Stone Roses 20th Anniversary Edition

Original Producer John Leckie & Ian Brown put in some really hard work on this one. There is so much more bass to this thing now it's unreal. This was one of the first albums I learned on bass & I've had a great time over the last two days playing along with the bass parts while recovering from eye surgery. My neighbors might disagree.

After getting used to the new sound, the next thing I noticed was that Elephant Stone was missing from the album. After snooping around the information superhighway a bit I found out that it was tacked on to the initial US release but never on the original UK track list. This is one of those albums I usually listen to front to back, so the updated track list will take some getting used to. If you have The Complete Stone Roses already then you have nothing to fear as Elephant Stone shows up there.

Disk two is full of demos, in various stages of production. The main thing you notice is that they had their shit together very early on in terms of songwriting. It's all here, minus some of the atmosphere that Leckie brought into the mix. Not really something you'll miss if you opt for the single disk version, the one unreleased track Pearl Bastard sounds like a slowed down version of Sugar Spun Sister. It's easy to see why it hasn't shown up anywhere until now.

The DVD has all of their videos plus a live show from Blackpool. The videos reinforce my theory that Ian Brown must have worn that money shirt for at least a year straight during the early nineties. Watching John Squire during the live show just blows me away. That dude is one hell of a guitar player.

All in all it holds up very well 20 years later. If only Second Coming had been worth the wait....

Update: The official site also lists an uber box set with a 3rd CD full of remastered b-sides, all the audio on vinyl, and a USB key with all the audio + other goodies. Very tempting.


- Coop