It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah by Black Grape

It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah is the first album by British band Black Grape. Released in 1995, the album was a critical and commercial success, particularly in the UK, where it topped the UK Album Charts for two weeks and yielded two Top 10 hit singles and a third Top 20 hit. The album was seen as something of a triumphant comeback for both Shaun Ryder and Bez, who had suffered from a decline in popularity and interest in their former band, the Madchester and pre-Britpop indie dance/rock innovators, the Happy Mondays. It's Great... represented what some considered an evolution of the Happy Mondays sound on their 1990 album Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, with a stronger hip hop influence, down mostly to the rapping of Kermit, formerly of the band The Ruthless Rap Assassins. Radioactive Records released three singles from the album, all of which were commercial and critical successes in the UK. "Reverend Black Grape" was released first and reached number 9 in the UK Singles Chart and was followed by "In The Name of the Father", which eclipsed the first single, reaching number 8 in the same chart. A third single, "Kelly's Heroes" also charted within the Top 20 UK Singles Chart, at number 17.The line "It's frothy man" in "Yeah Yeah Brother" is partly a reference to advertising the 1970s soft drink Cresta. Throughout the album there are lyrical references to The Beatles. The line "We lead double lives. We deal in sex and beautiful women" is sampled from the Burke's Law episode "Who Killed Alex Debbs?" scripted by Harlan Ellison and spoken by John Ireland. The album was certified platinum by the BPI on 1 April 1996 and got nominated for the Mercury Prize, which lost to Pulp's Different Class.