Just as The Clash released London Calling in the dying weeks of 1979, thus making it ineligible for the album of the decade (the 1980s), so too did The Stone Roses miss out on having the album of the decade for the 1990s, when they released their eponymous album in 1989 - 10 years ago this week. If ever a band presaged the sound of Primal Scream's Screamadelica, the better bits of Oasis and so many dance/rock crossover successes of the decade, it's The Roses and sorry, there is no argument.
With Fool's Gold back in the indie charts with yet another remix and with Silvertone re-releasing The Stone Roses as a special 10th anniversary package, the time would seem ripe for a press conference to confirm the rumours that The Stone Roses are re-forming. Than again, timing has never been The Roses' strong point - this is a band who spent five years in a studio working on 12 songs.
If you're thinking that there are more worthy contenders for an album of the decade nod, just bear in mind that, like albums such as Revolver and Blood On The Tracks, the work should be able to stand up independently of the musical context in which it was released. A lot is made of the argument that The Stone Roses album only does so well in the polls because it's such a nostalgia trip for the Spike Island generation, and that people only listened to it when they were on Ecstasy. Balderdash, I say, in an expurgated sort of way.
I only saw The Roses play live once, in the Brixton Academy about two years ago. Reni had left but John Squire was still there. They opened with I Wanna Be Adored, followed by She Bangs The Drums and Made Of Stone - an impossibly brilliant start.
Things did get a bit ropey when they went deep into Second Coming territory (seven-minute guitar solos, etc.), but then this is a band who can pull songs such as Elephant Stone, Mersey Parade or Fools Gold out of the back catalogue whenever they want. And why Ian Brown as a front-man hasn't sued Liam Gallagher for total appropriation of image, I'll never know.
From the same weird primordial Manchester musical soup as The Smiths (most of The Roses could also have played football for Ireland), the band were first picked up by Rough Trade's Geoff Travis, who paid for their early demos but passed them on to Silvertone - "the biggest mistake of my career". There were always signs of greatness, even as far back as one of the very early singles, Sally Cinnamon (1987). Any doubts of a false dawn were completely dispelled by the quite amazing follow-up single, Elephant Stone, a song that in mood and sentiment belonged to the classic days of the 1960s and not to a dreary estate in a city that had just lost Joy Division and The Smiths and was busy inventing the FM radio monster that was Simply Red.
Again, it's best to ignore all the trite, fashion labels which were flitting around at the time: "baggy" and "Madchester" along with "E" and "Raves" may have been the stories of the day for the style rags, but The Roses always had more in common with Jackson Pollock and Roger McGuinn than Shaun Ryder and Tony Wilson. The band who once had the knowing audacity to call one of their songs What The World Is Waiting For, let no one down with their debut album in April 1989. Ten sublime songs (not a filler among them) with biblical lyrics, sweetly chiming guitars and the sort of drum sound that most bands need a machine to produce, ensured their place in musical history, and when the band followed up with new material of the calibre of Fools Gold and One Love, the question being asked was "just how good can they get?"
Enter the music industry stage left, and witness the slow, painful ruination of the band. Legal battles and drug problems combined to keep them from releasing a follow-up album for five years, and when it arrived The Second Coming left many bitterly disappointed - in their absence the band had discovered Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, and things were never the same again. First Reni left, then John Squire, then Mani. Squire formed The Seahorses, a band so plodding they make Ocean Colour Scene sound like The Prodigy, Ian Brown had (and has) a moderately successful solo career, Mani joined Primal Scream and Reni is nowhere to be seen.
With The Seahorses now broken up, Ian Brown out of jail and Mani issuing conciliatory statements, there is talk of a reunion, even though unlike other bands, they don't have a massive tax bill to pay off. A reunion, though, is not - in their own words - what the world is waiting for. They were once the greatest band in the world. Best leave it like that.
The Stone Roses has just been reissued on the Silvertone label.
