Beautiful Future is the ninth studio album by Scottish rock band Primal Scream. It was released on 21 July 2008 by B-Unique Records. It peaked at number 9 on the UK Albums Chart.[1] It was promoted with the single "Can't Go Back", and was produced by Björn Yttling and Paul Epworth.

Beautiful Future
Studio album by
Released21 July 2008 (2008-07-21)
GenreAlternative rock
Length54:00
LabelB-Unique
Producer
Primal Scream chronology
Riot City Blues
(2006)
Beautiful Future
(2008)
More Light
(2013)
Singles from Beautiful Future
  1. "Can't Go Back"
    Released: 14 July 2008
  2. "Uptown"
    Released: 2008 (promo)

According to the press release, "the album displays a heady mix of genre crunching taking in Philly soul, dark electro, accelerated rock'n'roll riffs and pure British pop, all given that particular Scream edge."[2] The album features special guest appearances from Lovefoxxx (of Cansei de Ser Sexy), Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age) and folk legend Linda Thompson. With the extended edition of Beautiful Future, as well as the album featuring two extra songs ("Urban Guerrilla", "Time of Assassins"), the album also includes the video for the single, "Can't Go Back".

It is the first album not to feature the guitarist Robert "Throb" Young, who left after the release of their previous album Riot City Blues in 2006 due to his retirement for personal reasons, and it is also the last studio album to feature the bassist Mani, who departed after Screamadelica Live in 2011, and then re-formed his past band The Stone Roses in the same year.

Critical reception

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Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic64/100[3]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [4]
OMM     [5]
Pitchfork7.0/10[6]
NME8/10[7]
Digital Spy     [8]
Gigwise     [9]
The Guardian     [10]
The Independent     [11]
The Times     [12]
Virgin Media     [13]

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 64, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[3]

Track listing

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All tracks are written by Primal Scream, except "Over & Over" by Fleetwood Mac and "Urban Guerrilla" by Hawkwind

No.TitleLength
1."Beautiful Future"5:09
2."Can't Go Back"3:44
3."Uptown"4:50
4."The Glory of Love"3:11
5."Suicide Bomb"5:51
6."Zombie Man"3:37
7."Beautiful Summer"4:43
8."I Love to Hurt (You Love to Be Hurt)" (featuring Lovefoxxx)4:32
9."Over & Over" (featuring Linda Thompson)4:33
10."Necro Hex Blues" (featuring Josh Homme)3:34
11."The Glory of Love" (single version)3:13
Limited edition bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
12."Urban Guerrilla"3:25
13."Time of the Assassins"3:38

Personnel

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Credits adapted from liner notes.

Primal Scream

Additional musicians

Charts

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Chart Peak
position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[14] 62
French Albums (SNEP)[15] 153
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[16] 57
UK Albums (OCC)[1] 9

References

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  1. ^ a b "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  2. ^ "Primal Scream Beautiful Future UK CD ALBUM (438334)". eil.com. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2008.
  3. ^ a b "Beautiful Future by Primal Scream". Metacritic. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  4. ^ Allmusic review
  5. ^ OMM review
  6. ^ Pitchfork review
  7. ^ NME review
  8. ^ Digital Spy review
  9. ^ "Gigwise review". Archived from the original on 27 May 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2008.
  10. ^ The Guardian review
  11. ^ The Independent review
  12. ^ The Times review
  13. ^ Virgin Media review
  14. ^ "Austriancharts.at – Primal Scream – Beautiful Future" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  15. ^ "Lescharts.com – Primal Scream – Beautiful Future". Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  16. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – Primal Scream – Beautiful Future". Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
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