Re-issue ! Re-package !

20th anniversary edition of the Stone Roses ........yikes/feeling old :


[www.parisdjs.com]

Twenty years? E-Gads!

The Stones Roses. There have been bands that made one good LP and went right into the crapper. There have been bands that squandered their gifts and opportunities. There have been bands that were briefly HUGE.

The Stones Roses did all three. Very, very well. What a goofy trifecta.

That first CD is still a great listen. I have a German import that's missing "Elephant Stone" towards the start and "Fool's Gold" at the end (got THAT on gold vinyl). Still great tunes all around. "Shoot You Down" is a personal favorite.

On the other hand, "Second Coming" was pure crap.

I had the chance to see Ian Copeland lecture once and he told a great story about The Stone Roses. He offered them, Happy Mondays and some other Manchester bands a chance to play Madison Square Garden on a combination bill. He wanted to call it "Madchester Square Garden." Could have been huge, maybe.

The Stone Roses turned him down because (according to them) they were too big to share the billing with anyone. Insane.

My other Stone Roses story involves an English friend of mine who, when he heard that we were all very high on The Stone Roses, told us that we'd be "right off them" once we'd had a listen to Ride's "Nowhere" LP.

Both were good. Sort of a lazy comparison, really.

Oh. One other memory. In a Melody Maker (or NME ... I forget) interview about the time The Stone Roses were HUGE, David Gedge was asked who his favorite "goth" band was ...

"Would The Stone Roses be too obvious?" was his reply.

Twenty years. E-gads! (slight return)

My first STONE ROSES was the pre-Fool's Gold North American cassette.

I picked it up again in the mid-90s on CD, and it took me a few years to realize it no longer had Elephant Stone on there.

The original UK release had neither of those two songs. That's probably the same with your German copy, Kay.

I've always thought the album works infinitely better ending with Resurrection, and not tacking on FG.

Quote

I've always thought the album works infinitely better ending with Resurrection, and not tacking on FG.

Yup. Who needs TWO extended, funky numbers at the end like that?

That said, "Fools Gold" was in very heavy rotation at a lot of the parties/trip binges I attended ... TWENTY OR SO YEARS AGO! Other UK faves from then included: "Slip Inside This House" by Primal Scream ..."Bob's Yer Uncle" by Happy Mondays ... anything by The Wolfgang Press (the video for "Cut The Tree" remains one of the funniest things I've ever seen under those "conditions") ... and then "Head" by The JAMC always had to get played (just to rattle everybody's cage bars, I guess). My friend Michael would always screech "My Gawd! Nooooooo!" and curl up in the fetal position while that song was "playing."

I know he just LOVED it. He knew it was coming.

Damn. Twenty Years!

:::cue profanity-laden tirade:::

Agree with M Johnson 100%.

I had the orignial cassette, and then the "expanded" cd w/ Fools Gold. Then several years ago I found the original cd without Fools and got rid of my first cd. I think Fools Gold appears on virtually every compilation anyway.

I do like Second Coming however. I was so happy the day it finally came out I paid full retail for it (like $17) without blinking. Played it in my car for a solid week. Haven't listened to it in a while but I don't think its as bad as what most reviewers have to say about it. One of the better albums recorded on cocaine.

I've tried the Stone Roses twice - once when that first album came out (pre-Fool's Gold) and once last year when I happened to find a comp for cheap in a used bin. I have to confess I still don't get it. They're not bad, but I'm not hearing the godlike genius - I didn't then and I don't now. What am I missing?

I held on to that first cassette for years before getting rid of it. The CD comp lasted about a week. I didn't hate it, but I knew I'd never listen to it.

I think for me their appeal was always that their songs had a sense of mystery to them. You were never sure how long an intro or outro was going to be or where the chorus was going to come in, or whether the song was going to be.......um.....backwards.

Plus they were a great contradiction in terms of lyrical content and their stance overall - they came off as something like punk rock hippies. It's a special band that can equate themselves to the Messiah for their forgiveness in not hating someone as much as they should while dropping a line like :

"You're a no-one nowhere washed up baby who'd look better dead"

Thanks to this thread, I just got the first album from my public library. I too failed to get them the first time around, but never bothered to pick up an album to really give them a chance. So what was surprising to me upon finally listening to the disc (the initial reissue with "Fools Gold" at the end) is how unrepresentative that song is of the rest of their sound. I guess "FG" was really the only song of theirs I heard very much at the time and it didn't do much for me (indeed it rather annoyed me), so I didn't inquire further. If I'd heard "This Is The One" or "She Bangs The Drums" at the time, I might well have had a different perception of the band.

Now though, it's all pleasant enough, but certainly doesn't merit any kind of masterwork/landmark designation to me. As suggested above, I'll take Ride any day, lazy comparison or no.