The Stone Roses

1	I Wanna Be Adored 4:52
2	She Bangs the Drums 3:42
3	Elephant Stone 3:01
4	Waterfall 4:37
5	Don't Stop 5:17
6	Bye Bye Badman 4:00
7	Elizabeth My Dear 0:59
8	(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister 3:25
9	Made of Stone 4:10
10	Shoot You Down 4:10
11	This Is the One 4:58
12	I Am the Resurrection 8:12
13	Fools Gold 9:53

Barnes & Noble

When Manchester's Stone Roses released their eponymous debut album in 1989, British youth were abandoning rock music en masse for acid-house sounds and communal raves. Without resorting to dance beats, Stone Roses effortlessly tapped into this cultural sea-change and almost single-handedly made British rock music hip again. Stone Roses remains forever faultless. The dreamlike opener, "I Wanna Be Adored," and the enthralling conclusion, "I Am the Resurrection," ultimately caused a plague of overconfident Brit youth declaring similar greatness, but coming from the Roses' Jagger-like vocalist Ian Brown, such claims were temporarily justified. Gifted guitarist John Squire, bassist Mani, and drummer Reni all helped set a musical agenda of classic psychedelia married with punk energy and rave swagger, a sound at its best on the pop anthems "She Bangs the Drums" and "Made of Stone," the backward-guitar riffing "Don't Stop," and the raucous "This Is the One." A post-album single, the lengthy and funky "Fool's Gold," was added to later American pressings of Stone Roses and then that was it: the group got famous, became embroiled in law suits, and reemerged only in 1995, with the stodgy and wrongly titled Second Coming. The Stone Roses, however, remains a stellar contribution to the canon of classic debuts. Tony Fletcher

All Music Guide

Since the Stone Roses were the nominal leaders of Britain's "Madchester" scene -- an indie rock phenomenon that fused guitar pop with drug-fueled rave and dance culture -- it's rather ironic that their eponymous debut only hints at dance music. What made the Stone Roses important was how they welcomed dance and pop together, treating them as if they were the same beast. Equally important was the Roses' cool, detached arrogance, which was personified by Ian Brown's nonchalant vocals. Brown's effortless malevolence is brought to life with songs that equal both his sentiments and his voice -- "I Wanna Be Adored," with its creeping bassline and waves of cool guitar hooks, doesn't demand adoration, it just expects it. Similarly, Brown can claim "I Am the Resurrection" and lie back, as if there were no room for debate. But the key to The Stone Roses is John Squire's layers of simple, exceedingly catchy hooks and how the rhythm section of Reni and Mani always imply dance rhythms without overtly going into the disco. On "She Bangs the Drums" and "Elephant Stone," the hooks wind into the rhythm inseparably -- the '60s hooks and the rolling beats manage to convey the colorful, neo-psychedelic world of acid house. Squire's riffs are bright and catchy, recalling the British Invasion while suggesting the future with their phased, echoey effects. The Stone Roses was a two-fold revolution -- it brought dance music to an audience that was previously obsessed with droning guitars, while it revived the concept of classic pop songwriting, and the repercussions of its achievement could be heard throughout the '90s, even if the Stone Roses could never achieve this level of achievement again. Stephen Thomas Erlewine