The period was noted for heavy drug use by the band and Hannett, with their manager later calling it the first "ecstasy-fuelled" album, (although "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret" by Soft Cell was really the first).Hannett moved recording to Strawberry Studios, where extra instrumentation was added.

Happy Mondays toured the United Kingdom supporting James in late 1988, which coincided with the release of the lead single from Bummed, "Wrote for Luck", on 31 October 1988.

Happy Mondays released their debut studio album, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), in April 1987 through Factory Records.

[3] In the first half of 1987 (between recording and the release of their debut), Factory A&R member and DJ Mike Pickering was introducing house music at the label's Haçienda club.

[6] In October 1987, the band embarked on their first headlining tour of the United Kingdom, which saw the debut of new songs "Fat Lady Wrestlers" and "Moving in With".

[14] Factory became aware that the band were known around London as being a difficult act to record with, not helped by the poor reception to the production of their debut album.

[16] Factory director Alan Erasmus suggested Martin Hannett; he worked with the label in their early years and split following the construction of the Haçienda, which he was opposed to.

[15][16] McGough liked the idea of having Hannett, as did Ryder, who learned of him through New Order frontman Bernard Sumner and his work on Unknown Pleasures (1979) by Joy Division.

The band started selling the servicemen ecstasy; rave culture subsequently broke out at the pub, which caught the attention of the local press.

[23] Describing the drug's impact on the recording, McGough recalled that the members of the band were consuming it daily and added they brought 200 pills of it with them, "but they ran out after ten days so I had to go back to Manchester and collect another hundred.

[24] Due to his previous experience as a bass player, Hannett spent time alone with Paul Ryder working on a specific sound.

[31] As the band returned to Manchester, Hannett continued experimenting with the master tapes at Strawberry Studios with engineer Laurence Diana.

[36] Author Dave Thompson, in his book Alternative Rock (2000), said it sounded like the "missing link between post-punk and the burgeoning baggy scene"; he compared Ryder's vocals to that of Fall frontman Mark E. Smith, recommended that Day should audition for Siouxsie and the Banshees, and suggested Bez and Wheelan "send their résumés to Adam Ant".

Keyboardist Paul Davis tried to play the synth part from "Two Tribes" (1984) by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, while Whelan had a go at emulating "Running Up That Hill" again.

[38] The album's closing track, "Lazy Itis", has Can-esque drumming patterns and borrows a lyric from "Ticket to Ride" (1965) by the Beatles, resulting in a writing credit between Happy Mondays and Lennon–McCartney.

[54] The cover art shows an image of Ryder's face painted over in garish colours, which Central Station Design did as part of a series of celebrity shots done in the same way.

[40] Iain Ellis of PopMatters said Ryder's "cropped face [is] a disturbing caricature of drug-afflicted vacancy", which has "become an emblem of the times, the carnival decadence of an era encapsulated in pictorial form.

"[55] Matthew Robertson, in his book Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album (2006), added to this, saying that the "viewer cannot help but be caught by the haunting, mesmerizing, enormity" of the artwork.

[40] In addition, it received a negative reaction from journalists, such as Penny Anderson of City Life and Mandi James of NME, the latter of whom called the band "sexist wankers" for the decision.

[64] Robertson wrote that the sleeve's "hand-drawn lettering was an intentional move away from designers relying on type specimen books", as with previous Factory Records releases.

[71] Robertson said the artwork was a "bright arrangement [of colours] that is also bloated and sluggish and is delivered in a hallucinogenic daze", while its title is "incorporated into a three-dimensional typographic sculpture through which runs a river of ink".

[80] Bummed was reissued in 2007 as part of a two-CD set through Rhino Records, which included B-sides, the Madchester Rave On (1989) EP, and a variety of remixes.

[85] "Mad Cyril", "Lazy Itis", and a remix of "Wrote for Luck" were included on their second and fourth compilation albums, Loads (1995) and The Platinum Collection (2005).

[96] Happy Mondays appeared on the final episode of The Other Side of Midnight, where they performed "Mad Cyril" (changing the lyrics to reference Wilson) and "Wrote for Luck".

NME writer James Brown lauded the album's "shocking originality" and found that its sound would "fit startlingly amidst the rapid mutation of the current underground dance boom.

"[101] Tony Beard of Record Mirror noted the band's musical development, writing that "the sound they slip into is a world away from the cack-handed northern funk they used to bash out.

"[102] Chicago Tribune journalist Greg Kot complimented Hannett's production, calling it "one excellent reason" for listeners to buy the album.

[98] Reviewing Bummed in retrospect for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised Hannett's production as "all smeared colors and harsh edges," and wrote that "decadence has rarely sounded as dangerous as it did in the hands of the Mondays and this is where they reveled in that debauchery, pumping out stiff psychedelic funk as Ryder spat out rhymes of luck, lazyitis and fat lady wrestlers.

[27] Priya Elan of NME felt the album "actually dated best" out of all of the band's releases, despite Hannett's "raw production show[ing] the Madchester sound in its infancy".

[113] In a piece for NME, journalist Mark Beaumont viewed the album as one of ten important releases that defined Factory Records' output.