When I curate and reshuffle my 100 best albums … on a far too regular basis – this album is always top 3 if not 1. Maybe it should be Top 100 Most Enjoyable albums because the sheer joy I get every time I hear this is immeasurable.
I appreciate Pet Sounds, Revolver and Exile but this album and the thought that in the previous 12 months the band were on the crest of such an incredible creative wave only adds to the appreciation. For sheer enjoyment I’d pick Leftism, Screamadelica, House of Love or Beyond the Ultraworld any day of the week. When it comes to Killer No Filler you only have to take out Elizabeth to be left with an album of 100% killer.
Clive says
Everyone knows the album. But I adore this remix.
dai says
Not on the UK album in any form. I do like the US version with this song and Fool’s Gold though.
myoldman says
And of the two original versions it has to be the 7” over the 12” for me too
myoldman says
The 7” of Elephant Stone that is (not Fool’s Gold)
fitterstoke says
Top 100 Most Enjoyable Albums? H’mmm…
salwarpe says
That will never work. You’re not meant to enjoy music. It’s there to be appreciated for its mould-breaking and significance.
fitterstoke says
Arf!
Rigid Digit says
Aye, tis is fine thing. And one I came to late.
Ask the 1989 me “who are the bands that will have the longest legacy?” I’d have said (convinced) it would be The Quireboys and/or The Dogs D’Amour.
Yes I was a fool … and when I finally did sit down and listen properly (after the long wait for the second album, which I actually bought and listened to first), I did give myself a proper telling off for being such an arse.
And is it just me that hears an Abba influence in This Is The One?
H.P. Saucecraft says
Probably.
fentonsteve says
I can remember listening to it on the day of release, and the view out of my window onto an unkempt back garden in Bulmershe Road.
The Cure’s Disintigration is also 35 years old today, apparently. Not a bad day’s shopping, that.
What was the shop at the top of the escalator called, Rij? Listen Records, was it?
Rigid Digit says
That’s the one – you were viewed as a serious record buyer on the mean streets of Reading if you had the black bag with the gold writing.
fentonsteve says
The Roses played the Majestic* club not long before the album came out, but during the Easter holidays. I was in Cambridge, working in a factory to earn my next term’s worth of beer and record funds, so I didn’t go. My housemate Ian went, as he regularly remided us for the next year or so.
I finally saw them live at the Rivermead festival after John Squire left, and monkey boy’s voice had departed from standard tuning. After 10 minutes or so I joined the stampede for the exit.
(*) the only thing majestic about it was the name
Vulpes Vulpes says
I am confuse. Don’t you need to have arrived before you can depart?
fentonsteve says
Well, yes, but it started with a tentaive grip on tuning and let go with success. Does Charlie affect the vocal cords, do we know? Is there a doctor in the house?
salwarpe says
Top of the escalator? That would be where I bought Sandinista!
fentonsteve says
Other memorable two-in-one purchases there include The Wonder Stuff’s Hup and Jesus Jones’ Liquidizer.
Why, oh why, do I remember this shit?
Vincent says
Is it really 35 years since “second coming”? I think the arithmetic is wrong.
Podicle says
I’m going to sheepishly admit that my favourite two Stone Roses tracks are on this album (Driving South and Love Spreads) and that I haven’t listened to the debut in a decade.
fitterstoke says
Why sheepish? I agree – and not just to be contrarian. My other half preferred the debut, I preferred the second album – what lively discussions we had over the Horlick…
Fight The Power!
H.P. Saucecraft says
I hated the second on release because we were supposed to. It was set up for a good kicking – “the sound of a band who couldn’t give a toss”. I don’t think anyone stood up for it. It took a long time for me to open up enough to simply enjoy it for what it is. Still play it, and a lot of it is as near fantastic as possible under the circs.
Nick L says
I saw them at Islington’s Powerhaus (I think) not long before the album came out. They weren’t particularly brilliant live but there was a crew of flares wearing Mancs dominating the room and although you could feel the change in the air it felt a bit too alien. I for one wasn’t going to move on from my Smiths albums yet, if ever. The album’s great though.
Clive says
I’ll never forgive my old flat mate
1. For being editor of the Daily Mail and
2. For refusing to go and see them at the Bierkeller in Bristol in 1989 opining that ‘They’re the sort of band that my brother listens to’. Should have gone of my own but that wasn’t a done thing in those days.
dai says
I think it is superb, streets ahead of the follow up, think we discussed it recently and I said they may actually have peaked between the albums with Fools Gold, What the World is Waiting For and (maybe) One Love. My fave on the album is Song for my Sugar Spun Sister
H.P. Saucecraft says
Fun Fact: John Leckie’s brilliant, glistening production was influenced, he said, by Earl Mankey’s production of The Three O’Clock’s “Sixteen Tambourines”, which, this being the A-Word, you might not have heard. And he was surprised that nobody (well, nearly) picked up on it. “Sixteen Tambourines” was issued (and not in the U.K.) six years before the Stone Roses, so I don’t share his surprise, but it is a wonderful album, poppier and more upbeat than the Roses, so you might care to seek it out, or not.
