Entertainment For Lively Minds
Stone Roses - not actually that good, really...
The 20th anniversary industry has hit 1989 and we're now on the bells-and-whistles "commemorative" edition of the Stone Roses first LP. But I want to throw out a bone here - they were ok, but they really weren't THAT good.
Maybe it was the context - the late 80s doesn't exactly shine as a golden era (even at the time, I thought we were going through a dull patch) so anyone who represented any sort of advance on dreary post-Smiths indie seemed revolutionary. Maybe it was just the quality of the drugs, I don't know. It just seems to me that the Roses LP is being heralded as something it really isn't - a Sgt Pepper or a Ziggy Stardust - when it's actually just an ok record which was of its moment, and which owes a lot more to the producer than the band would like to admit (and this impression was certainly reinforced by what David Hepworth said about it on a recent podcast).
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Tend to disagree
They seem to get a bit of a kicking on the Word site, but I do think that it is a great album - why does everything have to be rated against The Beatles?
Great tracks, great sequencing on the debut album (everything fits together perfectly in the right order), great image - it definately sums up a time and I think you can call it a classic without going over the top.
The Second Coming is definately very average (after years of trying to convince myself otherwise).
I disagree..
..I think it's a flawless record. Fair point about the Producer - but surely it's a Producer's job to get the best out of a band, and Leckie confirmed that Squire, Mani and Reni were amongst the best musicians he'd ever worked with when he was interviewed by Stuart Maconie last week.
It doesn't really
matter if the first album was mainly the work of the band or the producer - all that matters is that it's a great album which deserves all the plaudits it has had.
I agree with you Kit...
it's a good record, but one of the best ever? I think not. It's 'mythic' status absolutely baffles me.
Oh and by the way, both 'Sgt. Pepper' and 'Ziggy Stardust' are overrated as well. The Beatles and David Bowie made several records far better than those.
Hallelujah!
Never could stand that bunch of chancers. Their continuing lionisation gives me the pip.
Ok - let's have some perspective here...
I like The Stone Roses first album. I think it has some good songs on it (& some not so good - 'Elizabeth My Dear') and some songs that are not as great as others think they are ('I Am The Resurrection')... lovely after a few ales on the dance floor, but sadly in the cold light of day & a clear head not the best you have ever heard...ever, ever, ever! Sadly the album also does not contain the classic 'Fool's Gold' - which I do rather like.
So, is it a good album... yes it is. Do I enjoy listening to it, yes I do. Does it warrant mythic status as one of the best albums of the '80s... no it does not. Were the Stone Roses a good band... well, yes in the late '80s they were fairly good. Do they deserve the fawning they get today... no.
Slight addendum to my original comment
No album warrants a £100 box set, free lemon-shaped USB, etc.
A Kind of Blue
a TRULY legendary album was put into a box set for about £50. In the words of Vim Fuego..
"I think that says a lot".
Late '80s
Quite a lot going on surely. Hip hop at it's height - Public Enemy, Eric B and Rakim and the like. New US bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Nirvana. New Order - Technique. My Bloody Valentine, The Cure at their best - Disintegration. Plus acid house, Manchester scene, and of course The Stone Roses debut. Of course for some that is a list that does not set the pulse racing. Not for me though. I think that album is great, full of top, singalong tunes and carried off with a slinky groove absent from the dull indie rock of recent years that heralds it as an inspiration, and have given it a bit of a bad name perhaps. Trouble is when people start talking about the greatest albums of all time in those top twenty lists and include this and things like OK Computer, listeners come to these records bound not to have their expectations met. The again of course we all like different things.
*edit* I forgot to mention REM - Document and Green and Neil Young - Freedom.
A bit of perspective is
A bit of perspective is required with this record, it is good but not great. Glad you mentioned REM, as I think they did at least 5 albumns in the 80's which are better than the Stone Roses debut. I think REM's murmer has a much greater claim to 'best debut ever'.
I agree
with the point that there are other albums as good that don't get the same level of attention, hence the reference to inadaqucy of best of all time charts. But I think, as one who was not bothered about the era defining aspect of this album at the time (or now), having not been particularly interested when it first came out, that it still stands up purely on musical grounds, for me at least.
I think the "Legendary" status
is all to do with the NME blowing it's own trumpet, as it was the last time it was even remotely surfing the Zeitgeist.
Personally? Loathed all aspects of the "Baggy" phenomenon. Especially the trousers. Always the trousers.
It is a great debut album
There are also many others.
Enjoy it for what it is i.e. 1990s indie pathfinding,
Compared to what?
Compared to what is The Stone Roses “not actually that good”?
