The Poll Is A Terrible Thing To Take: Which Of These 1989 Albums That Kulkarni Thinks Are Better Than The Stone Roses' Debut, Do You Rate The Most?

Uh almost all of them.

Yeah really (cept the metal ones).

Oh wait the most. Probably Spacemen 3.

Fuck, I thought my first ever poll would be air tight.

Yeah, I meant rate the most.

Fuck it.

Five more off the top of my head I don't like Stone Roses album very much so this isn't too hard.

Voivod's Nothingface
Barry Adamson's Moss Side Story
Souled American's Flubber
Galaxie 500's On Fire
Mekon's Rock N Roll

Playing With Fire Playing With Fire Playing With Fire

No, wait. Paul's Boutique.

No, WTF am I saying? Playing With Fire.

Paul's Boutique closely followed by Playing With Fire and De La. still a pretty great album, def better than some of the rap and metal on this list (3rd Bass? gtfo)

It's better than that Ministry album too probably.

Slick Rick

cld never get into 'i'

my favorite up there is the jungle brothers, but i like most of the things on that list more than the stone roses album. i did like the stone roses album though.

and i like the stone roses album more than:

spacemen 3 (my least favorite spacemen 3 album)

fugazi (i like most things more than fugazi)

prince batman soundtrack

bdp ghetto music

i've never heard the ar kane or stereo mcs thing.

my second fave thing up there is young gods. then probably ministry. then pixies. then godflesh. then cactus album. then altars of madness. (just based on how much i have played all of them over the years.)

Beastie Boys, of the ones I know

loved this review btw

i bought 11 of those albums when they came out that year. 12 if you count the roses.

cld never get into 'i'

:-/

De La Soul pretty easy but considered contrarian vote for 3rd Bass and not-really-contrarian-but-come-on vote for EPMD. Anyway these are all better than the Stone Roses, obv.

Spacemen 3 'Playing With Fire'

"Doolittle". But none of them are even close to the greatness of "The Stone Roses".

Paul's Boutique. Or Three Feet High. Gotta stick up for the metal on there. Streetcleaner is awesome and I see no reason why fans of Swans or Big Black wouldn't dig it. Kulkarni was always a big fan of Sepultura and he was right dammit!

Also registering write-in votes for The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech, Peace and Love and Phorward which shd be on this list.

Would vote for the Young Gods out of those. Things I'd add to the list off the top of my head would probably be Kate Bush (The Sensual World), Loop (Fade Out) and the Blue Nile (Hats).

loved this review btw

Ditto.

Would add Slovenly too (was We Shoot For The Moon the last great record on SST or what?) but that's a flag I've been flying for so long on my lonesome that it's kind of depressing thinking about it.

Young Gods.

without wanting to de-rail: this Kulkarni review is fuggen hilarious: http://thequietus.com/articles/02007-cats-on-fire-our-temperance-movement-album-review and he's 90% OTM

DeLaSoul.

Didn't much like "Pauls Boutique", the rest I don't know, or like the Roses better.

Spacemen 3, Young Gods, Beastie Boys, Fugazi in that order

I own curiously few other really good rekkids from 1989 as far as I can see but I like 'The Power Of Lard' by Lard better than the thing at hand also

Good to great records from Nirvana, Mudhoney and Bitch Magnet in 1989.

I never heard any of these because I only listened to the Stone Roses that year.

Wish I knew Kulkarni back then because he could have opened my eyes to all the amazing stuff that was going on.

tbh I can't even make it through a single paragraph of this writing. lol britishes

Who could have expected a lengthy Stone Roses review to feature several references to British culture

I was talking about that Cats on Fire thing!

altho no I didn't finish the SR review either, mostly because the things that piss him off about it are all the cultural baggage (of which I am largely blissfully ignorant)

Naked City by John Zorn came out in 89. Yeah

Otherwise, it was a shit year for music. No man's land between the greatness before and the greatness to come

altho no I didn't finish the SR review either, mostly because the things that piss him off about it are all the cultural baggage (of which I am largely blissfully ignorant)

― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier)

Actually Shakey, he does get around to some comments about the record itself, though he takes a god-awful long time to get there. I don't care about the cultural import but I do agree with his conclusions - liking the first three tracks and being bored by much of the rest:

"Simply put, four tracks in, half the band start showing their limitations badly. Jon Squire and Ian Brown have done all they have to do, the tunes become samey (as signposted by 'Don't Stop''s direct reverse-gurgitation of 'Waterfall'), Brown's vocals attaining the same monotune-irritant value as that twat outta Blink 182, that same unlovely unlovable monotune he's been jiggling round ever since. Squire's goldmine simply runs dry and starts hacking up gunk — his imagination can't quite stretch, he sounds like he's chasing originality when clearly UNASHAMED rawk-pilfering (see the much better I reckon Second Coming) is his true forte.

Oddly enough, it's only those songs you've heard too many fucking times that actually rise out of the gruel — 'Made Of Stone' and 'I Am The Resurrection' are both way too bloody long, but at least swing with hooks — the rest ('Bye Bye Badman', 'Sugar Spun Sister', 'This Is The One') are way too dullasfuck to allow any kind of flow, intrigue or wonder to this supposed great debut..."

