extracted
from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"
and just because there's a lot of stuff flying around about the
anniversary of Britpop....
The Stones Roses-Don’t Stop-The Stone
Roses
There are
times that when listening to particular records specific, precise memories are evoked
and for an instant you are transported back in time. Proustian. Hearing just a
few stray notes or an odd chord sequence is all that is needed. It was a
Saturday in December 1990. I was driving to Southport, in a blue Ford Fiesta,
along the back roads at 8.30 in the morning. A crisp, clear, dry winter day.
The fields either side of the road had a faint mist hovering over them and whilst
the sun was too weak and hazy to burn anything away, what had been thick,
muffling fog an hour earlier, was slowly dissipating. There were hardly any
other cars on the road and I took corner after corner at speed, but not overly
excessively, keeping up a smooth and steady rhythm. I was only having to touch
the brakes lightly now and then. I had one cassette to listen to. This Stone
Roses album was on one side and The House of Love’s debut on the other although
I kept playing the Stone Roses over and over again. I remember taking one bend
at about 50 mph, swooping and dipping, picking the perfect moment to accelerate
out of it as “(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister” came on. It was a perfect moment
with a perfect song from a perfect album.
Well,
that’s what I thought back then. And for a long time afterwards. Maybe I’d
bought into all the hype about the Stone Roses and particularly this album.
(Not maybe-definitely). I’d read all the glowing reviews (all 5 stars etc), and
that they were the future of rock and roll. I really did like the album, but in
retrospect I wonder how much of it was due to genuinely liking it for what it
was and how much was due to the overwhelming critical acclaim? At the time of
its release it was already being spoken about as one of the greatest albums of
all time; and even now it’s still up there in those lists so beloved of the
music press. If their first album was so good, then the follow- up was destined
to be a just as good, if not better. But, as such things tend to go, they
pissed around for ages and ages and took over 5 years to release it. At the
time, I tried to convince myself that it was a good album, but it was
self-delusion. All it was was the sound of too much time and too many drugs.
They split up afterwards in a storm of acrimony, though I still had the first
album filed under “all-time-classics” in my mind.
Not having
played it for the longest time, it was only upon hearing of their totally
unexpected (and not for any financial gain at all oh no it’s all for artistic
reasons) reunion in 2012, that I dug it out and gave it another spin. I did
expect that I’d be returning to an old favourite and wondering why I’d taken so
long to get back to it. It would be as if I’d be reunited with an old friend.
Two songs in though, it was more like being reunited with a boring relative who
goes on and on and on about events in the past. I couldn’t believe how insipid it all
sounded. There were odd flashes here and
there, but it was the sound of filler that surprised me. My memory of something
light and sparking was, in reality, replaced by the sound of plodding and
obviousness.
Overall?
Don’t stop?
Do please stop.
I’m so glad that you did and I just wish you’d never started again.
Overall?
Don’t stop?
Do please stop.
I’m so glad that you did and I just wish you’d never started again.
Get/.see/read the rest of Totally Shuffled here:
Kindle e book:
Paperback:
and this is what it's all about.....
One track per
day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553. From the
obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). From the
sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse). From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music
to The Monkees. From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz,
classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between. This is what I
listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to
hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some
artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of
critical kicking. There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops,
prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that
I’d completely forgotten about. But with 40 years of listening to music, I
realised that I’ll never get sick of it.
I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but
I’ll never fall out of love with music.
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