The Stone Roses

No bid for rock'n'roll immortality can hope to succeed unless the aspirants are well-versed in the dictum of Arrogance Is Next To Godliness.

Sure, everybody likes a well-behaved pop star to appear now and again, even if only for the simple reason that you can point at the telly and say to your parents "Look, they're not all drug-crazed, drunken deviants", whereupon you immediately retire to your bedroom and stick on the sleaziest scumbag to hand and applaud yourself for striking another blow for Us Against Them. No-one truly interesting ever became rich and famous by putting the interests of others (and that always includes other members of The Chosen One's band) before their own, the best rock'n'roll acting as an affirmation of Ego on the part of the performer for the benefit of the listener. Which brings us to the Stone Roses.

Opening your debut album with a song called 'I Wanna Be Adored' is an inspired move. Even before a word is sung or a note played the impression is created that The Stone Roses' manifesto is unlikely to include a clause bestowing goodwill to all men and rain forests, and even if they do care they'd probably tell you to fuck off if you asked them, an impression reinforced by the tune itself. The guitars wrap around each other with menacing determination while Ian Brown drawls the title with a lethargic lasciviousness worthy of a young Jagger, not begging but bragging. A pity then that The Stone Roses don't come close to recapturing the thrill of the opener on the rest of the record.

The snotty arrogance which confirms 'I Wanna Be Adored' as one of the moments of the year (so far) only rarely shines through its ten companion-pieces, John Squire's guitar-work providing the main highlights on an album which at times sound as if it's an end-of-term project for a course on British Psychedelia '65 - '67. 'She Bangs The Drums' and 'Waterfall' drift past in a not-unpleasant manner before the first real bummer crops up, 'Don't Stop' being merely the back track to 'Waterfall' played backwards with a sparse, ad-libbed vocal thrown over the top; a pointless and annoying exercise – which spoils the effect of the following 'Bye Bye Badman', the album's second standout.

Over on Side 2 things look promising with a brace of beautifies in '(Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister' and 'Made Of Stone' before The Stone Roses run out of ideas completely and resort to ye-olde-freake-oute-longe-guitare-worke-oute on 'I Am The Resurrection' to get them to the end safely, if tediously. Although in interviews, and sporadically on this record, The Stone Roses conduct themselves with the brattish braggadocio of true contenders they've still a long way to go to thoroughly establish their own identify in a field which was more-or-less defined by The Byrd on 'Younger Than Yesterday' and 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers', both recently re-issued on Edsel. Yes, that is a recommendation.