Over the years I’ve generally not been that interested in the NME/British “indie rock” bigwigs of the day. Crappy student music with no groove. Loved the Roses though. And I think the first album still sounds really good.
The second one should be on the syllabus in schools to terrify “the kids” about the perils of cocaine.
The Roses looked great too. And since when has pop music just been about music?
The Stone Roses per se
I agree with Kit. My copy of the 1st album disappeared years ago so recently I bought The Very Best Of The Stone Roses and I find every time one of their songs pops up I'm thinking "This isn't very good".
its ok but its not a classic
I agree with the others. Its an okay, interesting record, which at the time signalled a relatively new approach in fusing guitar rock and dance rhythms, overlaid with a low key vocal style. I think it deserves its place but much of what came before (The Smiths) and after (Oasis/Blur) was much more accomplished both musically and lyrically.
Some excellent Grumpy Old Menitude going on
"Bah! didn't like their trousers." "It's no Ziggy Stardust." Etc.
For a lot of people on average 15 years younger than you/us lot, it is their Ziggy Stardust. Shame more of them aren't here.
I was just
thinking the same thing. It would be interesting to know the ages of those posting. I would bet that most of those who love it (like me) were 15-25 when it came out.
gawd i'm sorry..
for whatever reason, the Roses thing passed me by in 1989, when I was 15. I picked it up ten years later - the 10th anniversary re-issue. It's okay. I put it on in the car this weekend and as I drove down the motorway, some of the songs 'worked'. The 'adored' one is good, I love She Bangs the Drum and could happily listen to Made of Stone till the cows come home. The one that's backwards gets right on me tits and some of the other songs seem a bit filler.
It's not a bad album. I took ten years to listen to it, so I can only comment on the merits of it as I heard it - when i was 25; I don't think the 15 year old me would have thought much more of it. I knew what appealed to me back then, and I'm not sure that this would have been it.
Age: 32
Being only 12 when it came out, I discovered it for myself some time in the mid-late 90s. Being familiar only with Fools Gold (and loving that) prior to this album, and being told of it's (the album's) reputation as a "legendary" fusing of indie and dance, I must say I was massively underwhelmed on first hearing, and remain so to this day.
To these ears it has always sounded like above-average indie, but really nothing special. Shuffly, jangly, mumbly, and rather lightweight.
As for the whole indie-dance crossover thing - sorry, but wtf? I just don't hear that at all, unless you count the meandering funk "jam" that rounds out the album, and that's nothing special. How anyone could consider the lumpen plod that makes up the first half of "...Resurrection" funky I'll never know.
Now Happy Mondays, that's more like it. Screamadelica too. And, credit where it's due, Fools Gold is absolutely spot on. Proper innovation, attitude and grooves, but "The Stone Roses" really can't elicit more from me than a distracted "...meh".
Age - 42.
22 when it came out so that puts me squarely in the baggy demographic. And I agree with everything Cadabra just said up to the word "Screamadelica".
age 43
and for a while the best, most exciting LP ever made and Fools Gold (nov 89) was the most exciting single (until er, Loaded/Screamadelica/Step On etc that is!).
*Every* room, bedsit, house, club, shop had that album playing by end of 1989 and thru 1990. (girls and boys).
Andrew Collins article in word last month admirably captures that moment very well. And what a moment.
agree with Kit agreeing with Cadabra
agreeing too with those who say Mondays the better band.
I really like the sound of the record in the literal sense.
There is a sense of dynamic and space - instead of that uniform programmed denseness you get on a lot of records these days
this grumpy old man was
24 years old. i'm just saying its ok, but not a classic.
Very few records are perfect
Very few records are perfect but The Stone Roses is a damn good album.
Redge, I think you'll find, rightly or wrongly, Fools Gold is tucked on at the end of the remastered version now.
Its a Great Album
but not the stone cold classic its feted as. Its certainly stood the test of time and still sounds pretty fresh. However, much of the more excessive praise is praise for the times rather than the music.
I was 20 when that album came out and that summer, soundtracked by the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays with plenty of US Hip Hop and an interest in 60's psychedlia remains the best of times in my life. The actual content of the Roses record seems almost irrelevant. Every song on it feels like a classic to my ears cos it felt so important at the time. I went from miserablist Smiths fan to happy "Cool as Fuck" T-Shirt wearer in the course of a few months and my life improved commesurately. Suddenly I liked Black music! I got into Sly and the Family Stone and Stevie Wonder. Then Public Enemy and De La Soul. And it was mostly down to abandoning the , in retrospect, vaguely predjudiced Morrisey and embracing EVERYTHING which the Roses represented.
Whether its still any good is,for me, the mootest of moot points.
