The Stone Roses (album)

Based in Manchester, where the so-called Madchester movement was centred, The Stone Roses formed in 1983 and released a handful of singles on several different labels. They recorded their self-titled debut album with John Leckie, a producer who had worked with Pink Floyd on Meddle.[2] The recording took place primarily at Battery Studios in London, with additional sessions at Konk and Rockfield Studios.[3]

According to writers Sean Sennett and Simon Groth, the Stone Roses "virtually invented 'Madchester' and built a template for Brit-pop" with their debut album.[4] The record has been associated with rave culture and dance music, although Angus Batey from The Quietus argued that it was a 1960s-inspired jangle pop album featuring little or no influence of dance beats or grooves, with the exception of "Fools Gold".[5] According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the rhythm section of bassist Mani and drummer Reni played in a manner that was merely suggestive of dance rhythms, while Ian Brown dispassionately sang lyrics expressing arrogant sentiments such as "I Wanna Be Adored" and "I Am the Resurrection".[6] In the opinion of Spin critic Andrew Unterberger, it sounded more like "an exercise in rock classicism", featuring accessible melodies like those of the Beatles and resonant guitars similar to the Byrds, along with "the cheeky (and quintessentially British) humor of the Smiths" and "the self-fulfilling arrogance of the Sex Pistols".[7] The melody for the song "Elizabeth My Dear" was appropriated from the English traditional ballad "Scarborough Fair".[8]

As with most Stone Roses releases, the cover displays a work by John Squire, in this case a Jackson Pollock-influenced piece titled "Bye Bye Badman", which makes reference to the May 1968 riots in Paris. The cover was named by Q magazine as one of "The 100 Best Record Covers of All Time." In the accompanying article, Squire said: "Ian [Brown] had met this French man when he was hitching around Europe, this bloke had been in the riots, and he told Ian how lemons had been used as an antidote to tear gas. Then there was the documentary—a great shot at the start of a guy throwing stones at the police. I really liked his attitude."[9] The story was also the inspiration for the lyrics to the song of the same name.[9] The background of the piece is based on the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland; the band had visited the causeway while playing a gig at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.[10]

The Stone Roses was released in May 1989[11] by Silvertone, a division of Zomba Records created to work with "new rock" acts.[2] It originally received little attention from both consumers and critics in the United Kingdom,[12] with the exception of NME and Melody Maker, who were covering the Madchester music scene at the time.[12] Bob Stanley from Melody Maker called it "godlike" and said the foundation of the music was John Squire's guitar playing, which he deemed "beautifully flowing, certainly psychedelic, there are elements of Hendrix (especially on 'Shoot You Down') and Marr (check out the fade to 'Bye Bye Badman'), but the rest is the lad's own work".[13] In Q, Peter Kane was less favourable and felt that The Stone Roses was a promising album weighed down by "strangely monotone production",[14] while NME journalist Jack Barron wrote that it was merely "quite good" while giving it a score of seven on a scale of 10;[15] the latter magazine later ranked it as the second best record of 1989 in their year-end list.[12] In The Village Voice, American critic Robert Christgau wrote that the group was "overhyped" and no different than the numerous indie bands in the United States, adding "what do they do that the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield weren't doing better in 1967?" He concluded that "they're surprisingly 'eclectic.' Not all that good at it, but eclectic," despite some moments of good songwriting ("Bye Bye Badman", "I Wanna Be Adored").[16]

To support the album, the band played several high-profile gigs, including one on February 27, 1989, at what was regarded as the centre of the associated Madchester and baggy scenes, Manchester's The Haçienda nightclub. Andrew Collins wrote in NME: "Bollocks to Morrissey at Wolverhampton, to The Sundays at The Falcon, to PWEI at Brixton – I'm already drafting a letter to my grandchildren telling them that I saw The Stone Roses at the Haçienda."[17] The band's debut appearance on Top of the Pops in November 1989 helped the album receive more mainstream exposure.[12] The album eventually brought them nationwide success and soon the band, along with fellow Madchester group Happy Mondays, were perceived as one of the key acts of the baggy scene.[18] Their May 1990 Spike Island gig, organised by the band and attended by over 27,000 fans, also holds a formidable reputation. Critics have frequently labelled it the "Woodstock of the baggy generation".[19]

The Stone Roses has sold over 4 million copies worldwide, according to the 2006 book covering the album for the 33⅓ music series.[20]

Retrospective professional reviews

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[6]
The Daily Telegraph	[21]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[18]
Mojo	[22]
Pitchfork	10/10[23]
Q	[24]
Rolling Stone	[25]
Spin	10/10[26]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[27]
Uncut	[12]

