CBR Record Club #6 "The Stone Roses"

[twilight]

Welcome to the sixth in a series I like to call "The CBR Record Club".

The club works thusly:

-Have a record assigned.
-Track a copy down. (legally or illegally, I’m not going to judge you)
-Listen.
-Form an opinion.
-Report back over the course of a fortnight.
-Repeat.

Sound cool?

The sixth assignment is... The Stone Roses (1989) by The Stone Roses:

http://geordierussell.instone.net/Jukebox/Img/S/The%20Stone%20Roses.jpg

1. "I Wanna Be Adored" – 4:52
2. "She Bangs the Drums" – 3:42
3. "Waterfall" – 4:37
4. "Don't Stop" – 5:17
5. "Bye Bye Badman" – 4:00
6. "Elizabeth My Dear" – 0:59
7. "(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister" – 3:25
8. "Made of Stone" – 4:10
9. "Shoot You Down" – 4:10
10. "This Is the One" – 4:58
11. "I Am the Resurrection" – 8:12

So everyone go find it, either it already has a place in your music library, at your local record store or from your digital downloading program of choice.

Use this thread for your thoughts and feelings about the first assignment.

This assignment goes from November 10th until November 23rd at which point a new album will be assigned.

Go!

-Twi

[The Confessor]

Well, what can I say about this masterpiece of an album? I'll make no secret of the fact that this record has resided in my "Top Ten Best Albums Of All Time" list since it was released. So, if you’re looking for objectivity, you probably won't find it here. :biggrin:

I'll also try to keep this as short as I can because I could honestly gush about this album for pages and pages.


When this album came out in 1989 it was a real breath of fresh air to a stagnant British music scene dominated by the likes of Rick Astley and Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers. I was aged 16 at the time and I’d already discovered some of the all-time greats like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Sex Pistols, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground etc, etc. However, this was the first time that an album released in my own lifetime had blown me away to the same extent as those classic bands.

It really did feel like you were listening to a classic band and a classic album right from the start. I remember thinking that here, at last, was a record from my own generation that could stand up proudly next to the likes of Revolver, Pet Sounds or Never Mind The Bollocks.

Of course, it was a pretty underground album at first, with only a “hip few” even being aware of the band but before the year’s end, The Stone Roses were all over the music magazines here in Britain. Bizarrely, I had first been introduced to the album earlier that year by a girl from New Zealand who was travelling around the UK. She had somehow gotten wind of the album out there in New Zealand and had picked it up. I vividly remember her describing The Stone Roses to me as sounding “like The Monkees on an E” which, of course, immediately piqued my interest.

I could hear what she meant straight away. Here were a band that were clearly influenced by the harmony laden, psychedelic pop and rock of bands like The Beatles, The Byrds and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, as well as the snotty nosed arrogance and swagger of punk. The real masterstroke, however, was the fact that they had fused this set of influences with the acid driven dance beats of British Rave culture.


There are so many amazing moments on this album that I couldn’t possibly list them all and trying to pick out favourite songs is futile…because every single track would have to be named. But I would like to point out a couple of things that particularly blew my mind at the time and still do up to the present day. Firstly, the epic final track “I Am The Resurrection” and its kick-ass instrumental outro, featuring the incendiary guitar playing of John Squire (is this the greatest closing track on any album ever?) and secondly, the fourth track “Don’t Stop”.

I mention “Don’t Stop” because I had been introduced to the wonder of instruments being played in reverse by the backwards guitar solos of The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, but here was a whole song played backwards!! What The Stone Roses had done was to take an early instrumental demo of the preceding track on the album (“Waterfall”), play back the whole song in reverse and record new vocals and lyrics over the top. Hey presto! A whole new song! The sequencing of these two tracks next to each other was obviously deliberate and done to highlight the fact that they were derived from the same source. But the innovation and sheer artistry involved in this inspired bit of studio wizardry just turned my 16-year-old brain inside out like spiked tap water.

All these years later, it's obvious to see that this record really was British Indie Rock ground zero. Of course, there had been The Smiths a few years earlier who had inspired a whole generation of kids to start playing around with jangly guitars and exploring their parent’s record collection…and there’s no denying their influence. But it was The Stone Roses who took the game to a whole other plateau by combining the sheer hedonism of Ecstacy and Rave culture with the classic rock of the Sixties.

This band could've (and should've) been the biggest band in the world. They had it…I mean, they really had it. Of course, bad business deals with their record company, Silvertone, put the band on ice for a good couple of years after the release of this album and killed any momentum that they had. But to paraphrase the title of one of their B-Sides, The Stone Roses really had “What The World Was Waiting For”.

I have to say that I really do think every song on this album is superb, both lyrically and instrumentally. It’s all killer and no filler! The drumming is as groovy as all hell, the bass playing inventive and John Squire’s guitar playing just revolutionary; proving to a generation of budding axemen that you didn’t have to be a poncy, finger-tapping show-off to be a great lead guitarist. Admittedly, Ian Brown’s not the greatest singer in the world, but producer John Leckie’s excellent use of double-tracking and reverb on his vocals, ensure that his etherial sounding voice has just the right mix of arrogance, wit and beauty to make him sound like the coolest f**king singer on the planet.

This album really did everything that an album should - it immortalised the band, defined an era and sub-culture and influenced absolutely everything that came after it, as far as British guitar rock is concerned. I must’ve listened to this album hundreds upon hundreds of times but I never, ever get bored of it. There’s always something new that I manage to pick out that I hadn’t noticed before and to my mind, that’s the sign of a truly great album.

