For my sugar spun sister

December 15, 2008 1:19 PM

The Stone Roses are set to reform. It's almost 20 years since they released their extremely fine album creatively titled The Stone Roses. The band that was a big part of the Madchester movement have been bumping into each other at Manchester United games and no doubt seeing the money that the footballers are making decided it was time to regroup. The rumours are not certain, but some say it is 75 percent likely and media reports everywhere indicates it is probably happening.

What's next, a guru Josh remix? Oh, Got one

posted by sien (54 comments total)

Fab band. Their debut was voted Best Album Ever in the Observer's music poll a few years back. And if they re-form now, the next album should be ready for release in 2015.

Hey, did I just manage to get the first snark into a thread? Another lifetime ambition achieved...
posted by MinPin at 1:23 PM on December 15, 2008

I didn't think anybody outside of the Stone Roses still cared about the Stone Roses. That first record was decent, but in the five years it took for the second album they forgot how to write songs.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 1:38 PM on December 15, 2008

I guess John Squire got over his "I'm no longer interested in music" thing :-)
this is great news!
posted by sineater at 1:39 PM on December 15, 2008

p.s. I like Second Coming better than the first album
posted by sineater at 1:40 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

I guess John Squire got over his "I'm no longer interested in music" thing :-)
this is great news!

No no, if you listen to his latest solo work, you'll see he's still painfully uninterested.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:41 PM on December 15, 2008 [3 favorites]

This is terrible news. They will be awful.
posted by MrMerlot at 1:44 PM on December 15, 2008

I'll believe it when I see it, and I'll never see it. I don't want to see it. I love that first record more than Jesus loved virgins and there is absolutely no fucking way they'd be able to recapture 1/100th of the charm of the Roses circa 1989. The band died a slow, sad death & it's best that they stay gone.
posted by item at 1:48 PM on December 15, 2008

Jesus fucking christ. Twenty years? That's it. I'm more middle-aged than Tolkien.
posted by stet at 1:52 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Reunion tours are the fool's gold of popular music.
posted by googly at 1:57 PM on December 15, 2008 [4 favorites]

I also doubt this, but will happily eat my words if Ian Brown comes around.

Also, Ahem.
posted by Adam_S at 2:02 PM on December 15, 2008

> I like Second Coming better than the first album

I'll give you Love Spreads, Begging You, Driving South and (maybe) Ten Story Love Song, but as for the rest of the album...wait, was there more to that album?

Add me to the doubters...I never saw The Stone Roses live, but I had some friends who did. Friends who were absolutely maniacal fans of the band. And these friends did not have very good things to say about the gigs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:07 PM on December 15, 2008

The Stone Roses are without a doubt the worst band I have ever seen live. It is saying something that it was even worse than the Television gig I went to in Glasgow where they tuned up for 45 minutes and then fucked off with barely a tune played.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 2:17 PM on December 15, 2008

I only saw them once, at the Reading Festival 96 (linked earlier by Item). My abiding memories are of a dreadful performance, particularly from Ian Brown, and audience members leaving in tears.

They've disappointed their fans too often, IMO. A reunion tour will be just more of the same.
posted by daveje at 2:19 PM on December 15, 2008

Baaaa. There should be a requirement that bands quit while they're ahead.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:19 PM on December 15, 2008

I went to see Australian Pink Floyd this summer. They were note perfect with respect to the albums, they talk to each other, the bass player's not a complete c*** and they don't play any of that shit from the 80s. All in all they're a far more satisfactory experience than the real thing could ever be.

Similarly, The Clone Roses.
posted by vbfg at 2:25 PM on December 15, 2008

If they come to Coachella, and they perform as badly as the Happy Mondays abortion that broke my heart two years ago, I swear I will burn Manchester to the fucking ground.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 2:27 PM on December 15, 2008

So many doubters, but you know you'd love to see them play in a small club and really go nuts. Reunions are always a little disappointing, but less so when the band was really short lived and hasn't ever played outside of its first few years. So I guess I'm giving this about a 50-50 shot of being really cool but on the whole I'm not too optimistHOLYSHITOMG THE GORIES ARE GETTING BACK TOGETHER OMG OMG WOWOWOWOOW!!!!!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2008

Their debut was voted Best Album Ever in the Observer's music poll a few years back.

It was also voted #4 out of 100 Greatest British Albums Ever in 1998 in Q magazine, in 2000 it received the "greatest album ever" award at the NME Premier Awards show, and in 2006, the music magazine ranked the album number 1 in its "100 Greatest British Albums Ever" list. And to me, it sounds like flavorless, posturing twaddle.