The Stone Roses was acclaimed by critics and musicians in subsequent years,[12] being viewed as an even more important album than when it was first released, as reflected by its high ranking in polls of the greatest albums of all time.[28] Rolling Stone's David Fricke later called it "a blast of magnificent arrogance, a fusion of Sixties-pop sparkle and the blown-mind drive of U.K. rave culture",[25] while BBC Music's Chris Jones said it served as a peerless testament to the fusion of rock and dance music inspired by "working class hedonism" at the end of the 1980s.[29] Mojo strongly recommended its 1999 reissue to listeners and wrote that the album "set the tone for rock music in the '90s",[30] while in Q, Ian Gittins wrote that with the album's "mercurial, timeless anthems", the band became "spokesmen for their generation".[24] Bernadette McNulty of The Daily Telegraph believed the 2009 reissue polished the band's bold mix of discordant psychedelic sounds and clever dance beats, but that its legacy as a fabled debut album was enhanced more by the darker, masculine music that followed in Manchester during the 1990s.[21] Zeth Lundy of The Boston Phoenix said it "has been deified by such dubious tastemakers as the NME and Oasis's Noel Gallagher — and the rest of us really like it too".[31] PopMatters critic Jennifer Makowsky argued that "the psychedelic, drug-powered pop songs on the album earned the band a well-earned place in alternative music history."[32]

American music journalist Jim DeRogatis felt The Stone Roses had been highly overrated by critics, pointing to a "lame retread disco beat" and "oh-so-dated chiming guitars",[33] while Neil Kulkarni from The Quietus said its first three songs were enjoyable but preceded a "right barrel-load of shite afterwards".[34] In an article on overhyped records for The Guardian, Peter Robinson said that The Stone Roses was "an average rock album – lyrically pedestrian and with a sonic policy swerving from the play-safe to the over-indulgent".[35] Guardian journalist Penny Anderson criticised the length of certain tracks and noted that the record "doesn't half drag on",[36] while Fiona Sturges of The Independent found Brown's singing and the band's lyrics to be remarkably poor, and objected to the editors of NME voting The Stone Roses the best British album of all time.[37] After the record was voted the second-best ever in a UK public poll, Channel 4 broadcast a presentation of the results in which three of the presenters—musician Bob Geldof, critic Paul Gambaccini, and artist Justine Frischmann—were critical of the album's inclusion in the top 100 and attributed it to the generation of listeners who voted rather than the record's quality.[38] Geldof claimed that the no. 2 placing was “ridiculous”, and asserted that the band are “just an OK group.”[39]

The Stone Roses – The Collectors Edition box set

In 1999, on the 10th anniversary of its release, a two-disc special edition re-release of The Stone Roses reached number nine on the UK Albums Chart. In 2007, a remastered version was released by Silvertone as a Carbon Neutral Entertainment CD (with tips about Energy Saving). In 2009, the remastered 20th anniversary edition was released in several formats: the standard 11-track album (with the bonus track "Fools Gold") on CD and 12" vinyl LP (the LP version includes a bonus one-sided 7" single featuring the unreleased demo track "Pearl Bastard"); a deluxe edition 2CD/1DVD set, featuring the album on disc one, a 15-track collection of unreleased demos titled The Lost Demos on disc two, and a DVD featuring a 1989 live performance titled Live in Blackpool; and a 3CD/3LP/1DVD collector's edition box set, which features:[58]

• The remastered 11-track album on one CD and one LP
• The Lost Demos on one CD
• The B-sides on one CD
• Two LPs
• Live in Blackpool DVD
• A 48-page booklet, containing unpublished photos and new interviews
• Six 12"-sized art prints featuring John Squire's original single artwork
• A lemon-shaped USB stick, featuring digital files of:
  • The album, the demos, and the B-sides
  • Five previously unreleased "backwards tracks"
  • Six music videos
  • Up at Sawmills: The Making of Fools Gold documentary video
  • Exclusive desktop wallpapers, ringtones, and a 48-page digital booklet

All tracks are written by Ian Brown and John Squire.

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[59]

The Stone Roses

• Ian Brown – vocals
• Mani – bass guitar
• Reni – drums, backing vocals, piano on "She Bangs the Drums"
• John Squire – guitars, backing vocals on "She Bangs the Drums"

Production

• Peter Hook – production on "Elephant Stone"
• John Leckie – production, mixing engineering on "Elephant Stone"
• Paul Schroeder – engineering
• John Squire — artwork

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Green, Alex (2006). The Stone Roses. A & C Black. ISBN 0826417426.
• Jones, Carys Wyn (2008). The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0754662440. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
• Larkin, Colin (2011). "Stone Roses". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
• Robb, John (2012). The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop: The Reunion Edition. Random House. ISBN 978-1448118793. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
• Sennett, Sean; Groth, Simon (2010). Off the Record: 25 Years of Music Street Press. University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0702246531.
• Strong, Martin C. (2004). The Great Rock Discography. Canongate Books. ISBN 1841956155.
• Tilton, Ian (2013). Set in Stone: Ian Tilton's Stone Roses Photographs. Music Sales Group. ISBN 978-0857127853.
• Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "The Stone Roses". Spin Alternative Record Guide. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0679755748.

• The Stone Roses at Acclaimed Music (list of accolades)
• The Stone Roses at Discogs (list of releases)
• The Stone Roses at MusicBrainz
• The Stone Roses (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)