"The past was yours but the future's mine." As statements of intent go, Ian Brown's proclamation on 'She Bangs The Drums' is rock'n'roll arrogance at its zenith. More significantly, the swaggering claim became fact and the world was - briefly - spinning in the hands of The Stone Roses.
Brown recently commented that The Roses "wanted to finish U2" et al, blasting their contrived, grand posturing into oblivion. This compilation documents how, inevitably, four beautiful, genial and unstoppable amateurs reached for the prize, snatched it, and then let it slip through their fingers. Obviously, U2 still exist, while the extravagantly gifted Roses barely speak to each other, let alone the world. However, even now, the material on this album sounds untouchable, visionary and utterly timeless. Naturally, because these are but some of the intrinsic elements that led The Roses to the pinnacle of pop superstardom and their coronation as Godfathers in the UK cultural revolution at the turn of the 80s.
The tale of The Stone Roses is as profoundly magical as it is sadly predictable, because their glory - and ours - was gone in the blink of an eye, as evidenced by the acute split in material here. Draw a line at 'One Love', when the band blindly decamped to follow the impossible to follow debut album, and you get just four tracks from 'Second Coming'. Eleven precede them. Drawing that line also makes it crystal clear where the brains were blown out of this once in a lifetime band. John Squire and Ian Brown's friendship - if not brotherhood - lay in ruins long before the release of the five years in the making 'Second Coming'. Thus Squire alone takes credit for three of those four tracks. Compare that with the Lennon and McCartney synergy that propelled their rise: In a haze of money, adulation, flares, drugs, court proceedings and egomania, The Stone Roses lost the kinship that had them going ten rounds with The Beatles.
All four of the cuts from 'The Second Coming', notably the Zeppelin/ Messianic bravura of 'Love Spreads' and the sprawling 'Breaking Into Heaven', built a spine for what was, ultimately, a flawed record. Fortunately, the desperate, jamming-for-genius ramblings of some of the album remain silent here. Elsewhere though, this collection is utterly ablaze, torched by the precise, incandescent fountain of sound emanating from Squire, Brown's malevolent yet dazzlingly charismatic presence and the lucid, funk-inflected Mani/Reni rhythmic axis, driving these chiming, neo-psychedelic creations higher and higher.
From the beginning, genius was the fifth member of The Stone Roses. Check the rampant, cocky 'Sally Cinnamon', 'Elephant Stone' and 'What The World Is Waiting For', which is exactly what the world soon got. 'The Stone Roses' is, alongside 'The Velvet Underground and Nico', argueably the greatest debut album of all time. Ripping through these tracks - 'I Wanna Be Adored', 'She Bangs The Drums', 'Waterfall', 'Made Of Stone' - is a musical reflection of Heaven-imbibing glory that few have touched, before or since. Elsewhere, 'This Is The One' and the imperious 'I Am The Resurrection', speak deafening volumes in their titles alone. And that's saying nothing for 'Fool's Gold'.
Spike Island, Brown's 'money' shirt, the infamous 'Late Show' appearance, NME's 'Gothcha' 'Second Coming' expose, the cover of 'Fool's Gold', the bass break in 'I Am The Resurrection'. These moments, and this music, will live with us forever.
