Twenty Years On, Is This Still The One?

Today the 'special edition' of seminal Manchester band The Stone Roses self titled debut was released. It is of course 'definitive' exactly until Silvertone scrape the Roses barrel for an eighth time but leaving such questions aside, you've got to ask "Is the record worth the luxurious treatment it has been afforded?" My answer, and presumably anyone who was at the Haçineda in 1989 or Spike Island in 1990 will take umbridge with it, is no.

The Stone Roses is a solid four star, eight out of ten, indie pop album featuring three era defining singles, one guitarist heavily in debt to the psychedelia of Love and a rhythm section so sensuous their grooves make love to your ears in ways that are illegal in at least twenty four US states.

On the downer, Ian Brown has and never will be able to sing in tune, a fact John Leckie was presient enough to drown out in Mani's silky basslines. Fools Gold and Elephant Stone weren't originally included, the nine minutes fifty four second version of Fools Gold on the new re-release is a good five mintes too long and therefore doesn't count. The world could also have done without the dreary Bye Bye Badman and Shoot You Down as well.

Still this ragtag four piece had more than enough character to take a decent record and sear its memory into the hearts and minds of those who were alive at the time. Maybe that is an acheivement worth celebrating after all.