A Beginner’s Guide to The Stone Roses

This morning I awoke to news so wonderful that I spent the better part of my day dancing around my house to I Am The Resurrection for hours on end.

The Stone Roses, the band responsible for what is arguably one of the greatest British albums ever recorded, the band responsible for what is definitely one of the greatest debut albums ever released, the band responsible for inspiring Noel Gallagher to pick up a guitar, the band who seamlessly blended guitar-centric indie with drumloop-centric dance, the band whose anthemic tunes defined a generation caught between the rave music of the 1980’s and the Britpop of the 1990’s, the band who almost singlehandedly take credit for inspiring the Britpop movement, are reuniting. This seems like a good topic to start this blog with.

I’m an American. I shouldn’t know anything about the characters on Coronation Street, the events leading up to the Peterloo massacre, the ownership of Man. City, the distance between Salford and Bury, the meanings of the words “scran”, “gaff” or “the dibble” or anything else having to do with a provincial, post-industrial city with a population of half a million in the north of England. But partly because of the music made by Ian Brown, John Squire, “Mani” Mounfield and “Reni” Wren, a little bit of me regards Manchester as the center of the universe, and for a few years in the late 80’s and early 90’s, during the waning days of Margaret Thatcher’s political reign of terror, it was.

Coinciding with the widespread recreational use of ecstasy, night clubs like the Haçienda became meccas for members of the newly burgeoning rave scene culminating in 1988 and 1989, two years ensconced in the memories of those who were there as “The Second Summer of Love“. Re-dubbed  “Madchester”, Manchester transformed from a declining industrial town built around the cotton trade into one of the cultural capitals of Europe. Mancunian bands like The Happy Mondays, New Order, Inspiral Carpets and 808 State found widespread commercial and critical success in these years, and brought so much music industry attention to the sounds emanating from the city that for a while it seemed like anyone with jangly guitars and funky drums could reach the top of the charts. Few of these bands can claim they would have done it without the initial success of The Stone Roses’ debut album.

But still, despite the huge sway their legacy holds over the British media, most Americans have never heard of them. The group cancelled their 1990 tour of the United States, proclaiming in a press statement that “America doesn’t deserve us yet“. The American press weren’t so kind to them either, in particular Robert Christgau of the Village Voice, who asked “What do they do that the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield didn’t do better in 1967?” This cross-the-pond skepticism ensured that few would be exposed to the band outside of late-night MTV.

So, in honor of this legendary Lancastrian ensemble and in an attempt to expose at least one person to one of the most criminally ignored yet highly praised bands of all time, here are nine essential tracks spanning the Stone Roses’ career. You can watch the YouTube videos below or listen to the playlist on Spotify, but I recommend buying or downloading their original, eponymous debut if you like what you hear.

Sally Cinnamon

Released in 1987, Sally Cinnamon was the Stone Roses’ second single, although I like to consider it their first given how shit So Young was. Despite the fact that it lacks Mani’s brilliant basslines (he hadn’t joined the group yet), this song would hail the birth of the trademark Stone Roses sound, a combination of Ian Brown’s Mancunian twang and drawling vocals and John Squire’s masterful, ringing guitarwork. The lyrics are believed by some to be a subtle reference to heroin, given the fact that heroin and cinnamon are of a similar color and texture, although one of the band’s first gigs was an anti-heroin concert opening for Pete Townshend.

The song was originally released by the record label FM Revolver, in a one-off deal prior to their signing with Silvertone Records. Following the acclaim surrounding their first album, FM Revolver decided to cash in on the band’s success by re-releasing the single along with a video, which the band hated. The re-release started a feud with the record label that resulted in the Stone Roses breaking into and vandalizing FM Revolver’s studio, leading to the group’s arrest. They were fined £3,600 each.

Elephant Stone

Elephant Stone was the band’s third single, released when they were just on the cusp of large-scale success, and was later included in the US release of their first album. New Order’s bassist Peter Hook produced the single, which has two versions, a five-minute version (which you can hear on the Spotify playlist) and the shorter, three-minute version that can be seen above. Personally, I prefer the five-minute version, but to each his own.

