Featuring CDs, a DVD, a book, art prints, and a USB drive shaped like a lemon The Stone Roses' Debut Album Gets Deluxe Reissue Treatment

The Stone Roses' 1989 self-titled album, a record that's often heralded as one of the greatest debut albums of all time, is set for a major resurrection this summer. On August 11, Silvertone/Legacy will deliver a deluxe 20th anniversary reissue of The Stone Roses in three different packages.

First, there's a single CD "Special Edition" containing the original album, remastered by Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown and producer John Leckie. It contains the original album as well as with the full-length version of "Fools Gold". Then there's a 2xCD plus DVD "Legacy Edition" containing the original album plus a bonus disc of demos plus the Live in Blackpool concert film, shot in 1989.

Finally, there's the mammoth "Collectors Edition", containing everything in the "Legacy Edition" as well as three LPs containing the original album and 13 non-album tracks. Oh, and a 2 GB USB drive shaped like a lemon (you know, like the album cover) containing "all the audio, promo videos, ringtones, wallpapers, plus previously unseen John Leckie home video footage of the recording of "Fool's Gold'," according to a press release. Not to mention a book featuring photos and musings from the band and their cohort as well as people like Noel Gallagher and Mark Ronson. AND six art prints painted by guitarist John Squire for the covers of the album's singles.

Whew. That's a lot of Stone Roses.

Tracklists for each disc listed below:

The Stone Roses:

01 I Wanna Be Adored
02 She Bangs the Drums
03 Waterfall
04 Don't Stop
05 Bye Bye Bad Man
06 Elizabeth My Dear
07 (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister
08 Made of Stone
09 Shoot You Down
10 This Is the One
11 I Am the Resurrection
12 Fools Gold

The Lost Demos:

01 I Wanna Be Adored
02 She Bangs the Drums
03 Waterfall
04 Bye Bye Badman
05 Sugar Spun Sister
06 Shoot You Down (1 version)
07 This Is the One
08 I Am Resurrection
09 Elephant Stone
10 Going Down
11 Mersey Paradise
12 Where Angels Play
13 Something's Burning
14 One Love
15 Pearl Bastard

The B-Sides & Non Album Singles:

01 Elephant Stone
02 Full Fathom Five
03 The Hardest Thing
04 Going Down
05 Guernica
06 Mersey Paradise
07 Standing Here
08 Simone
09 Fools Gold
10 What the World Is Waiting For
11 One Love (Full Length)
12 Something's Burning (Full Length)
13 Where Angels Play

Posted by Amy Phillips on May 7, 2009 at 6 p.m.

was there one character in that post not copypasted from pitchfork, bain?

i hope not

Cool. I love this album.

The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
[Sony; 2009]
10.0

Surly, sullen and fearsomely confident in shaggy hair and baggy jeans, frontman Ian Brown declared on the Stone Roses' eponymous album, "I am the resurrection and I am the light," connecting with a nation of acid-house damaged kids eager to believe in something. As it happens, Brown's arrogance was misplaced and the band's rock stardom a lot shorter-lived than anyone expected. The Stone Roses made a stunning debut, then bled out in a slow agony of contractual disputes, internal discord, and, eventually, public indifference (though their sophomore release and swan song, Second Coming, is nowhere near as bad as people say). More prosaic than drugs or young death, this trifecta killed a career that now essentially consists of just one great record.

But the story of The Stone Roses is really a tale of two records, divided by an ocean. As Sony (which now owns original label Silvertone) rolls out a remastered version in celebration of the album's 20th anniversary, Brits wrestle with what's become a cultural crucible. When a record's aura or associations, rather than its content, begins dominating discussions-- especially when a nation routinely votes it one of rock history's best-- clothing-deprived-emperor jive usually isn't far behind. And the fact that the former idols have had the bad grace to survive into their forties and release a string of middling yet well-promoted solo albums hasn't boosted the The Stone Roses' reputation at home.

We Americans are relatively unencumbered (though it'll be fun to see if Nevermind incites as much hair-tearing when it hits 20 in two years). The Roses, and the "Madchester" scene with which they were loosely associated, never translated to the U.S. beyond modern rock radio and late-night MTV. They also failed to hugely impact an underground hostile to anything that implied feet were made for more than propping up a body so it could sip beer and look bored. Many prominent American critics didn't champion the Roses, either. "What do [the Stone Roses] do that the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield didn't do better in 1967?" Robert Christgau wondered in The Village Voice, typifying the Boomer establishment's predictable position on a band of GenXers cheeky enough to remind them, "the past was yours, but the future's mine."

To answer Christgau's question, what the Stone Roses did better was marry smart psychedelic pop to dance grooves in an incredibly accessible and powerful way that appealed both to rock and rave fans, lovers of hooks and beats, punks and people who actually welcomed 10-minute guitar solos. If influence matters, the album influenced scores of other bands, including Spiritualized, Primal Scream (which bassist Mani joined after the Roses collapsed), the Manic Street Preachers, the Beta Band, the Libertines, and, as the Gallagher brothers have never missed an opportunity to assert, Oasis. And unlike most of the Madchester bands, the Roses weren't only about a sound, a vibe, or a scene. They owned a clutch of insanely catchy, emotionally nuanced, lyrically astute songs about love, lust, youth, and raging ambition that didn't require a historical context to understand or embrace. Exploding the false dichotomy of album band/singles band, The Stone Roses is a logical, cohesive album made up of incredible stand-alone songs.

