Thread by @TheWrongtom

Currently trapped with a baby on my lap, so who wants to join me in a look at what makes up Loaded by Primal Scream? You? Well, ok then...

It's no big myth that Loaded was originally intended as a remix. In 1989 Weatherall reviewed their eponymous 2nd LP. The band read it and offered him £500 to remix the album track I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have

Weatherall's original remix was faithful to the original. In this interview for RBMA he claimed he "basically slung a kick drum under their original because I was a little bit scared". Guitarist Andrew Innes heard it and told him "just fucking destroy it!"

So Weatherall did exactly that, ditching most of the song and warping it into something brand new in the process. All that remiained from the original was a few short loops of percussion and guitar, and the horn section from the end.

The horn section - initially part of the original's crescendo - became the intro and hook of Loaded. I'm not sure if the piano riff is brand new or it's chopped from Martin Duffy's original riff. That's Martin Duffy of Felt infamy btw

Again, I've no idea who performed the horns. At a guess I'd assume it's The Kick Horns but can't confirm. The album was orchestrated by Henry Olsen, formerly of post-punkers Ideal Husbands

What's interesting however is the Primal Scream horns fit perfectly with this horn riff sampled from a library record by John Hawkins (skip to 25m30s ) so much so that you'd think they might've come from the same recording

And the "I don't wanna lose your love!" vocal in the intro is The Emotions from their 1977 single of the same name. Here they are performing it on TOTP

And all that happens in the first 30 seconds of Loaded, before Weatherall strips it all back again to nothing but a drum break. This drum break to be exact, pilfered from a naughty bootleg of Edie Brickell which was spuriously attributed to Soul II Soul

And why would Soul II Soul get a mention? Well obviously because whoever the Mad Magic DJs were (was it you? Own up!) they lifted the beat wholesale from Keep On Moving

In fact Soul II Soul revisited the beat when they reworked their old a capella track Back To Life which then reached number 1 here in 1989

The "Soul II Soul beat" soon became a mainstay on dancefloors, regularly sampled and ripped off from hip hop to pop

But let's not forget Jazzie B sampled it from Graham Central Station. Skip to 5mins to hear the breakdown

So that's (I think) Manuel "The Deacon" Kellough on drums on Loaded, from a song written by the inventor of slap bass, Prince's mate Larry Graham

Kellough's not actually credited, so it might even be Larry himself on the drums there. Either way, it's as good a moment as any to remind you that it was Graham who introduced Prince to Jehovah's Witness, and rumour has it the pair went knocking on doors together 💜

What I love about Weatherall using that beat is it somehow feels less rigid in Loaded. It might be due to the rest of the instrumentation, or could be down to the aesthetic, the tripped-out drugginess of it's lope, and Bobby's strung out spoken word parts

Speaking of which, it's been suggested that Bobby's laconic "gonna get deep down, deep down, wooo yeah!" is a nod to the end of this Robert Johnson blues rag

Recently @deminimismusic suggested that some of Loaded (or the original song) was lifted from Emma by Hot Chocolate

But while there might be some vague melodic similarities, it's far more like that Primal Scream had been listening to this next one...

I think it's safe to say that before they wrote I'm Losing more Than I'll Ever Have, someone in Primal Scream heard this one by Brad Miller's slightly wiggy easy listening project The Mystic Moods Orchestra from '72

Lighters up, please!

Let's not forget Loaded's intro, and where they got the name of the track. Weatherall snatched some speech from a scene from Roger Corman's scuzzy biker b-move The Wild Angels where Peter Fonda goes up against Frank Maxwell's Preacher

Side note: The Wild Angels led to Fonda and Jack Nicolson getting a deal to make a series of underground films for a major studio. A major watershed moment for Hollywood and making Fonda & co huge and sometimes troublesome stars. This is from Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Loaded wasn't actually the first time that Wild Angels clip had been sampled however.

In '88 Seattle grungers Mudhoney (named after a typically seedy Russ Meyer film) used it in the intro of In n Out Of Grace

Had Weatherall heard Mudhoney? No idea, but it seems likely that he heard this LP, also recorded in '88. A kind of fake acid house project by Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV with Richard Norris who'd soon go on to form The Grid (among many others)

Anyway, Loaded changed the fate of the band, scoring them their 1st hit, and they invited Weatherall to work on the LP over at Bark studios in Walthamstow (as mentioned here

https://twitter.com/TheWrongtom/status/1229480826624237568?s=20

). Screamadelica earned them a Mercury, and Weatherall became a legend

Loaded is now synonymous with both rave and indie, and the intersection of both at the start of the 90s. It's hard to hear it without imagining ridiculous dancing, outrageous clothes and terrible haircuts. Perfect fodder for the titles of The World's End

And THAT'S how a Primal Scream Loaded 12" works