― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Anyway, on to the album. I love it, despite the less-than-great production. The tension between the great melodies and the swaggering thuggish undercurrent of the lyrics is one of the great attractions for me. Great guitar playing - rhythmic, fluid and imaginative.
I agree that "Fools Gold" isn't much good, it sounds like a rehearsal- room idea slammed down on tape and released as is. As an indicator of Stone Roses' worth it's a red herring.
"Second Coming" works for me - the thunderous production does amazing things for the guitar and drums. The songs aren't as good though.
― Dr. C, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
2. Naturally, I like weedy Byrds cover bands better than baggy shambling funky ones. That famous TotP was, from my POV, one of those awful musical experiences you never forget.
3. I never even heard this record till 1995; having nearly bought it, but not bought it, in spring 1989. Maybe many things would have been different for me if I'd bought it then.
4. I find it peculiarly enjoyable: just very easy to listen to, very unproblematic, one good pop track after another.
5. On the other hand, it was and is overrated - that much seems clear. When did it *start* to get overrated? That's a hard one to answer. Certainly it had this position by the mid-90s. But come to think of it, the overrating was clearly in place by the time of that woeful totp performance.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Guy, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Anyway, Ally I just don't see how you could call Squire's playing on that album unoriginal or wanky or whatever. THe second album yes, is VERY wanky, but being a guitar player and listening to the first album, it seems obvious that Squire is a guy of average skill constructing sounds in a very original manner. I don't know what has happened to him since though. Mostly suck central. Maybe if I had heard the second SR record or the Seahorses first, I would feel differently about the first SR record, but at the time it came out, nobody played like the way that first album sounded.
― Tim Baier, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― mark s, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I don't think they just repeated what people did before them. I agree with Dr. C here: "The tension between the great melodies and the swaggering thuggish undercurrent of the lyrics is one of the great attractions for me." Comparing the first album to the songs that came out on the singles is interesting cos then the awed, almost reverential, out-of-nowhere feeling on the album is evident. (Sorry I'm so bad at expressing what I mean.) The songs on the singles are brash and in love with life.
Finally, I think John Squire is inspiring. I read in an interview how he got off drugs. He decided to go cycling in the evenings instead and just worked at it. And the way he described it was so matter-of-fact. I like his hair, too.
― youn, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Nicole, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Ally, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― DG, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
There's a separate page that's the supposed core one:
http://welcome.to/onelovestory A> ...but that seems out of commission. So try this: http://www .adamg.demon.co.uk/roses/onelovestory.html I am not responsible for anyone dying from laughter from all this. He's all over the newly available Usenet archives at Google if you really want to look, and boy, do I have stories. As Ally had Ron Traino, I had Burnweed. Great.― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
...but that seems out of commission. So try this:
http://www .adamg.demon.co.uk/roses/onelovestory.html
I am not responsible for anyone dying from laughter from all this. He's all over the newly available Usenet archives at Google if you really want to look, and boy, do I have stories. As Ally had Ron Traino, I had Burnweed. Great.
― Patrick, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
His home page.
His Spice Girls page.
Spot the connections if you can.
Patrick: I'll give you the scoop. Ron Traino is an internet nutter of the first degree, who is obsessed with the Spice Girls. He also became rather bizzarely obsessed with me, first becoming convinced I WAS Geri Spice, and then deciding he hated me because I was NOT Geri Spice, despite me never actually claiming to BE Geri Spice. He has sent me loads of pornographic emails, and creepy stuff detailing weird death fantasies he's had about each Spice Girl - which "tormented" him because he really LOVED the Spice Girls and didn't want to kill them. Riiiiight. I was on a crappy college mail server at the time and I couldn't block him because it had no block, so I was at the mercy of him.
He is also a rather obsessive Catholic, who believes any non- Catholic, meaning someone who doesn't follow his specific rules, is going to hell. And he is like 35 or 40 and lives in his parent's basement. Which is odd. In case you didn't know.
But back to the Stone Roses! That story is FUCKED UP, I remember that shit. The person used to post it to the Oasis newsgroup and the Manics newsgroup ALL THE TIME.
― Steven James, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I think the utterly snoozeworthy middle section completely knocks this album out of contention for classic status. I really like it up through "Don't Stop", then I skip ahead to "I Am The Resurrection".
One thing about "Fool's Gold" that I think is cool is how it's based on a 10-beat drum loop. You get these weird phase shifts in where the strong beats of the loop fall because the song itself is in strict 4/4 over it. Lovely stuff, IMO.
― Dan Perry, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― keith, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
And if I haven't mentioned it, the Seahorses were stank.