I really wish there was a three-decade cut-off point when it came to these silly BEST ALBUM EVAR lists.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:02 PM on December 15, 2008

Jimi Page is pulling a page out of Joe Satriani's playbook and suing them for "Break Right into Heaven."
posted by Chuffy at 3:08 PM on December 15, 2008

Oops, that's "Breaking into Heaven." But whatever...it's a total Stairway ripoff and they're gonna get sued.
posted by Chuffy at 3:10 PM on December 15, 2008

Oh nevermind. I'm too tired...it's not even funny. The Stairway ripoff is "Tears." Can I just delete my post?
posted by Chuffy at 3:11 PM on December 15, 2008

holy crap.

i have no interest in seeing them live.

but if they record something. I can definitely be interested.

They were great.
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 3:20 PM on December 15, 2008

Huh? I did what?
posted by stonerose at 3:24 PM on December 15, 2008 [4 favorites]

Reunions are always a little disappointing...

Not always. The first Chicago show of the Buzzcocks reunion ranks as one of my two favorite shows ever. And seeing Didjits at the Touch and Go 25th Anniversary Block Party kicked my ass more than I ever imagined it would.

And I didn't even think the Stone Roses debut was one of the best albums of 1989. Maybe you had to be in the UK during the media frenzy to catch the momentum, but as someone in the US who was picking NME and other British music rags at the time - I really WANTED to believe. I loved a few songs, but as an album it fell sort of flat. I was genuinely surprised to see the love of that album continue past the turn of the century. I would have sworn that they'd be relegated to the "Oh my god, I remember them!" status.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 3:24 PM on December 15, 2008

Maybe you had to be in the UK during the media frenzy to catch the momentum, but as someone in the US who was picking NME and other British music rags at the time - I really WANTED to believe.

That's the thing about that album, it was definitely of its time and place. It captured a mood, and the people who vote it the best album evarr are, by and large, the people who were off their tits on pills for that entire summer.
posted by vbfg at 3:34 PM on December 15, 2008 [4 favorites]

Who's next on the list? Van Halen?
posted by Vindaloo at 3:35 PM on December 15, 2008

Reunions are always a little disappointing...

I dunno. People are pretty happy about Halford and Dickinson returning to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, respectively, and the live shows seem to get good reviews.
posted by rodgerd at 3:41 PM on December 15, 2008

We'll always have Fool's Gold, Waterfall and Ian Brown being a dipshit fighty lout. This new album will no doubt be irrelevant garbage. Rock is a young man's game, gents.
posted by Burhanistan at 3:45 PM on December 15, 2008

As a band, Stone Roses sucks donkeys, they really do. I remember buying tickets to go see them in Nagoya, Japan in the summer of '95. I got up early to take the highway bus three hours in from the boonies where I was living. This was pre-Internet Japan, and tt was to be my first exposure to western pop culture in almost one year. We got stuck in a traffic jam, made it to the Meitetsu bus terminal, found the right subway line to get out to the Nagoya Dome. We walked up the stairs to street level and were greeted by a sign: show canceled. That fucker John Squire had broken his collar bone mountain biking in California and couldn't play. All that for nothing.

We ended up getting drunk at a beer garden on top of a skyscraper, so I suppose I'll always have that memory.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:48 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

We ended up getting drunk at a beer garden on top of a skyscraper, so I suppose I'll always have that memory.

From the sounds of things, that was probably preferable to seeing the Stone Roses play live.
posted by hnnrs at 4:07 PM on December 15, 2008

Never saw the Stone Roses live, I've seen Ian Brown but that wasn't very exciting except it was at Glastonbury one of the years it didn't rain. I liked the first album, don't really know much after that. They were big when it came out, but I was into My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, Ride, Happy Mondays - all of whom I did get to see live. So fuck reunions. I was also big into the Pixies, who I saw three times when they were a real band, and twice as a reunion band - so double fuck reunions. The impression I get is that bands hate their fans even more when they reform - that's fucking thick.
posted by Elmore at 4:39 PM on December 15, 2008

I wanna be adored again!
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 4:39 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

...the people who vote it the best album evarr are, by and large, the people who were off their tits on pills for that entire summer.

Well, I was completely on my tits on no pills at all that entire summer, and I still think it's a great album. So de gustibus et cetera?
posted by The Tensor at 5:09 PM on December 15, 2008

One of a handful of British bands that were fun at the time, but I don't see the point in dredging up the past.
Aside from the money, of course.
posted by 2sheets at 5:09 PM on December 15, 2008

But will the drummer wear that Gilligan hat?
posted by bwg at 5:37 PM on December 15, 2008

Reunions are always a little disappointing...

Pixies reunion shows in Boston and Cleveland both were pretty awesome. Bauhaus in Cleveland was good despite Peter Murphy's scary mustache. But that's me...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:45 PM on December 15, 2008

If you like the sound of the Madchester era bands, filtered through a more modern one with slightly artier tendencies I cannot recommend enough....

WORKING FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE CITY

(whom I believe are also Mancunians)

And hey, here comes some right now...