Born '71
So I was 17/18 in 1989 and I loved it. It's no Exile/Born To Run/Unforgettable Fire but it's pretty bloody good and I was there (London for a summer working and then starting College, Stone Roses provided the soundtrack).
Bummed!
Happy Mondays "Bummed", produced by Martin Hannett is the better of those Madchester records but somewhat overlooked. A truly ferocious, wonderful and frightening record, and it has plenty of that 'groove' that a few of you have mentioned. As an album it is a far better piece of work than The Stone Roses although it lacks big hits. Their John Cale produced debut still sounds pretty unique too.
I doubt there will ever be a £100 box set of this one, and walking past HMV in Madchester today I thought the Roses museum piece looked a bit naff sitting in the window display...robbed of all its original spirit drowning in booklets, fancy packaging, extra tracks and all that flotsam. So can I suggest that if anyone has £100 burning a hole in their pockets they buy a copy of Bummed (£5 in Fopp last time I looked!), and head off to the nearest Independent record shop and buy 8 or 9 other albums instead?!
Teenager
I was just at the end of my teens when The Roses and Mondays came along and, while I was more of a fan of the Mondays, both bands were incredibly exciting, seeing as the mainstream had been boring for a few years. The night both bands were on Top Of The Pops was perfect, one of those moments that comes along rarely.
I think some people's negative views of it come from the fact that they cocked it up with the second album and things like Ian Brown's pretty dire performances after John Squire left. But for a year or so they were perfect.
Better than the Beatles
I don't want to declare whether or not its a great album but I do know that I would much rather listen to The Stone Roses than to Sgt Pepper which to my brain is a few good songs joined together with some hippy tosh.
I remember 87
and Radio 1 bleating on about Sgt Pepper being 20 years old for one day that summer. I was disgusted by the old f*ckers on the radio at that time.
22 years later and I'm not celebrating a record company endlessly pushing a record that was groundbreaking for me back in 89.
WHAT???
Your'e being "ironic"? Right? (John W )
It's not as good
as Revolver or Abbey Road but he may have a point about Pepper's.
No
I'm not being ironic. I've never really been a fan of the Beatles. I don't really care how much influence that have had, all I judge them on is the records themselves and while there are undoubtedly many fine pop songs in there. There is also a mass of cheesy songs and some stuff that I simply don't like. I also find that with some albums and artists, although I like a lot of their stuff, I don't want to hear more than about three of their songs in a row. The Beatles are an example of this - more recent examples include Arcade Fire - which makes enjoying a whole album a big problem. I was quite careful (except in the header which was supposed to be satirical rather than ironic) to avoid saying which was best, simply which one I preferred.
Revolver and "The White Album"
Are better than Sgt Pepper.
Opinions are like
kidneys. Everybodys got them.
I think it is a truly excellent album. Probably the music I have listened to most.
I also like Second Coming. I think Ten Storey Love Song is just about perfect, and I am not a huge fan of Fools Gold.
Not this again
We've been through this!
My two pennies: it's superb and the 2nd one is as good in a different way
for those
of a certain age group this is a far more worthwhile release than the upcoming Beatles/EMI cash raising collection. For those of another age group it's not. I'm in the former camp.
The Madchester Myth
The Roses started a certain type of rock-star behaviour which continues to this day. Which is that every group from the outer suburbs at the leafy Cheshire end suddenly starts to speak a lot more nasally and walk with a slouch. Squire and Brown were Grammar school boys from a suburb usually associated with a man playing a ukelele and wearing an oversize papier-maché head. Doves, who are from Wilmslow, sing about Winter Hill near Bolton which they have probably only passed on the M61. What's wrong with Alderley Edge, lads? And The Charlatans are from Northwich, which is about 30 miles away-almost the same distance as Liverpool. I don't know whether it was a metropolitan media thing, but Supertramp didn't mind being described as from Stockport. You're not fucking Mancs, you're from the wrong side of the Mersey and don't think you can change that by moving to Didsbury. And the Mondays are from the other side of the Irwell. I think Oasis, The Smiths, and the Durutti Column just about fit the bill, but it's as transparent to me as someone from Purley coming over all "Cor blimey, guvnor" and singing "Wotcher dahn the Old Kent Road"
Mad myth
Surely image is, and always has been, part of 'rock star behaviour' so what's wrong with and band adopting an image - they're entertainers for goodness sake.
Actually
the Charlatans are as much if not more Willenhall/Walsall than Northwich. But nobody really likes to mention that. Seeing them & St Etienne this Saturday. Get in!
