s new-fangled technology, 30-some-odd years is no different than 30 minutes and I came across this amazing Scottish band, which much to my delight channeled the Rolling Stones – but in a fresh, not diminished way.
Of course, even if I had heard of Primal Scream back then, I may have naively assumed it was heavy metal and given them a fast pass anyways, but that characterization wouldn’t have been further from the truth.
Now (and then) the band was described in a many different ways – from indie to acid house (whatever that is) – and to be fair their collective offerings were quite eclectic; but also, notably, for a time, they demonstrated a strong Stones influence circa ‘Exile on Mainstreet’ – for which the were both praised and bemoaned. Count me among the former.
The similarity was helped by the fact that band frontman Bobby Gillespie (who was the original drummer for the Jesus and Mary Chain) looked, sounded and moved like Jagger, as one can see here in “Rocks,” which was the band’s first chart success in the U.S. in 1994.
(We’ll be back in the future with the terrific gospel tinged “Movin’ On Up” as well, from their 1991 U.K. breakthrough album “Screamadelic,” as it was hard to pick between the two).
In the meantime, please discover, like me, “Rocks” – variously and rightly described in the comment section as the “Best Rolling Stones record of the ‘90s, hands down,” “The best early 70’s rock song to be written in the early 90’s,” and, “Good enough to get on a Rolling Stones greatest hits – and I mean that as a big compliment.”
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