Skunk Anansie: All Albums Ranked
Forging their own path since the mid-90s, Skunk Anansie are truly unique. With Skin’s stunning vocals on top of the power of Mark, Cass and Ace’s grooves, Skunk Anansie have continued to evolve their sound up to 2025’s re-energised ‘The Painful Truth’. We have ranked every Skunk Anansie album in order of greatness, and compiled this playlist of fan favourites and obscurities. Have your say in the comments, and check out some of our other album rankings!
Aside from the standalone singles ‘Tear The Place Up’, ‘Squander’ and ‘Because of You’, which were released in 2009 alongside the career retrospective ‘Smashes and Trashes’, Skunk Anansie’s recording career had been dormant for over 10 years before they reconvened for their 4th album.
‘Wonderlustre’ plays an important role in the Skunk Anansie catalogue, given that it marked the reunion of Skin, Cass, Mark and Ace, more than a decade after ‘Post Orgasmic Chill’. This was a triumph in itself, given that most bands in their position would struggle to retain all of their core members. As for a record, ‘Wonderlustre’ is a solid, if unremarkable listen.
Where Skunk Anansie’s earlier power came from making bold, forceful statements about the world and humanity’s inherently racist, hypocritical, sexist and class-related prejudices (‘Selling Jesus’, ‘Little Baby Swastika’, ‘Yes It’s F*cking Political’ and many others), ‘Wonderlustre’s lyrical themes are much more personal, with Skin addressing ex-lovers (‘God Loves Only You’, ‘My Ugly Boy’, ‘You’re Too Expensive For Me’, ‘You Saved Me’, ‘I Will Stay But You Should Leave’, ‘You Can’t Always Do What You Like’). As an expression of painful feelings, it is powerful; but as a listening experience, it is harder to engage with. It was great to have the band back, and ‘Wonderlustre’ paved the way for the excellent ‘Black Traffic’, but in isolation it is the weakest Skunk Anansie record.
Standout Tracks: ‘God Loves Only You’, ‘Talk Too Much’
In many ways, ‘Anarchytecture’ is similar to Muse’s ‘Will of the People’, in that it sounds like a ‘Best of’ compilation, only made up of entirely new songs. As a melting pot of every element of what makes Skunk Anansie great, ‘Anarchytecture’ works well.
‘In The Back Room’ and ‘Bullets’ bring the Led Zeppelin riffs. ‘Death To The Lovers’ and ‘I’ll Let You Down’ showcase Skin’s gorgeous, soulful ballad vocals. ‘That Sinking Feeling’ and ‘Beauty Is Your Curse’ have a dancey, new-wave pace, and ‘Love Someone Else’ is a well-crafted opener.
The problem is that there is little here that really sticks out and leaves a long-term impression when compared to Skunk Anansie’s majestic back catalogue, making ‘Anarchytecture’ a record you are unlikely to revisit multiple times, even if it is a decent listen.
Standout Tracks: ‘Love Someone Else’, ‘I’ll Let You Down’, ‘Victim’
Throughout the numerous press interviews that each band member gave to promote ‘The Painful Truth’, there was a consistent story that kept being told. Skunk Anansie didn’t need to make a 7th record. They could have ended things after 2016’s ‘Anarchytecture’ and the 25-year anniversary celebrations in 2019. But, following Cass’ cancer recovery, and regrouping after Covid, all four members of the band realised just how much they love to create music together.
Rather than continue the somewhat formulaic musical direction of ‘Wonderlustre’, ‘Black Traffic’ and ‘Anarchytecture’, ‘The Painful Truth’ is Skunk Anansie reimagined. Where the heavier tracks such as ‘Animal’ would previously have been slathered in heavy riffs, instead the heaviness comes from thick, stabbing synths, wobbly bass and processed pop drums. Some elements of the record bring to mind Talking Heads, others AM-era Arctic Monkeys, others 80s nu-wave. As a record, it is cohesive, thought-provoking, mysterious and, at times, a lot of fun.
If you love Skunk Anansie for their 90s rock / metal sound, then ‘The Painful Truth’ could be, well, painful to listen to. But if you love them for their boldness and creativity, and particularly if you like Skin’s R&B-flavoured solo work, then this is great record to immerse yourself in.
Standout tracks: ‘My Greatest Moment’, ‘Fell In Love With a Girl’, ‘Shoulda Been You’
‘Wonderlustre’ was Skunk Anansie’s way of declaring “We’re Back!”, and 2 years later they produced the excellent ‘Black Traffic’, a harder, leaner record that had a unique personality all its own.
Launching straight into the propulsive ‘I Will Break You’, which brings to mind Halestorm, ‘Black Traffic’ is chock full of heavy riffs, crashing drums and big ideas. Speaking of big ideas, the superb ‘Our Summer Kills The Sun’ fits an album’s worth of them into 4 minutes, with masterful dynamics and a sublime, multi-layered vocal refrain in the chorus. There may not be an instantly recognisable single, but as a complete album ‘Black Traffic’ is a terrific statement that avoids some of the good-but-heard-it-better-elsewhere moments of ‘Anarchytectre’.
From the punky ‘Spit You Out’ to the provocative ‘Sticky Fingers In Your Honey’, ‘Black Traffic’ is an empowering listen.