45
So I was 25 when it came out. I wouldn't say its the best album of all time but it's my favourite album of all time. This is because, for me, it is redolent of a time when I was young, free and single; went to lots of gigs and fesivals and generally immersed myself in the cultural milieu of the time (as many who contribute to this site will also have done at different times). So for me The Stone Roses is the epitome of that time and nothing else can change that. Sure there are many albums that are 'better' (I had a wonderful morning listening to Revolver last Saturday) but that does not take away the fact that they seemed to capture the zeitgeist like no one else (no not even the Happy Mondays). So you can quibble all you like about the musicianship etc... every single track on that album holds fantastic memories for me; and at my wedding a couple of years ago nothing filled the floor like I Am The Resurrection (insert comment here).
I think you're on to something there
This was obviously many people's Favourite Album, for the reasons you describe above, but simply because it was such a significant event in a lot of people lives, doesn't magically make it the best music of it's or any other generation.
I think everyone's got an album that defines that perfect moment in life for them - for someone on their early 20s now it might very well be The Libertines' Up The Bracket. For me it's Suede's Coming Up, which appeared just as I started my first year at uni, and was the perfect soundtrack for the beginning of the student life, with all it's trashy, bouncy, slightly grubby and generally ridiculous thrills. Any time I listen to that music it still quickens that pace of my heart, and I do think it's a largely great collection of indie-pop tunes, but I'm not going to try to claim it's one of the best albums ever made.
Some albums...
...are lauded to the point that they'll always be a bit of a disappointment. The first time I heard The Stone Roses LP(1995-ish), I thought it was a bit over-rated, simply because I'd been led to believe it was staggeringly amazing. I still enjoyed it though, and about half the songs on it have stayed with me over the years. It's similar with Revolver/Sgt. Pepper; I enjoyed them, but they'd been built up so much that they could never be as good as the misty tales told in their honour.
I think a lot of the fondness for the first Roses' LP is that it means a great deal to a certain generation, as people always want to have something contemporary to cling to. To my ears, cloth though they may well be, The Libertines were utterly dreadful, 3rd-rate Clash rip-offs. However, some younger people I know genuinely believe that they were fantastic.
all true that about faux-mancs
ditto oasis. burnage is about as tough as surbiton.
i still like the record a lot once you get past 20 years of hype. but really 'silvertone' records deserve some kind of award for the number of re-issues of roses material considering they had 1 album and a few singles on the label.
i mean.. what's the name for the bit UNDER a barrel when you've scraped through it?
_
THE STONE ROSES 1989 UK release
THE STONE ROSES 1991 UK re-release (With 2 extra tracks)
THE STONE ROSES 1991 Maxi-Singles Collection Box
TURNS INTO STONE 1992 (Singles and B sides compilation)
THE COMPLETE STONE ROSES (Singles, B sides and album tracks compilation)
THE STONE ROSES 1999 UK re-release (Disc two also includes an enhanced portion with music videos, a discography, lyrics and a photo gallery.)
THE STONE ROSES 2009 UK re-release (Also available as a 4 disc set with 48 page book and 'lemon' USB stick )
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i like how in 1999 the height of new-fangled technology was a photo gallery and an 'enhanced portion' and 10 years on its a lemon usb in a box. anyone want to hazard a guess what's in store for the 30 year edition.
Agreed...
Silvertone are a bunch of bastards. For the 30 year box I'd go for an exclusive pair of severed air hostess' hands?
As for Burnage, depends whether you are West or East side of Kingsway...not much fun at the Levenshulme end...
It's Quality Not Age
Pleasant enough but vastly overrated. Too obviously derivative of 60's Byrds/Hendrix etc. Best debut in the history of the cosmos ? Gimme a break. Better debut albums ? Are You experinced for starters.
The wedding test
Now I know wedding music isn't always a sign of quality, but you can tell the difference when a true classic gets played. Go to any wedding of someone my age-ish (36) and see what happens when the DJ sticks on I Am The Resurrection, Waterfall, I Wanna Be Adored. Everyone between about 30-45 hits the floor and dances that strange monkey dance like the intervening 20 years never happened.
To me only a classic album could have that effect.
That said, I'm well aware that a few wedding DJs would play a track from, for instance, Astral Weeks, so it's not the only test. And before anyone says it, I'm also well aware that wedding crowds go wild for YMCA. But not in the same way... Or am I the only one who goes to indie weddings?
For what it's worth, The Second Coming would have been anyone else's ground-breaking debut. I don't know if any other Roses track gets even close to Ten Storey Love Song.
Absolutely right
Some other tracks will do it, such as Step On, but I've never know a wedding crowd go mad for it like when the Roses come on.
