The album is considered a landmark recording: its combination of guitar feedback and noise with traditional pop melody and structure proved influential on the forthcoming shoegaze genre and alternative rock in general.

Taking inspiration from German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, girl group the Shangri-Las and The Velvet Underground & Nico, they bought a Portastudio in 1983 when their father lost his job in a local factory and gave the brothers £300 from his redundancy money.

Released by Creation Records in November 1984 and featuring a B-side produced by Slaughter Joe, "Upside Down" sold out its initial pressing and ended the year by being placed at number 37 in John Peel's Festive Fifty.

[7] After recruiting Gillespie as their drummer in late 1984, the Jesus and Mary Chain signed to the WEA subsidiary label Blanco y Negro, which had been established by Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis.

The single was released by Blanco y Negro in February 1985, and in March that year they began recording their debut album with engineer John Loder at Southern Studios in Wood Green, North London.

"[9] Critics have noted the influence of classic '60s pop groups[10][7][11] such as the Beach Boys[12][10][13] and the Rolling Stones[13] alongside the work of rock bands the Velvet Underground,[12][10][7] the Stooges[10][11] and Suicide[11] on the album.

In 2011, it was re-released (along with the other five studio albums) by Edsel in collaboration with Rhino as a two-CD set with extra tracks (singles, B-sides, demos and John Peel Sessions) and a DVD (NTSC, all-region).

Writing for NME, Andy Gill described the album as "a great searing citadel of beauty whose wall of noise, once scaled, offers access to endless vistas of melody and emotion",[22] while William Shaw of Smash Hits called it "a wonderful LP which should bring the Scottish brats the success they've missed out on so far".