Album: Stone Roses
Artist: Stone Roses
Artist: Stone Roses
Born: Altrincham, Greater Manchester
Released: April 1989
Genre: Madchester
Influenced: Oasis, The Charlatans, The Beta Band, Suede, The Verve
For me, there's probably no better fusion of rock and dance music in pop history. This is the one. That said, I do think the standing the Stone Roses now enjoy in the musical pantheon is a little out of keeping with their output. Not only did they produce just one great album but, for me, only one half of this album is truly great. Ian Brown was also responsible for one of the worst archetypes of British rock music, the laddish frontman, inspiring generations of boorish idiots from Oasis' Liam Gallagher to Kasabian's Tom Meighan. Those two gripes aside, I still rate this album very highly. What makes it so unique is John Squire's guitar textures and the Mani-Reni rhythm section, creating an entirely new brand of psychedelia that draws on the Sixties west coast sound of Love and The Byrds as much as dub and 80s gothic rock. Producer Jim Leckie, who worked on two of my favourite Pink Floyd records, Meddle and Wish You Were Here, creates a similarly spacious atmosphere on this LP. One good example is the opening 40 seconds of atmospheric feedback on I Wanna Be Adored, a windswept backdrop from which Mani's insistent bassline emerges as the backbone of an intensifying mix of jangly guitars, echo-heavy drums and Madchester vocals.
1989 was a pretty exciting year for me as a kid, with the launch of the Nintendo Game Boy and Ghostbusters II on at the cinema, but one thing I missed was the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses on Top Of The Pops on the same night. The single they played, Fools Gold, was a Top 10 UK hit and an extended version of the song would appear on re-releases of the album. By the end of 1989, the Stone Roses were selling out gigs and suddenly indie kids sad at the demise of the Smiths had something to be cheerful about. She Bangs The Drums is part of the opening trio of near perfect songs and was also released as a single in summer 1989, giving the band its first Top 40 hit. Waterfall is one of my favourite tracks on the album, and I love the ragged mysticism of the lyrics, as though Brown is singing a modern reworking of an old English sea shanty ("the wind it just whips her and wails / and fills up her rickety sails"). Don't Stop is a clever, but not original, idea and I'm not convinced it works, while Bye Bye Badman is the most lyrically interesting song on the album, the "citrus sucking sunshine" a reference to the Paris student rioters of 1968 who sucked lemons to lessen the effects of tear gas. The band channel this republican spirit further with Elizabeth My Dear. (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister is a little tepid after the fireworks of side 1, while Shoot You Down never really gets going. The highlights on side 2 are Made of Stone, This Is The One and I Am The Resurrection; in fact the latter two interlace perfectly with the trippy closing passage of This Is The One suddenly cut short by the military drumming of I Am The Resurrection's intro, as it surges and falls for 8 ecstatic minutes. The Stone Roses didn't turn out to be saviours, but for a while in 1989 it appeared that they might be.
For me, there's probably no better fusion of rock and dance music in pop history. This is the one. That said, I do think the standing the Stone Roses now enjoy in the musical pantheon is a little out of keeping with their output. Not only did they produce just one great album but, for me, only one half of this album is truly great. Ian Brown was also responsible for one of the worst archetypes of British rock music, the laddish frontman, inspiring generations of boorish idiots from Oasis' Liam Gallagher to Kasabian's Tom Meighan. Those two gripes aside, I still rate this album very highly. What makes it so unique is John Squire's guitar textures and the Mani-Reni rhythm section, creating an entirely new brand of psychedelia that draws on the Sixties west coast sound of Love and The Byrds as much as dub and 80s gothic rock. Producer Jim Leckie, who worked on two of my favourite Pink Floyd records, Meddle and Wish You Were Here, creates a similarly spacious atmosphere on this LP. One good example is the opening 40 seconds of atmospheric feedback on I Wanna Be Adored, a windswept backdrop from which Mani's insistent bassline emerges as the backbone of an intensifying mix of jangly guitars, echo-heavy drums and Madchester vocals.
1989 was a pretty exciting year for me as a kid, with the launch of the Nintendo Game Boy and Ghostbusters II on at the cinema, but one thing I missed was the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses on Top Of The Pops on the same night. The single they played, Fools Gold, was a Top 10 UK hit and an extended version of the song would appear on re-releases of the album. By the end of 1989, the Stone Roses were selling out gigs and suddenly indie kids sad at the demise of the Smiths had something to be cheerful about. She Bangs The Drums is part of the opening trio of near perfect songs and was also released as a single in summer 1989, giving the band its first Top 40 hit. Waterfall is one of my favourite tracks on the album, and I love the ragged mysticism of the lyrics, as though Brown is singing a modern reworking of an old English sea shanty ("the wind it just whips her and wails / and fills up her rickety sails"). Don't Stop is a clever, but not original, idea and I'm not convinced it works, while Bye Bye Badman is the most lyrically interesting song on the album, the "citrus sucking sunshine" a reference to the Paris student rioters of 1968 who sucked lemons to lessen the effects of tear gas. The band channel this republican spirit further with Elizabeth My Dear. (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister is a little tepid after the fireworks of side 1, while Shoot You Down never really gets going. The highlights on side 2 are Made of Stone, This Is The One and I Am The Resurrection; in fact the latter two interlace perfectly with the trippy closing passage of This Is The One suddenly cut short by the military drumming of I Am The Resurrection's intro, as it surges and falls for 8 ecstatic minutes. The Stone Roses didn't turn out to be saviours, but for a while in 1989 it appeared that they might be.
Comments