[jessecuster3]

Really well said. Its easily in my top 10 of all time, as well. Every song on this album would sound brand new, even today.

[Ontir]

It's been awhile since I listened to the entire album and I don't even recall "I Am the Resurrection," but "She's a Waterfall," "I Wanna Be Adored" and of course "Fool's Gold" remain in constant rotation on my iTunes Top Rated list. When I first heard "Fool's Gold," I wondered if it was some lost track from the sixties, no re-mixed by some house master, then stunned to find it was brand new. If I could only listen to 10 CDs for the rest of my life, this would be in the top 5!

[jesse_custer]

Not in my top 10, but it is superb. Don't know what else to say other than "She Bangs the Drums" is my favorite pop masterpiece from the album.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Listening to The Stone Roses again tonight made me mad at the British rock press all over again.

The record is a minor masterpiece, emphasis on minor. Despite the hype and assorted nonsense about the resurgence of guitar rock, all The Stone Roses really achieved in its capacity as cultural bellwether was to define British rock in a very narrow sense, a retrenchment almost amounting to surrender after the expansive, adventurous experimentation of the early 1980s. (Nevermind, two years later, did something similar to American rock.) But all of that has nothing to do with the sounds between the grooves.

And it's a perfectly fine record. It doesn't excite me much, it doesn't make me want to dance (give me amphetamines over lysergic states any day), it doesn't thrill me with any insight into anything in particular. It's a culmination of druggy, dancey British 80s rock (the Psychedelic Furs, the Smiths, New Order, and a bit of the Soft Boys) and nothing groundbreaking. At least not from the vantage point of 2008.

It's got a lovely sonic palette, and I always like getting lost in its echoed, reverbed mazes, but I don't and perhaps can't actually love it. And Ian Brown is a seriously annoying twit of a lyricist.

[twilight]

I've had this record sitting around for awhile (I often buy things if I see them at a good price even if I don't intend to listen to them any time soon) so it'll be good to finally check it out.

-Twi

[ZombieHavoc]

I've never been too interested in this band. May check it out for this record club, but we'll see.

I remember seeing a video (not sure if it was from this album...not sure how many albums they have), when I was in high school. Wasn't into much then, but my music tastes have certainly expanded in the last 15 or so years.

[howyadoin]

Had this playing in the background last night while I was on the phone. It was really easy to ignore, which struck me as odd.

I'll give it another shot later today, when I can actually listen to it.

[leonaozaki]

During my sophomore year in college (1993-4) one of my suitemates was a big "indie/alternative" music geek (in retrospect I have become exactly like him! Mad props to Ben Diehl!) and he had a big poster of The Stone Roses in the common room. So I knew about them, except I never got around to listening to this album except for "I Wanna Be Adored" and "She Bangs the Drums," of course.

Man, it just feels dated...in a way a lot of the other records from 1989 that were brought up in the "Powerslave" thread just don't. I guess this is one of those "you had to be there" type of albums, except I'm not really convinced by those arguments.

Funnily enough, I really dig the first two and last two tracks and am pretty ambivalent about the rest. It's not that any of it is bad, really (except for that backwards track. Really? The whole song? Eek. And the lyrics on "Shoot You Down" are pretty moronic) but not a lot of it grabs me.

I don't know. I've been listening to it on and off for the past week or so and I'm really ambivalent about it. I like the music a lot, actually; John Squire is amazing throughout the record but I wish they'd given him more to do. All the songs seem very...samey...to me after a while. Here's a big anthemic chorus! Here're some more pretty arpeggios! Here's another stupid lyric about how cool the Stone Roses are!

Maybe it's just me. I suppose if I wanted to listen to the Smiths or New Order I'd just do that. I suppose I agree with Jonathan Bogart about how this record defined British rock (even I don't agree with his assessment of Nevermind) and that's really kind of my problem. The Stone Roses either aren't as weird as what came before (Furs, Echo, Smiths, New Order) or as ballsy as what came after (Oasis) or their pop smarts aren't as sharp as those of Blur, Suede, Pulp, Supergrass, etc.

There are some great songs on this album, but they're not enough to carry the record, for me.

Oh well. It's the first out of six since Twilight started this that I haven't loved. On to 1994!

rob

[twilight]

Why am I always doing this late?
Don't ask.

CBR Record Club #6 draws to a close.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

New assignment up shortly.

-Twi

[howyadoin]

Why am I always doing this late?
Don't ask.No worries. I'm just finally listening to this album now.

[howyadoin]

Okay, having gone through it again, it just seems... inconsequential to me. The weak, weak vocals are really not doin' it for me at all. And musically I think it'd only work with headphones and a huge amount of drugs. Otherwise it's just background music. Wallpaper. The only time the band seems to wake up is on the final track, and even then they don't exactly rock the joint.

Why would anybody need this if they've already got the Jesus and Mary Chain?

[howyadoin]

Is this really the same band who recorded "Love Spreads"?

[Adam C]

Is this really the same band who recorded "Love Spreads"?

Considering that they spent five years to come up with a follow-up (ample time for guitarist John Squire to become obsessed with Zeppelin)...yes.

Since I haven't heard the album proper, just some songs off it I'll say this, John Squire is not the brilliant guitarist the British music press makes him out to be. He's merely a skilled practitioner of tradition to who came with some particularly great hooks for two memorable songs: "Waterfall" and "Love Spreads."