6. Shoot You Down

Barbados was supposed to save them. In early 1992, The Happy Mondays are flown to the Caribbean to record their next album. Fresh from the success of Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches, this should be consolidation. Instead, Shaun Ryder drops his methadone at Manchester airport, the studio fills with smoke rather than songs and the budget disappears pound by pound. A sun lounger is sold for drugs. Back home, the gold rush continues. James score a number two single with Sit Down and a wave of new bands flood the charts. A&Rs circle the city nightly, desperate for the next Madchester success.

But at The Hacienda, the mood has changed. Security tightens as gangs move in. Tony Wilson announces the club’s temporary closure. When it reopens, it does so under suspicion and noise complaints from new city centre flats rising around it. Meanwhile, the Stone Roses vanish into courtrooms and contracts. By 1992, Factory Records is running on fumes. The Hacienda is bleeding money. And in a final, almost absurd twist, Shaun Ryder sells the master tapes of Yes Please! for £50, a moment that tips the label into bankruptcy.

Episode 6 of The Rise and Fall of Madchester is the story of the comedown and how the movement that once felt unstoppable begins to fracture under its own weight.

A BBC Audio Production.