It's funny when you think about how much the world has changed since the beginning of the information age. Prior to that point in history – when the scale of the world was reduced from a series of scale centimeters on a map to being measured by the number of mouse clicks it took to get to the other side of the world – while developments and changes in individual scenes and styles continued at the same rate, news of them travelled exponentially slower. Perhaps because of the geographical distance between the scenes in North America and the UK, gaps have been left in time and space continuity for many of the bands that developed oceans away; it was common for 'the next big thing' to seem to hit the charts fully developed, ready for consumption and placed to blow your mind back then, with all of the requisite lore already documented to attract fans. While the grunge bands of the time were very much connected with their roots, went against this system and dispelled much of this sort of myth-making and presentation in North America, it was commonplace for bands to come from 'somewhere else' with all of that background and lore deeply entrenched. Did bands like The Happy Mondays, Oasis, Blur, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and The Charlatans all simply have a charmed inspiration that ushered in Britpop? Were they deigned to take over the world – if only for a short time? As the Legacy Edition of The Stone Roses' self-titled debut illustrates, that wasn't the case at all; like any other artistic entity in creation, they had to germinate and grow to get there.
There's no arguing the impact that The Stone Roses had when it was first released in 1989; in that embryonic time of the burgeoning Madchester scene, there was simply nothing like it on pop airwaves. It was certainly pop content – there's no arguing that – but as the city sounds that open “I Wanna Be Adored” part to reveal Mani Mounfield's New Order-inspired bass and John Squire's snaking, sublimely skeletal guitars, the effect is a slower but no less satisfying build than that of the conventional pop forms of the day; a little stoned, obviously metropolitan-inclined and more interested in the knowledge that affection exists than the action between its legs, Stone Roses appeared as a brand apart from everything else going on in music in the rest of the world from note one.
It's not as if the band imparts that impression before recoiling into orthodoxy either; rather, The Stone Roses go still deeper and redefine the constraints of pop forms effortlessly as they go. Both “She Bangs The Drums” and “Waterfall” further establish this new, uniquely 'Stone Roses' permutation of pop and the values intrinsically linked to it. At no point does the band shoot for the obligatory Top 40 hit of even the constructions of such a song (this could have been called heresy in the UK in the Eighties), they simply lay the material out for listeners to inhabit as the band itself does. The lush but hushed sonics tug listeners from the base of their own curiosity into The Stone Roses' narrative landscape and, increasingly with each track, they find themselves falling for the sleepy and relaxing timbres.
…And then, with “Don't Stop,” the band turns the emotional environment they've built on its head as Ian Brown sings sweetly over the changes of “Waterfall” again – only the musical portion of the song is played backwards.
It is at that moment that listeners are clued in to the fact that The Stone Roses are consciously controlling all that they're presenting and, in so doing, also illustrates an all-new (and, while implied, never before made perfectly explicit) type of and attention to craft to which the band is tending. It is less songwriting and more a form of soundcraft that was being developed in the early rave scene in England (most of the Madchester bands, Stone Roses included, frequented the Hacienda club – which was also ground zero for rave culture) as passed through the body of a rock band a new form and creation all unto itself.
From there, while the styling of the songs reverts to the one established by “I Wanna Be Adored,” “She Bangs The Drums” and “Waterfall,” the perception of them has been irrevocably altered by “Don't Stop.” Without that track, “Bye Bye Badman" would just sound like the UK's answer to R.E.M. and “Elizabeth My Dear” would be mocked for simply rewriting an old folk song except, in this context, both become new classics in their own right; such is the fascinating nature of old ideas with new values.
The classics keep coming as “Sugar Spun Sister” resets a sort of Sixties style ballad as an Ecstasy-touched, Hacienda-set ode to a beautiful, unattainable girl and that sonic sentiment bleeds into "Made Of Stone," coloring it too. In each case, there is something recognizable in the songs but, because of their treatment here (sweeping, ethereal phase on “Made Of Stone,” chorus effects everywhere and a host of surreal vibes throughout), they come off as brand new; still infectious, but with the alterations in place, the face of each song is totally renovated.
Because of these things, it's not at all surprising how or why the album took off the way it did and, with the refurbished production as well as as the addition of “Fool's Gold” appended to the end of the proceedings, fans that got addicted to The Stone Roses the first time will still be salivating to get their next fix. For new fans, the Legacy Edition of The Stone Roses offers the opportunity to see how the whole thing started twenty years ago but, after listening, one begins to understand too that, while grunge and alternative rock may have overshadowed Madchester in North America, it was a very, very influential time as some of these sounds re-manifest in music as far flung as that of The Raconteurs, to Cage The Elephant to The Hidden Cameras to Los Campesinos!
The Stone Roses may have been how the band was introduced to the world, but that doesn't mean The Stone Roses came pre-fabricated that way, as this Legacy Edition makes plain. Included on Disc Two are all the 'Lost Demos' of the songs on Stone Roses' first album which, in many ways, paint a very different picture of what the band could have been had serendipity not intervened. As it turns out, had circumstances been different and had producer John Leckie not been involved, The Stone Roses may not have had the impact they did right way; the demo versions of “I Wanna Be Adored” and “She Bangs The Drums,” while very similar to their studio-finished counterparts thematically, reveal a band very much in tune with the US college rock movements of the time (“She Bangs The Drums” sounds like it could have been recorded by R.E.M. around the time of Reckoning) and the glossier production of The Stone Roses far overshadows the needs-first and cavernous sound of the demos. The initial version of “Bye Bye Badman” is thoroughly incongruous with the rest as the stripped down, vocals-and-guitars-only styling translates well enough, but doesn't match the production style of the rest and so sticks out like a sore thumb in all the wrong ways.
On disc two, the only tracks of true interest are those that fell off of the original record but, happily, there is a surplus of them and they are a fascinating lot. In addition to the unlisted track (which plays like a really echoey jam done to check levels), the unreleased songs – “Elephant Stone” (which originally appeared as a single in 1988 but only appeared on the US release of The Stone Roses; reappearing again later on the Turns Into Stone comp), “Going Down,” “Mersey Paradise” and “One Love” – all play like genuine-article replica indie rock hits that never were. In “Going Down,” for example, the band sounds like the anthropological half-step between The Pixies and The Cure while “Mersey Paradise” is a campy, Brit-rock throwaway and “Something's Burning” is a half-cocked and embryonic sort of attempt at “Fool's Gold.” While none of that is particularly gratifying, “One Love” is worth the trouble as it precedes the clubbier side of the band that would manifest later and really break the band on a massive scale. Each of those songs (and more) are a fantastic look at what The Stone Roses could have become,but (happily) didn't; they work passably, but given that history has revealed that the band had better ideas coming, it's nice that these were aborted early before they had the chance to grow.
It sounds contrary, but therein lies the value of this Legacy Edition of The Stone Roses: the set shows both sides of the same coin and illustrates how well it all turned out versus how dicey it could have been, and does so without bothering to show any sort of tepid midpoint. That fact in and of itself makes this Legacy reissue a brave release but, better still, it shows the forms that The Stone Roses incubated before the band got it all to work so well.
Artist:
www.thestoneroses20.com/
www.myspace.com/thestoneroses
Album:
The 20th anniversary, Legacy Edition of The Stone Roses is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