Do you know
I was listening to the original He's Gonna Step On You Again the other day and in the stone cold sober light of day, the Monday's version isn't a patch on the original. That really was a case of time & a place. Now the Hallelujah EP, that does hit it.
At my wedding
Lots of Stone Roses and lots of dancing.
I also supplied gladioli for people to wave when The Smiths were played.
kiss me where the sun dont shine
16 when the album came out so different perspective from yours as i was getting into buying music and partying properly
as for 'madchester myth' richie b what did you ever produce the farm? ha ha ha
I'm from Manchester.
Not Cheshire. That's the point I'm making. If you want to slag off Scousers I suggest you don't start with their musicians. I was 18 when the Stone Roses came out. Don't mind the music and it was quite enjoyable at the time. Used to go the Hacienda. Didn't think that I was in the middle of some era-defining Zeitgeist though. Don't understand why bands from Macclesfield and Hale Barns like Doves have to hang off the coat-tails of a nearby city. That's all. Perhaps the metropolitan perception is that everything round there is Manchester and the myth is now irrevocable. The music press conveniently ignored people like Gerald Simpson (A Guy called Gerald) at the time because he didn't play a guitar, and possibly for other less savoury reasons. He's from Moss Side by the way.
Good point about the Charlatans being from The Black Country. Don't get me started on James...
sixth form blues
18 at that age where the world is against you?
i think most bands who claim to be from manc but were from elsewhere actually lived and played a lot of gigs in manc as their were plenty of venues, geography wise manchester isnt really that big but greater manchester is
do people from outside of manchester refer to new order as a salford band
you should see us lot
down London way when Chas and Dave play - we go like bleedin' crazy
Manchester/Salford...
...as Tony W. once said, "it's a very important distinction".
bizzare two triangle
dont ever confuse the two also dont tell anyone from the wirral they are scouse
Heresy of the week
Their second album is actually better than the first one. There, I've said it.
I've tried hard to love the first one, really I have. But I've never found it anything other than OK, if oddly flat and joyless.
Next week: Why Futurama is better than The Simpsons
More heresy
Don't agree but I think Give Out But Don't Give Up is better the Screamadelica. I also prefer Seeting Sons to All Mod Cons.
Yes!
There's nothing on Screamadelica that comes close to the joyous swagger of Jailbird.
Jailbird was the best
Rolling Stones record of 1994. Better than anything off Voodoo Lounge, certainly...
Setting Sons
Doesn't everyone prefer this to All Mod Cons? A vastly superior record IMHO.
You would think so
...but most of my mates prefer All Mod Cons, and Setting sons rarely gets in the 'Best of' charts while All Mods Cons invariably appears
Futurama really is better than the Simpsons
But can't agree "Second Coming" is better, although "Love Spreads" is great.
I'm with those who consider the debut album to be great if not perfect; that would need "Fool's Gold" added and both "Elizabeth.." and "Don't Stop" taken off, which I can happily do on the iPod. Also as I was 21 at the time, it definitely adds to the fondness I have for it. A mate gave me a copy of "Bummed" at the same time and I couldn't get past Shaun Ryder's vocals - for some reason they grated far more than Ian Brown's voice.
20th Sales Opportunity
Here it is on spotify so no need to handover any more money directly to Silvertone.
http://open.spotify.com/album/2hPgN0wHJ3efQg3DwaLIvW
Complete with demos, non album singles & b-sides - Something Burning was always a favourite of mine. The demos are interesting in judging how much John Leckie may have had to do with the album, if he wasn't at the helm for the demos. Bye Bye Badman I always liked but the demo really brings Brown's nasal whine to the fore - this is not a good thing. Lovely rolls from Reni on Resurrection, some may call it show-boating. Pearl Bastard is a bit poor.
The Fools Gold video was on myspace the other day but it's been taken down. It was dreadful.
The whole package gets a one page Danny Kelly review in Uncut this month. I hope the Word doesn't waste any space next month.
As Ringo says...
In the pub scene from "Help"."Everything's relative isn't it?"
Sone Roses - A critique
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-stone...
Pretty much agree with all that is said
1989.........
.......Just two years ealier I had vouluntarily purchased a Johny Hates Jazz album. So you can imagine, from this reference point, the Stone Roses sounded amazing. It still does, but I wonder if I would feel the same if I heard it for the first time now. The Johny Hates Jazz album went 'missing' years ago........
Stone Roses: Probably the
Stone Roses: Probably the best album of the 1980's.........so therefore behind about two hundred from the 50's and 60's.
"which owes a lot more to
"which owes a lot more to the producer than the band would like to admit (and this impression was certainly reinforced by what David Hepworth said about it on a recent podcast)."
Which one, couldn't give us a link?