Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Entertainment Weekly	C+
Los Angeles Times
NME	9/10
Q
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Select	5/5
Sounds
Uncut

Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches is the third studio album by English alternative rock band Happy Mondays. It was produced by Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne at Eden Studios in London and was released in 1990 by Factory Records.

The original album cover for Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, designed by Central Station Design, consisted of a montage of popular children's sweet wrappers. The cover was changed for subsequent issues of the album following objections from the U.S. manufacturers, resulting in the new, somewhat plainer album cover.

In November 2007, the album was re-released by Rhino Records with extra tracks and a DVD of music videos.

Stuart Maconie of NME hailed Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches as "a tremendous record, and a gauntlet chucked at the feet of all the other would-be legends in town." In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau cited "Grandbag's Funeral" and "Kinky Afro" as highlights and was more impressed by the band's rock music on the album: "their Voidoids is hotter than their 'dance music'". He later gave it a two-star honorable mention, indicating a "likable effort that consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy." In a less enthusiastic review, Bob Mack of Entertainment Weekly said that apart from "Step On" and "Donovan", the album shows that the band is less interesting than their Madchester contemporaries and do not warrant comparisons to The Rolling Stones.Simon Reynolds, writing in The New York Times, called it a "perplexing mishmash" that can alienate listeners outside of Manchester's rave scene.

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