Standout Tracks: ‘Spit You Out’, ‘I Will Break You’, ‘Our Summer Kills The Sun’
The positive reception to ‘Stoosh’, and Skunk Anansie’s incendiary live performances, meant that they were already pulling big crowds ahead of their third album.
‘Post Orgasmic Chill’, with its sublime singles ‘Lately’, ‘Secretly’, ‘Charlie Big Potato’ and ‘You’ll Follow Me Down’, cemented Skunk’s position as one of Britain’s very best bands, leading to them headlining Glastonbury Festival in 1999.
Expanding on the orchestrations that had peppered songs like ‘Brazen (Weep)’, ‘Post Orgasmic Chill’ is full of twists and turns and is full of genuinely beautiful moments (‘Tracy’s Flaw’, ‘Secretly’), with occasional bursts of heaviness (‘On My Hotel TV’, ‘The Skank Heads’) that provide variety, even if they aren’t as vital as ‘Yes It’s F*cking Political’, ‘All I Want’, ‘Intellectualise My Blackness’ or ‘All In The Name of Pity’. Occasionally it is a bit patchy, with some songs (especially ‘And This Is Nothing That I Thought I Had’, and ‘Good Things Don’t Always Come To You’) sounding more like b-sides. Speaking of b-sides, the 25th anniversary version of ‘Post Orgasmic Chill’ comes with 11 extra tracks that didn’t make the album, some of which are superb - especially ‘King Psychotic Size’, ‘The Decadence of Your Salvation’, ‘Make It All Change’ and the punky ‘Painkillers’.
‘Charlie Big Potato’ has a claim to be the best Skunk Anansie song ever, given how it encapsulates every aspect of their sound (massive riffs, incredible vocals, dub and electronic elements, powerful drums, inventive bass, orchestral flourishes, and a genuine sense of danger) in 5 minutes 30 seconds, and how bold a choice it was for lead single.
Standout Tracks: ‘Charlie Big Potato’, ‘Cheap Honesty’, ‘Secretly’,
What a debut! While the British music scene was growing in global prominence, everything about Skunk Anansie screamed rebellion. A multi-racial band, fronted by with a bald, black, bi-sexual woman with cultural roots in both Brixton and Jamaica, playing heavy rock that was influenced just as much by soul, motown and 80s punk as it was Rage Against The Machine. They were bold, powerful, aggressive and beautiful, and they had huge tunes to back it all up.
‘Weak’ and ‘Charity’ were the biggest hits, with enough radio friendliness to be liked universally. The other singles, ‘Selling Jesus’ and ‘I Can Dream’, were heavier, with some incredbly bold lyrics (‘You kill me with your smelly fingers / Your smelly fingers from the sex you had on Christmas Day / And now you say you're feeling guilty / You're feeling guilty 'cause your god was shining on your face / You go to church and light a candle / And then you're blinded by the light from the golden pews / The devil's snapping at your toes now / Because the angels can't be bothered to give to you’).
Speaking of boldness, album tracks ‘Little Baby Swastika’, ‘100 Ways To Be A Good Girl’ and ‘Intellectualise My Blackness’ pull no punches, covering topics such as racism, prejudice, sexism, political corruption, bullying, cultural expectation, and the different aspects of love.
The only criticism of ‘Paranoid & Sunburnt’ is that it doesn’t have as much variety as ‘Stoosh’ - but it could easily have been top of this list.
Standout Tracks: ‘Selling Jesus’, ‘I Can Dream’. ‘Little Baby Swastika’
1996 was an exciting time in British rock music. While the more middle-of-the-road sounds of Britpop / Britrock were ruling the airwaves (where do we start? The Bluetones, The Charlatans, Sleeper, Space, Oasis, The Verve, Blur, The Lightning Seeds, and literally hundreds more), there was an undercurrent of bands that rode the same wave but who had an edginess, rebelliousness and attitude that made them truly unique. Skunk Anansie were one of the best examples of this, The Prodigy another.
Thanks to ‘Weak’ and ‘Charity’, the debut ‘Paranoid & Sunburnt’ had put Skunk Anansie firmly on the map, but ‘Stoosh’ pushed further in every direction. More dynamic, musically rich, varied and gutsy than its predecessor, ‘Stoosh’ pulled no punches, from the lairy yell of ‘Yes It’s F*cking Political’, to the delicate ballads of ‘Infidelity (Only You)’ , ‘Picking on Me’ and ‘Brazen (Weep)’, to the punky ‘Twisted (Everyday Hurts)’, to the dub interludes that were heavily rooted in Brixton underground culture, to the triumphant, motown-esque ‘Glorious Pop Song’. And, in ‘Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)’, Skunk Anansie had a hit that was even more universal than their early singles.
‘Stoosh’ is a confident, unique record and an absolute treasure. It may not be as heavy and Rage Against The Machine-inspired as the debut, but it was the album where Skunk Anansie truly defined their sound. The b-sides from this era were fantastic too, including ‘Black Skinhead Coconut Dogfight’, ‘Punk By Numbers’ and ‘But The Sex Was Good’ - definitely worth checking out, and we have included them in our Spotify playlist.
Standout tracks: ‘Yes It’s F*cking Political’, ‘Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)’, ‘All I Want’
