Is The Stone Roses really the greatest debut album of all time?
Not surprisingly, opinion remains split. In the red corner are those who would have the Mancunians down as a bunch of irritable slackers, incapable of putting together a consistently good live show or, once they had made this debut, following it up. The blue corner, the more vociferous, begs to differ – and has far more armoury to its arguments. For this is one of those records that doesn’t necessarily need any musical prowess to prove its worth. Ian Brown took a long time to develop as an assured vocalist in terms of pitch, but his vocal emotion was there in bucketloads from the off – and nobody else could have sung these songs with such feeling. And there’s the appeal. The Stone Roses connect emotionally and directly, without even trying. Try listening to I Wanna Be Adored without singing either the vocal line or John Squire’s exquisite guitar counter-melodies. If you can’t, you’ll probably find you’re air drumming to Mani instead. As statements of intent go on album opening tracks,