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Anyhow, here's a question: the topic of the Seahorses tainting Squires legacy has come up a few times, but what of those of us who thought he was crap before the Seahorses?
― K-reg, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
A: Heard "Second Coming" first.
B: Heard "The Stone Roses" first in about 1995. By that time, the onslaught of Squire imitators (read: Oasis and their ilk) was so deafening that even the "real thing" might not be discernable from the din. By that time, even I had tuned out my ears to it.
― Tim Baier, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
But anyway, Stone Roses first album. I remember hearing it for the first time, soon after it came out, when my music scene was drowning in a sea of goth-industrio-techno-bollocks and it really did just shock and amaze me. How could something so simple be so amazing, and something to retro be so fresh?
Melodically and harmonically, it's beautiful, the guitarwork is perfectly balanced between naive psychedelic haze and blazing technique (clearly, Squire went well off the wrong end of that balance later) but it is simply the amazing BASS on that album that renders it forever a total CLASSIC.
The cult of the Stone Roses, Madchester, the next album and the collection awfulness of the solo output, the whole Manchester Oasis Britshit that followed... none of this can taint the fresh, startling effect that hearing that album for the first time had on me. Och, you just had to be there. Reading about it must be like seeing a butterfly preserved in a formaldehyde jar and wondering what the hype was about.
― kate the saint, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I'll agree on the bass, by the way. But surely the way the bass sounds is tantamount to the album being seen in some quarters as 'goth bollocks,' including the members themselves. ;-)
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I mean, I can sit here and assume all people who are propping John Squire are idiots who are unfamiliar with X, Y, and Z but it wouldn't necessarily be true, and I doubt you'd like it if I said it.
― Ally, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
C: Your ears are "made of stone". (Hahahahahaa.... sorry, I couldn't resist! ;)
― DG, Friday, 4 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― masonic boom, Saturday, 5 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I love the way the record has started appearing in lists of the top ten albums of all time; it's like a victory for my generation over the boomers.
― The Dirty Vicar, Saturday, 5 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
And keep in mind I actually like the album. ;-)
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 5 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― achilles_last_stand, Saturday, 12 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
MELODY MAKER touted roses as incorporating there love of ACiEED (the music ) with guitars - so i bought it - IPC you owe me !
mind they also said the beyond were the future of rock - 'cubist metal' where iz you now ?
― geordie name droppa, Saturday, 12 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Your worst nightmare, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― stevo, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
You lot are a waste of bandwidth.
Roses rule.
Fuck off.
― Sally Cinnamon, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
In one word ...... YES!!!!!!
― Paul McAuley, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Seriously though, I still think it is a good album and it would be in my top 100 but fairly far down.
Personal favourite - Sugar Spun Sister. Is this part of the weak middle that many of you are talking about?
― Little drummer boy, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Sorry to detract away from the subject of the board, but I just thought I'd ask.
― dermo, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
-Punks, you gotta ask yourself a question - have u even been to madchester??
― dirty harry, Wednesday, 3 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The glitch is still there, yes, and definitely is NOT a gunshot; does sound like a vinyil glitch, aye.
― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 18 August 2009 09:44 (fourteen years ago) link
A silenced gunshot, indicating the work of a stealthy assassin? I'd assumed it was a flaw on the tape of my cassette, until I bought the CD.
― Pillbox, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 09:49 (fourteen years ago) link
There was a video of them live in '89 on one of the satellite music channels over the weekend, jesus they were fucking shite live weren't they?
― someone who is ranked fairly highly in an army of poo (Colonel Poo), Tuesday, 18 August 2009 10:10 (fourteen years ago) link
The 40 track legacy edition can be downloaded from 7Digital for £7.99 at the moment, if that's of interest to anyone?
http://www.7digital.com/artists/the-stone-roses/the-stone-roses-20th-anniversary-legacy-edition-2
― MichaelJLambert, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 10:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Wow - ILX opinion has turned around on this one, huh?
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 11:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Oddly, the Legacy edition is £10.99
― Mark G, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 11:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Buy two copies for £4.99 total!
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 11:19 (fourteen years ago) link
how?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 11:36 (fourteen years ago) link
I actually thought the demos were great in most cases. lots of extended jams ("One Love" is a highlight), and in particular "Shoot You Down" sounded pretty spectacular. i loved 'em, ymmv.
live it seems Ian's inability to stay on pitch is the cause of their live=shite problems...
― mikebee (BATTAGS), Wednesday, 19 August 2009 19:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Having downloaded all the b-sides and AAs, I'm actually tempted to get the stupoid box just because I love these tunes so much; more so than the debut album. Simone and Guernica sound so good.
― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 21 August 2009 16:30 (fourteen years ago) link
They make me go all Bimble. I'm sad he missed this.
― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 21 August 2009 16:31 (fourteen years ago) link
bump becasue Pitchfork gave this a 10.0 today
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13449-the-stone-roses/
― Bee OK, Saturday, 12 September 2009 03:09 (fourteen years ago) link
I like the "Best New Music" tag
― musically, Saturday, 12 September 2009 03:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Is this a remastered version of sorts or just a regular reissue?
― Moka, Sunday, 13 September 2009 07:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Wait, I just read and apparently it's remastered. Anyone heard it?
― Moka, Sunday, 13 September 2009 07:21 (fourteen years ago) link
Scroll up this very thread just a little.
― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Sunday, 13 September 2009 07:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Excellent review.
― Spencer Chow, Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Wait, so did they leave in the vinyl-scratch *glitch* on the fadeout of "Elizabeth My Dear?"
Always thought that was meant to sound like an archer loosing an arrow. Intentional sound effect.
― Binjominia, Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I thought it sounded like a silenced pistol.
― unblapped goldmine (onimo), Sunday, 13 September 2009 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
I think they probably left it in because everyone expects to hear it.
that's what it's supposed to be. it's a sound effect.
― Mike Crandle, Financial Analyst, Bear Stearns, New York, NY 10185 (res), Sunday, 13 September 2009 19:10 (fourteen years ago) link
I had a tape of this when I was younger and I remember it sounded like cheesed-out 90s dance beats with guitar pop music over it. But now I tolerate cheesed-out 90s dance beats way more, so maybe I would like it. But my mom maybe threw away my tapes?
― bamcquern, Sunday, 13 September 2009 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
i really wanted to buy this so i ordered it through the mail, usually buy all my stuff at Amoeba Hollywood. anyways, i thought the second CD was the B-Sides CD but instead it's The Lost Demos CD. all i really wanted was the remastered B-Sides collection on CD without buying the super deluxe version. so i'm really sad tonight...
― Bee OK, Sunday, 20 September 2009 05:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's as good as most people say it is. I love the album, would call it a classic, but it certainly isn't in my top 20 albums of all time. There are some weak songs on it, but the first three, I Am the Resurrection, Made of Stone, etc. make up for them.
― horst du sie noch, Sunday, 20 September 2009 07:23 (fourteen years ago) link
BeeOK, the 'big box' is available for cheap at the download shop.
It's minus the extra 'backwards' tracks, but that is all.
Or try Spotify even. (i.e. it's definitely there)
― Mark G, Monday, 21 September 2009 07:18 (fourteen years ago) link
You can just buy the remastered b-sides individual from the iTunes store; that's what I did. Hopefully one day they'll see sense and release them as a CD on their own.
― Sickamous (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 21 September 2009 08:59 (fourteen years ago) link
well ok the remaster is actually a *~~~revelation~~* to my ears
― omar little, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 23:14 (fourteen years ago) link
I recently heard Steve Miller's "Space Cowboy" and realized that it's 100% responsible for the Stone Roses' schtick.― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 7:59 AM (3 years ago)
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 7:59 AM (3 years ago)
Tried listening to this album today and had to bail out yet again. Three years later, I still stand by the above statement.
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 1 July 2010 01:10 (thirteen years ago) link
The only exception I'll make is for Mani's freakout in the extended version of "Fool's Gold"
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 1 July 2010 01:15 (thirteen years ago) link
it was 2000, and much as i hate slipknot et al, they were a fuckload more interesting than stereophonics or travis.
Then again, music isn't about being "interesting", it's about being nice. And Travis were a lot nicer than Slipknot.― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 10:54 PM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Still the greatest post of all time.
― Freedom, Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:00 (seven years ago) link
It's up there.
― (SNIFFING AND INDISTINCT SOBBING) (Tom D.), Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:09 (seven years ago) link
I'm still not convinced that Geir isn't simply an artificial intelligence program with many bugs that were never worked out.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:10 (seven years ago) link
On the contrary, I think they achieved near perfection with Geir.
― (SNIFFING AND INDISTINCT SOBBING) (Tom D.), Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:13 (seven years ago) link
I take it the first line was someone else
― Mark G, Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:31 (seven years ago) link
Yes.
― Freedom, Thursday, 6 October 2016 12:50 (seven years ago) link
say what you want about tenets of geirbotism, at least it's an ethos
― spongeboy bigpants (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 6 October 2016 13:31 (seven years ago) link
music is about being nice
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 October 2016 13:46 (seven years ago) link