...Yes Please!

By the time this album was recorded and released in '92, the Happy Mondays had visibly unraveled. Travelling to Barbados to record with Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, the band--Ryder in particular--was spiraling into a pit of drug addiction. The first half of this CD is very strong. Featuring rehab favorites "Stinkin Thinkin," "Monkey in the Family," "Sunshine and Love," and "Dustman," the drug theme quickly devolved into a drug-addled mess: Ryder spent less and less time in the studio and more and more time on the streets of Barbados looking for crack rocks. Not long after, Ryder excused himself from the record company meeting where the Mondays were renegotiating their contract to go buy heroin. They were instantly dropped from their label and the Happy Mondays were no more. This album is a lot better than its initial reviews stated. YES, PLEASE has a penetrating honesty about the disintegrating state of its creators, making it a confession album easy to like.