I wasn’t a huge fan but going to university in Manchester in the 1990s, you couldn’t escape them. A lot of their songs became part of the soundtrack to that awkward part of my life between adolescence and adulthood. As a result, I’ve deliberately avoided seeking out the newer singles and their legacy remains untarnished in my mind.
Greatest debut LP ever? Still relevant today- Second Coming great LP also, however how do you top That Debut LP? It is better to have loved than never loved at all.
Second Coming is not a bad album as people make it out to be. Ten Storey Love Song is amazing. It's not the debut, but stands as a great album in it's own right. I think they will eventually follow up again with another single or two and maybe a few concerts in a couple years.
agreed. "Second Coming" is probably a little overlong and had the disadvantage of being measured against one of the greatest albums of all time (/hyperbole) and with so much weight of expectation it couldn't not be some degree of disappointment, but taken entirely on its own merits, it's a pretty good/great rock record.
Ten storey is the one song on second coming that does remind you of the earlier stuff. Perfect guitar pop
I’d be in for another reunion album providing the QC is higher than the web singles. Their first album would be hard to top. I liked the second album as well even if it had a little too much filler.
One of the other great things about the reunion is that it served to wipe from memory the horrible post-Squire and Reni lineup that stunk out the Reading Festival in 1996 with Brown's horrific vocals made even worse by the keyboardist's hollering attempts to get the crowd going and the ridiculous spectacle of the dancers on stage. That was not The Stone Roses.
I know Ian Brown has gone back to solo work but any idea what the other three are doing now? They are all such talented musicians it would be a great pity if they don't do anything.
They’re pretty much disbanded as they liquidised their touring company. I guess there’s always a chance of doing something because usually they are at each other throats in the media. My guess is they’re just keeping the door open. With all the inactivity, I’m just surprised Mani hasn’t returned to Primal Scream. And no reason why he couldn’t have done both jobs as the Roses are the laziest musicians in history. They made a ton of loot from the (pretend) reunion tour, so job done.
explains the lack of reunion live album of full length video. The 13 min live reunion clip on the documentary is jaw dropping. Not too much pro recorded stuff from the reunion circulating.
It's uncommon for a touring company to be wound up once a touring cycle is finished. So that might not in itself be evidence of the Roses packing it in completely. But... in my heart of hearts I don't expect to hear from them ever again. Not at least until Ian Brown becomes short of a few quid again.
If they are not ever going to do anything together again it would be great if any two or three of them could play together. I guess they are just not close enough to do it, but they sound so good instrumentally together. Any kind of Squire/Mani/Reni combination would be brilliant - would love this to happen.
I'd say a 10-year break between reunion go-rounds sounds about perfect to me. Gives the fans some time to recuperate and demand to build up again. Everyone can enjoy their millions, then, if they're still healthy and game, have at it.
Maybe if Reni does not want to do it, or there are problems between him and the rest of the band, they could bring back Robbie Maddix -what do people think of him and that idea? The post-Reni gigs in 1995 before John Squire left seemed to go down well.
I saw them on the ‘95 tour and they were very good but it wasn’t quite the same. I’ve seen them live three times: Spike Island, Wolverhampton Second Coming tour and Madison Square Garden reunion show. All were great in their own way.
Yeah, since they hadn't written together in twenty years, I expected new music was going to be a bumpy process, but "Beautiful Thing" was easily at the level of their classic b-sides.
listen to Robbie Maddix play waterfall, compared to how it should be played. Reni is a bit like Bonham in importance to the band
That's very true. Really the magic of the band is the combination of the classic four members. Both the pre-Mani material (on the Garage Flower album) and the post-Reni tour never reached the heights of what the four members created. What a shame they could never keep it together for more than a short time.
I know Ian Brown has done another solo album but any idea what the other three have been up to since the end of the reunion gigs? It would be such a shame if three such talented musicians have stopped playing.
There has always been a weird, not-entirely functional dynamic within the Roses: -- Ian Brown: all about positivity and raising expectations (yet has a nasty temper) -- Reni: all about sarcasm and deflating expectations -- Squire: prefers not to speak and works best in isolation -- Mani: like Ringo, can see the band from the outside, but suffers for the collective, bows down to bigger egos Even at their peak, The Roses were always totally adrift from mainstream business ideology (groups like Oasis, by contrast, were beholden to it, working and touring like dogs to make hay while the sun was shining). They just don't think/function like normal groups. I think Brown and Mani are the ones most keen to just get on with it, record some tunes, put them out and plug them. But Squire is a perfectionist craftsman, and Reni is a total mystery. Reni actually left back in early '95 when Brown fired him after one altercation too many (and after a bunch of Reni no-shows for interviews and video-shoots). The dynamic between them is, naturally, the most volatile. But in the reunion era, Reni kind of has the others by the knackers, because he knows the reunion can only work/last as long as he is included. The fanbase was never going to be elated by a Roses' reunion without Reni (esp. since most big fans of the group had never seen Reni play live -- he went 22 years between gigs with Stone Roses!). I got the impression that Reni was already halfway out the door (again) by the time 'All For One' (which is dreadful) and 'Beautiful Thing' (decent, but sounds like an Ian Brown solo track with better guitar) were issued. And they really didn't make it easy on the fanbase by putting each out, separately, with cheap-looking packaging, at full price. Does Reni even play on both...? I have some doubts. Like, where are his backing vocals, which used to be essential to the group's sound? By the way, the Madison Square Garden show was competent (which Roses' shows in the US rarely have been!), but a bit over-rated. The best comeback era shows, I think, were: - Jakarta, Indonesia (2013) - Chiba, Japan (2013) - Hong Kong (2012) Brown's vocals were great at all of these (excepting 'Adored' at Chiba, at which I was near the front) -- all better than the New York show. I had a beer with John Squire back in 1997. A very quiet, heavy dude.
