The Jesus & Mary Chain’s ‘Upside Down’ Celebrates 40 Years With New Vinyl Reissue
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Jesus And Mary Chain’s debut single Upside Down is being reissued on 6 December on 7” vinyl which – as per the original pressing of the release – comes with a colour variation of the original artwork design.
But the 40th anniversary 7″ edition of ‘Upside down’ here.
Originally released in November 1984, Upside Down put the band on the map selling 50,000 copies and subsequently became one of the first major successes for the now iconic British independent label Creation.
The B-side is a cover of the Syd Barrett-written Vegetable Man, a track not officially released on a Pink Floyd album until 2016’s The Early Years 1965–1972 box set, but a legendary track that caught the imagination of the band in the early-mid 80’s and their cover is an unmistakable and celebrated version.
The single topped the UK Indie Chart twice, once in February 1985 and then again in the March. It stayed in the Indie charts for a huge 76 weeks making it one of the biggest selling indie singles of the 1980s.
Hailing from East Kilbride in Scotland, The Jesus And Mary Chain revolves around brothers Jim and William Reid, the bands founders and only consistent members. The band are recognised as being key to the development of the shoegaze scene and have remained uncompromising in their sound releasing eight albums, most recently Glasgow Eyes released earlier this year.
Also during 2024, The Jesus And Mary Chain published their new memoir Never Understood: The Story Of The Jesus And Mary Chain.
The book is written by the band’s founding members, William and Jim Reid with Ben Thompson, and was published by White Rabbit on 15 August. It sees William and Jim Reid tell the full story of one of Britain’s greatest guitar bands for the very first time – a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.
Buy the 40th anniversary 7″ edition of ‘Upside Down’ here.