To wit, "She Bangs the Drums", "Waterfall", "Made of Stone", "(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister", and "Fool's Gold" (a later single that was appended to the original U.S. release and, unlike fellow longtime U.S. add-on "Elephant Stone", reappears on the reissue), would make stellar radio hits in any decade. Brown's vocals, guitarist John Squire's intricate fingerwork and mighty riffs, and rhythm section Mani and Reni's sly, lockstepping grooves, are a textbook case of the whole far exceeding its components. Even "Elizabeth, My Dear", a notorious monarchy smackdown set to "Scarborough Faire"'s half-millennium-old melody, was ballsy then and remains deliciously tart today.

But queen-bashing and other acts of symbolic resistance aside ("Bye Bye Badman" and Squire's abstract expressionist cover art reference the 1968 student protests that uprooted France's political and cultural establishments), The Stone Roses isn't a radical, or even particularly progressive, work: From its verse-chorus-verses, to its meticulous overdubs and careful sequencing, to its revival-- however cleverly repurposed-- of hoary old rock myths ("I don't have to sell my soul/ He's already in me"), the album is a slick production designed for maximum market penetration. And for something that signaled a generational handoff, it's awfully invested in the previous generation's specious valorization of The Album, not to mention the hippie values inscribed in psychedelia (on this point at least, Christgau was correct).

Nobody, therefore, need be put out by Sony's splashy remarketing campaign. The 20th anniversary edition is available in four formats, from a standard single CD or vinyl set to a $120 "collector's" box of four discs, four vinyl LPs, and such extras as signed prints of Squire's artwork, a lemon-shaped USB, wallpaper, and ringtones. I can't recommend dipping into your rent money to buy that thing, but $30 for the elegantly designed deluxe edition, which includes the remastered album, a disc of demos, a DVD with live footage and videos (most of which are lame pastiches of said live footage), and a booklet of band member reminiscences, seems fair to fans. Largely lacking the funk that snuck into the studio, the demos are still a phenomenal bunch of tunes (including some that didn't make final cut) that should finally put to rest rumors that the Roses were nobodies who came out of nowhere. The demos also officially confirm that, left to his own devices, Brown sings about as well as you do on a shit-faced midnight karaoke dare. But hey, he cleans up nicely. In fact, Brown's brooding, beautiful self-harmonies on the album may be one of producer John Leckie's finest achievements.

Leckie teamed up with Brown to remaster the LP, which, produced at the tail-end of the vinyl era, lacked some range at the low end and suffered from its tin-timbred late-80s drum sound, among other issues. Now, the infamous bassline that opens "I Wanna Be Adored" has an even more thrilling anticipatory deep-earth rumble; instead of slaps, "She Bangs the Drums"' beats pack actual punches; and the originally muddy textures of a song like "Made of Stone" are brighter and broader-spectrumed, with crisp chiming guitars and lustrous basslines. The record industry has whipped itself into a frenzy of last-ditch, cash-grabbing CD reissues lately, but the original Stone Roses actually merited a sound overhaul. And the results are brilliant, further supporting the case for classic album status-- if support's needed.

— Amy Granzin, September 11, 2009

If someone said 'this is the best debut album of all time', I wouldn't agree but would respect their statement.

i got this:

Quote:

CD 1: LP (original album remastered)

1. I Wanna Be Adored
2. She Bangs The Drums
3. Waterfall
4. Don't Stop
5. Bye Bye Badman
6. Elizabeth My Dear
7. Song For My Sugar Spun Sister
8. Made Of Stone
9. Shoot You Down
10. This Is The One
11. I Am The Resurrection

CD 2: The Extras

1. Elephant Stone (12" version)
2. Full Fathom Five
3. Hardest Thing, The
4. Going Down
5. Guernica
6. Mersey Paradise
7. Standing Here
8. Simone
9. Fool's Gold (full length version)
10. What The World Is Waiting For
11. One Love (full length version)
12. Something's Burning (full length version)
13. Where Angels Play

CD 3: The Lost Demos

1. I Wanna Be Adored
2. She Bangs The Drums
3. Waterfall
4. Bye Bye Badman
5. Sugar Spun Sister
6. Shoot You Down
7. This Is The One
8. I Am Resurrection
9. Elephant Stone
10. Going Down
11. Mersey Paradise
12. Where Angels Play
13. Something's Burning
14. One Love
15. Pearl Bastard [demo/previously unreleased]
16. Hidden track 1
17. Hidden track 2
18. Hidden track 3
19. Hidden track 4
20. Hidden track 5

cd 2 is fantastic

btw, Fools Goold must be the top feel-good song ever

i may have to pick this up, i seem to be a sucker for reissues. one of my favorite albums of my college years (admittedly not very long ago).