I'm back with another underrated album that more people should know about.
Album: The Stone Roses
Band: The Stone Roses
Year: 1989
Background: The Stone Roses officially formed in 1983, when Ian Brown and Johnny Squire started a band with several other musicians from the Manchester, England area. They would spend the next several years in obscurity, changing lineups several times and writing songs, several of which would ultimately end up on The Stone Roses. By 1987 the lineup had been set, with Brown as lead singer, Squire as guitarist, Gary "Mani" Mounfield on bass and Alan "Reni" Wren on drums.
In Manchester at this time a music scene was beginning to form, and The Stone Roses would prove to be central to it. Ultimately called Madchester or baggy, the scene was influenced by both English bands from the 60's as well as contemporary acts such as The Smiths and New Order and ultimately came to incorporate aspects of 60's British Rock, psychedelia, college rock, and dance music. The sudden prevalence of ecstasy in the area probably also did not hurt the genre's popularity.
The Stone Roses would prove to be this music scene's Nevermind, at least in terms of its genre-defining nature. Unfortunately for the band, the album would not prove to have the chart-topping success of Nevermind: despite having solid reviews from several British magazines, sales were low initially. As the British press began to pay more attention to the Madchester scene, The Stone Roses would gain more popularity in England, but mainstream success in America would ultimately prove beyond reach.
All that's great and all, but is the album any good?: In a word, unquestionably it is a very good album. I don't normally spend much time mulling over rankings of the best albums of all time - music is too subjective for that, and it takes me weeks just to come up with a year-end list, let alone one for all time - but The Stone Roses is in the conversation for greatest debut albums by anyone ever.
What I like about the album, and what drew me to it initially, is that every song (and I mean every song: this is one of those albums without a skippable track) feels familiar and yet still unique. I have always enjoyed the melodies of British pop music, and this album has them in spades. But it takes several of those melodies and crafts them onto some disco-y dance-y grooves. I don't usually associate British pop music with jamming, but on several of these tracks, particularly album (kinda) closer "I am the Resurrection," The Stone Roses are undoubtedly jamming.
The album also has a pleasing eclecticism. There's the aforementioned jamming songs, there's some chill songs, there's some psychedelic songs, there's some English folk-y songs, and there's some upbeat happy dance songs, and through it all there are no shortage of hooks. Interestingly, you would think the inclusion of disco-y dance production from the late 80's would make the songs sound incredibly dated, but to my ears at least, the songs still sound pretty darn good.
Influence: As I said before, this album was incredibly important to the Madchester scene. That scene, consisting of other bands like The Happy Mondays, The Charlatans, and James, may not have made a huge impact in America, but it essentially shaped all British music in the 90's. The Gallagher brothers of Oasis fame, for example, came of age during the Madchester scene, and it had a big impact on them. It's not an exaggeration to say that all of Britpop was at least partially affected by The Stone Roses.
Selections
I Wanna Be Adored
She Bangs the Drums
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