She Bangs The Drums

She Bangs The Drums was the second single off of The Stone Roses and the first Top 40 hit for the group, peaking at #36 on the UK Singles Chart. You may know it from being featured on Guitar Hero III. The first single off the album, Made of Stone featured in the band’s notorious performance on the BBC’s The Late Show, where an accidental power cut mid-way through the song lead to Ian Brown repeatedly yelling “Amateurs, amateurs!” at Tracy MacLeod.

Fool’s Gold

Fools Gold was released as a stand-alone double A-Side single along with “What the World is Waiting For” in 1987 and soon enough became the band’s highest charting single at the time. Built on the bassline from Young MC’s Know How and the drum loop from a sample of James Brown’s Hot Pants, Fool’s Gold is a dance-floor staple for the rave generation, one of the first instances of an indie band using Hip-Hop sampling techniques.

I Wanna Be Adored

So why is it that an album like The Stone Roses can garner so much critical exhalation that it outranks even Sgt. Pepper in some lists of the all-time greatest records? Well maybe its the strength of the two songs that bookend it: I Wanna Be Adored and I Am The Resurrection. Building on one of the most famous bass riffs of all time, the only lyrics in the entire song are “I don’t need to sell my soul, he’s already in me” and the song’s title. I Wanna Be Adored even found some success in the US, charting at number 18 in the Billboard Modern Rock  chart in 1990.

I Am The Resurrection

I’ve seen this song described as both “Eight of the finest minutes of music ever recorded” and “The pinnacle of western civilization”, and while I won’t engage in that much hyperbole, I will say that its one of the greatest album closers I’ve ever heard, and one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s really two separate songs combined into one, with the first three minutes following the standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus/chorus format when suddenly it transforms into an epic, eight minute jam session. Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand himself said “If you listen  . . . it builds up and then drops and builds up and drops like a good dance floor track does“. If you only have time to listen to one of these tracks, make sure you’ve at least taken the eight minutes required for this one. Your life won’t be the same afterwards.

Bye Bye Badman

Never released as a single, Bye Bye Badman is nonetheless one of their most popular songs, and it’s easy to see why. Sharing its name with the piece of artwork on the album’s cover, Bye Bye Badman’s lyrics are inspired by the French student’s uprising in 1968. As explained by John Squire, “Ian 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.” While later bands like Blur tended to be a little more cynical in their political outlook, the Stone Roses seemed to be motivated by pure idealism.  Here lies the biggest difference between the Stone Roses and the Britpop bands that succeeded them.

Love Spreads

Again, you may remember this song from Guitar Hero IV, where it’s played upon completion of the game. John Squire’s Led Zepplin-tinged guitar anthem was the band’s comeback single after an absence of over five years. Continuing with the theme of questioning popular depictions of Jesus Christ first mentioned in I Am The Resurrection, Love Spreads depicts Jesus Christ as a black woman spreading her arms on the cross, controversial to say the least. The Second Coming, the Stone Roses’ second album, found the band returning to public attention in the midst of the Britpop movement, where their music would have been more popular than ever if it weren’t for the relative weakness of the album as a whole.

Begging You

There are few albums in existence that have provoked a bigger backlash than The Second Coming. Featuring a heavier, blues-inspired sound, critics found The Second Coming to be muddled, tuneless and overambitious. It still stirs up debate though, a fact immortalized by the famous scene in Sean of The Dead where Simon Pegg argues “I like it” when deciding which album to throw at a zombie’s head. Personally, I’ve never been able to sit through the entire second album, but it still has some decent tunes. The best of these is Begging You, which was inspired by Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, oddly enough. To this day, I still consider it one of their most danceable tracks.

So there you have it. Nine tracks by one of the cockiest, funkiest and most talented bands ever to have graced the stage. If I’ve converted at least one person into a fan then I’ve done my job. Let me know what you think.