The Stone Roses
(14/100 Greatest Albums Ever)

Few records are brass-necked enough to proclaim their genius from the very beginning. But then, few records are so audaciously beautiful as The Stone Roses.
The album opens with one of the greatest riffs ever composed – the slow, majestic chug of 'I Wanna Be Adored'. Gloriously self-aggrandising, this is the sound of The Stone Roses declaring their youthful invincibility. For a debut, The Stone Roses is at once remarkably cohesive and delightfully multi-faceted. If anyone claims to have encountered a song to trump the sunny three-chord shuffle of 'She Bangs The Drums', frankly, they’re having you on.
But The Stone Roses has its deeper moments too. On 'Made Of Stone', the Roses posit the new genre of karmic indie. 'I Am The Resurrection', meanwhile, possesses the reach, scale and thumping arrogance of a biblical epic.
For The Stone Roses' 49-minute duration, the Roses are the greatest band to have ever walked the planet.