Skip to content
EntityQ502886· pop 27· linked from 719 articles

Madchester

Sign in to save

Madchester was a musical and cultural scene that emerged in the English city of Manchester during the late 1980s, closely associated with the indie dance movement. Indie dance (also referred to as indie rave) blended indie rock with elements of acid house, psychedelia, and 1960s pop.

Key facts

Art movement.name
Madchester
Art movement.image
Madchester-logo.jpg
Art movement.caption
The "Madchester" wordmark that appeared on the Happy Mondays' 1989 EP Madchester Rave On
Art movement.yearsactive
Late 1980s – early 1990s
Art movement.location
Manchester, England

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Country of origin
United Kingdom
Show 2 more facts
topic's main category
Category:Madchester
inception
1990-01-01
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~20 min read

Encyclopedic overview

13 sections
Contents
  • Pre-Madchester
  • Beginnings
  • Baggy
  • Growing success
  • Commercial success
  • Decline
  • Legacy
  • Musical legacy
  • Impact on Manchester
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

Madchester was a musical and cultural scene that emerged in the English city of Manchester during the late 1980s, closely associated with the indie dance movement. Indie dance (also referred to as indie rave) blended indie rock with elements of acid house, psychedelia, and 1960s pop.

The term Madchester was coined by Factory Records' Tony Wilson, and was popularised by the British music press in the early 1990s. However, the origin of the term can be traced to a script meeting between Factory Records video directors Philip Shotton and Keith Jobling, known as "the Bailey Brothers." They coined Madchester while developing a script and later suggested it to Tony Wilson. Subsequently, Wilson instructed the band Happy Mondays to rename their EP from "Rave On" to "Madchester Rave On." The Happy Mondays' lead vocalist, Shaun Ryder, recalled: "It was our video directors, the Bailey Brothers, who came up with the term 'Madchester,' but we said, 'Great, yeah, go with it,' because Manchester was mad at the time."

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Madchester” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.