Here

Be

Videos

Rawwr!
posted by Senor Cardgage at 5:57 PM on December 15, 2008

20 years? Holy shit.
posted by fshgrl at 6:09 PM on December 15, 2008

P.S. If we're doing requests I'd like to see a Rubyhorse reunion tour please.
posted by fshgrl at 6:18 PM on December 15, 2008

Manchester has managed to cope without them.
posted by mandal at 7:16 PM on December 15, 2008

And they really did suck live.
posted by mandal at 7:18 PM on December 15, 2008

I tried listening to the album while off my tits on pills and didn't like it much. Same with Primal Scream. Guitars have no place in ecstasy music. This was 10 years after it came out, though.
posted by empath at 7:22 PM on December 15, 2008

The Stone Roses were douchebag cockrock in 1989 and they remain that now.

Up next, Baby Flamehead!

And, you know, your favorite band sucks.
posted by intermod at 7:43 PM on December 15, 2008

Count me in as another who will believe it when I see it.

There was a period of about 2 years solid in which I don't think I went a single 24-hour period without listening to the first album at least once. As slack-a-go-go mentions, though, I think this has something to do with the fact that I was living in England during the height of the madness ('89-90). I remember once taking the train from Norwich to London and, while walking down the aisle to the buffet car, could hear the tinny sounds of various tracks off that album escaping from nearly everyone's earphones. The whole culture felt awash in that album. It was inescapable and glorious.

This is the part where I mention that I saw them twice: once at Spike Island in '90, and once in Chicago at Lolapalooza (or some quasi-Lolapalooza event) c. 1995, after Second Coming had, well, come. They were mediocre the first time; tragic the second. Spike Island was also notable for the fact that it was the first time I ever heard the Charlatans' "The Only One I Know," which kept being blasted over the sound system while we lolled about getting drunk in the field all day. When I met Tim Burgess (from the Charlatans) recently and told him that story, he laughed and said, "yeah, we couldn't even be at Spike Island because we were playing a gig somewhere. But then no one turned up... because they were all at Spike Island, weren't they?"

I have to admit I always kind of admired that devilish little bastard Ian Brown for becoming a vocalist. Lesser mortals would have thought that being as tone deaf as a fucking wooden post would hinder such a career choice. But not Ian Brown!
posted by scody at 8:07 PM on December 15, 2008

Do me a favor. Go to Fabchannel and watch the Brand New Heavies concert (BHN has been slogging it out for almost 20 years, put out numerous albums and seem to give two shits about their shows - which are great - and their music). Then try again to tell me why I should give a fuck about some brit band who put out one album and couldn't muster enough energy to put on at least a good live show? Legends my ass. All sizzle and no fucking steak.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:35 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

No.
posted by kink at 10:30 PM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Do me a favor. Go to Fabchannel and watch the Brand New Heavies concert

Radness! Thanks for this.
Didnt realize that they were still around.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:50 PM on December 15, 2008

No.

Oh, yes!

Radness! Thanks for this.
Didnt realize that they were still around.

Word, my brother. N'Dea is the best and of all the reunions I was happy about, this was it.

Now my vitriol isn't against the Stone Roses per se but against the idea that they somehow captured lightning is a bottle and that OMG THER'LL NEVAR BE ANOHTER BNAD LIKE THEM!11. I have their music and it is good. No qualms there. However, I'd be hard pressed to put it in the top 50 of my collection. Sentences like this make me barf:

"I'm already drafting a letter to my grandchildren telling them that I saw The Stone Roses at the Hacienda."

Hopefully his grandchildren will turn up their iPods and tune him out. If the music is good, it will stand the test of time and not sit there like some fucking Shroud of Turin behind velvet ropes. And if the Stone Roses come back and kick some serious ass, well.... that'd be great too.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:10 PM on December 15, 2008

Well, I was completely on my tits on no pills at all that entire summer, and I still think it's a great album.

I didn't mean what I said in a derogatory way at all. I think it's a great album too and I was off my tits on pills for a good proportion of that summer, but I really don't think it deserves the god like status it seems to have acquired since then. All I mean to say is nostalgia can be one the most powerful drugs.
posted by vbfg at 11:37 PM on December 15, 2008

EVERYONE STOP SAYING "OFF TITS ON PILLS!"
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:30 AM on December 16, 2008

It's the correct medical term.
posted by vbfg at 1:26 AM on December 16, 2008 [3 favorites]

I'm still in love with the Stone Roses first album. Utter magic. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to see them live. Also unfortunately, I have seen both John Squire and Ian Brown solo live performances. Both seem to labour under the misapprehension that they can sing. Also, Brown is an utter twat who I refuse to pay to see again.

On the other hand, tribute band The Complete Stone Roses always put on a great show, note perfect and probably about 10-20% of what you would pay to see a reformed Roses.
posted by Jakey at 3:08 AM on December 16, 2008

The Stone Roses' Spike Island gig was the only notable thing to happen in my home town in my life, and I managed to be somewhere else. So I suppose there is a silver lining.
posted by biffa at 3:42 AM on December 16, 2008

Mani still plays the bass super expertly.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 4:13 AM on December 16, 2008