The Stone Roses
The Very Best Of The Stone Roses

THE REVIEW

How strange... releasing a highly successful debut album and then... waiting five years for the follow-up and dissolving shortly after.

Indeed strange for the band that was considered the greatest promise of the English-speaking world in the '90s. A quartet from Manchester, or rather Madchester, the Stone Roses debuted in 1989. They immediately established themselves as the most important group of the first post-Smiths era, thanks to an indie rock contaminated by electronics and jungle rhythms.
They seemed perfect, with a charismatic leader like Jan Brown, a very talented Jon Squire, and a rhythm section with an enviable groove; but something went wrong already during the five-year wait for Second Coming. The follow-up to the successful debut did not meet expectations; that's the problem, the wait was too long because, in the meantime, Blur, Oasis, and many others had already exploded.
Train missed, forever.

Two albums under their belt and a handful of B-sides... and two best!
15 songs in this compilation dated 2002, six years after the official split of the band during which Ian Brown released a couple of albums under his name.
Yet that Fools Gold from 1989 still sounds fresh and danceable today. Great track, with high potential, pure innovation for the time. There are also the Madchester sound portraits like I Wanna Be Adored, which, as it opened Stone Roses, welcomes the compilation: this was the nocturnal vision that contrasted with those jokers, the Charlatans...
Still chills on Made Of Stone, revealing the Smithsian legacy (they had just broken up): a slightly dark melody but ultimately reassuring.

The first album was truly a goldmine of singles: there are also She Bangs The Drums and Waterfall, which is the melodic sister of Ten Storey Love Song. There's clearly also Love Spread, an episode with an excellent rhythmic groove, a very fertile ground for Squire's guitar... in short, many little episodes to rediscover or to get to know, such as some previously unreleased recordings from '87-88.

Not the best band in the world, perhaps the greatest promise of all time.