https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2020/08/color-me-three-oclock.html
Vulpes Vulpes says
16 Tambourines is a little gem – and the re-release of their Hoedown EP even has a great Syd Barratt cover added for the CD version.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Michael Quercio’s follow-up bands are pretty damn excellent, too, but for some reason reside in the where-are-they-now file: Jupiter Affect, and Permanent Green Light, both as good as you’d hope, and both much better than that last Three O’Clock album.
dwightstrut says
I always thought the biggest problem with Three O’Clock was Quercia’s rather weedy vocals. OTH, I’ve got to admit he nails this version of The Dream Syndicate’s Tell Me When It’s Over from the 3 x 4 album:
myoldman says
I saw them at the Irish Centre in Brum around the time the album came out and they were brilliant. Not so much at the Newport gig later after the 2nd album when there was a lot of trouble with Swansea and Cardiff supporters.
I bought the album on the day of release because I’d got the early singles before and my 18 year old self was really into my indie guitar bands.
It’s a funny one because it wasn’t a big thing at the time, 7/10 in the NME and a small review. 3 stars in Q and an even smaller review as well. The album seemed to gain traction really fast for a few months after.
Gary says
I’ve yet to find an Italian friend who appreciates it. “Just a typical, average, very English band” is the general reaction I get. For some reason they don’t hear the magic that I hear. Bruce Springsteen does though (https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/exploring-the-strangeness-of-bruce-springsteen-love-for-the-stones-roses/). I read a review somewhere that said the American inclusion of Fool’s Gold at the end “takes the sting out of the tail” that I Am The Resurrection gave it. I only knew the American version at the time and thought (and still think) Fool’s Gold was a perfect way to end a perfect album. I didn’t know until this thread that Elephant Stone wasn’t on the UK version. I’m glad I bought the American one. I wouldn’t lose Elizabeth My Dear. It’s not a fantastic song but I really like the way it totally contrasts with the rest of the album, in a similar way to Damaged on Screamadelica.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Hard to underestimate the impact it made in the U.K. It got everything right, and even the feeble vocals work. Springsteen is a sharp cove, ain’t he? The original album had perfect dynamics – Leckie knew what he was about.
Guiri says
Being a partisan indie kid at the time I took against it because it stole the thunder from my ’88 favourites the House of Love. Fair to say I was wrong.
myoldman says
I’d say I’ve listened to the first House of Love album more than the Stone Roses over the last 30 years.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Go on then.
myoldman says
OK then. I might not!
H.P. Saucecraft says
Can I say it for you?
Jim says
Absolutely wonderful album.
Whereas the follow up was just very, very good.
ClemFandango says
It’s hard to understate the impact this album (and Fools Gold) had on me, and also their interviews of the time as a 16 year old.
Growing up there was still a huge amount of tribalism among my friends inherited from parents, elder brothers and sisters around music. If you liked The Clash then you couldn’t have Jimi Hendrix in your collection. If you liked guitars then you couldn’t like hip hop or house.
The Stone Roses seemed to explode all of that. It was perfectly feasible to mix jangly guitars, reggae basslines, funk, psychedelia, loops into one cohesive whole.
I do appreciate that there were other bands mixing influences at the time (BAD, Age of Chance spring to mind) but the Roses came along just at the right time for me and were also an entry point into a huge amount of hip hop, house, 70’s funk and soul and dub. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my adult experience of music would have been profoundly different (and poorer) without their influence.
Still not convinced? Listen to the playing on Waterfall and on the outro of Don’t Stop. It’s absolutely stunning.
Thegp says
This is one of those albums that has lost its allure through over exposure. I also think the production is very weedy. I know Leckie is meant to be a legend but always sounded a bit tinny to me
A great album but I can’t have listened to it fully for years and years
Pessoa says
I asked the local Our Price to check the stockroom and sell me this album on the morning it was released, making me (perhaps) the first boy in Romford to own the Stone Roses. (It’s a kind of fame.)
As it happens, I don’t feel the urge to listen to it much now
fentonsteve says
I saw my first copy of the semi-mythical ‘stripes over border’ sleeve variant in a shop at the weekend. They were taking offers over a hundred quid.
https://www.discogs.com/release/2725161-The-Stone-Roses-The-Stone-Roses
I politely declined and bought a load of bargain-bin 12″ singles at a quid a pop. Why do record shops always put the bargain bins on the floor? I’m 54, you know, and my knees are not what they once were.
Uncle Wheaty says
A great album and in my all time top 10.
ganglesprocket says
A very important album to me. It was the first time I heard something “first” only for every single wazzock in my school to cotton onto later.
“It’s not fair! I heard them first! They’re MY band. You lot like U2 FFS.”
I remember seeing them in the Barrowlands in Glasgow and every ned in the city was there. It was actually scary. But it was a valuable experience. I knew immediately not to waste my time on Oasis.