I really liked the Stone Roses debut at the time, but listening to it last week I found it incredibly dull. Went for Paul's Boutique in the poll, but there are at least a dozen of these I really like.

the tunes become samey (as signposted by 'Don't Stop''s direct reverse-gurgitation of 'Waterfall

totally disagree - this is where the album really starts to get interesting! I have never really been all that enamored of I Wanna Be Adored tbh (much prefer the album closer, I Am the Resurrection)

Where is Club Classics Vol 1? Most of that list looks like student posturing.

much prefer the album closer, I Am the Resurrection

This is where the cultural baggage comes in for me. So many nights at indie clubs in the 90s where every single fucking time they would play all 8 minutes of that song have made me almost hate it.

I do own this album (and The Complete Stone Roses) but I never thought it was all that (not a challenging opinion on this board obviously).

Not sure how most of that list is "student posturing" tho. Are students nowadays all about golden age hip hop or something?

It's weird. I do like the Stones Roses album (though I was totally detached from the lad culture that surrounded it, and really dislike the evolution that it's become a precursor to) but the first three songs were always my least favourites on it.

Most of that list looks like student posturing.

^the fuck does this even mean

SP3, AR Kane, Pixies are all way better for me.

love love love neil's review, which i agree with muchly (except to say i *love resurrection's coda, as a really unsubtle and cheesy but no less effective slab of funk-rock, with that rhythm section operating at peak and even squire's hammy wah-wah-isms a genuine thrill - i know exactly what neil's referring to, in his distaste for that very same sound, but i still have a lot of affection for it - in its heavy-handed grasping for 'funk' it delivers something clumsier but still effective) (the 'room noise' and reverb that enters the track in the last couple of minutes are still ace, tho, and there's an undeniable sense of ecstatic triumphalism in the jam as it nears the close, and i sort of wish it didn't finish where it did, as i'm a sucker for false endings and funkscursions that go on too long).

this list is way too hard to choose from, though i don't really love the pixies aside from surfer rosa and trompe le monde. am tempted to say jungle brothers, because i am obsessed with that record at the moment.

(i also really love 'don't stop', all dreamy and mushy, with the backwards melody like a 'remembered-from-a-dream' vapour from the previous song. but even in, what, 1992 or whenever i finally heard this record, it feel leaden with a tweeness, and an affection for a dead era that hung like the mildewy odour of polyester that's taken too long to dry)

I dunno. Fair enough for EPMD and Jungle Brothers. But Paul's Boutique and De La bloody Soul yet again. Just reminds me of times when I'd go round some indie bods house and they'd say "hey lets have a hip hop jam" and stick one of these fuckers on. The very same type of people who the reviewer rips into on that piece. Glad he picked up on Something's Burning though, probably the most underated thing they did.

Technique? Ninety? Manc touchstones that should be on that list. Don't know who Morbid Angel are.

I dunno. Fair enough for EPMD and Jungle Brothers. But Paul's Boutique and De La bloody Soul yet again. Just reminds me of times when I'd go round some indie bods house and they'd say "hey lets have a hip hop jam" and stick one of these fuckers on. The very same type of people who the reviewer rips into on that piece.

regardless of indie bods who love 'em, pb and 3fhar are still great, great albums.

Of the albums I know on that list, I like Paul's Boutique best. I like The Stone Roses more than I like PB, though. But I was ten when it came out, and in Devon, so all the cultural baggage that Neil K is so pissed off with has never affected me, except in latter years, when it has also pissed me off. The remaster is very good, though, and has made me enjoy the album more than for a long time.

I think the main downfall of Neil's piece is that, once he does get through the baggage and actually start talking about the music and make attempts towards being magnanimous, he very freely states that he only listens to it once, and the points he makes about the songs he doesn't already know are indicative of that.

I still love this record. Though I love Something's Burning, Standing Here, Simone, and Where Angels Play more.

To go from the delicate, stop/start dynamics of Shoot You Down, which is gloriously subtle, into the full on swirling whirling shouting climax of This Is The One; those are pretty much the best two songs on the album for me, and he totally dismisses them off-the-cuff.

he doesn't dismiss shoot you down - he loves the rhythm's section's groove, which he says is let down by squire and brown's contributions - which i don't entirely agree with:

Oddly enough, it's only those songs you've heard too many fucking times that actually rise out of the gruel — 'Made Of Stone' and 'I Am The Resurrection' are both way too bloody long, but at least swing with hooks — the rest ('Bye Bye Badman', 'Sugar Spun Sister', 'This Is The One') are way too dullasfuck to allow any kind of flow, intrigue or wonder to this supposed great debut, let alone explain why so many dads and dad's lads routinely vote this 'classic', hold this up as the Greatest British Yadayada of BlahBlah. Again, gotta admit — that veneration ain't the 'Roses fault, and Mani and Reni remain intriguing throughout. But for two whole thirds of this album they're an awesome heartbeat ill-served by their frontmen — something that becomes clear and calamitous on 'Shoot You Down' and 'Fools Gold' (yeah, it's the US version you're getting, like it or not).

Both songs emerge from rhythm-section jams, free floating ideas (in 'Fools Gold''s case perhaps from the 'Something's Burning' demo). One's full of space and impact, the other's busy and directed at the feet — both great grooves waiting on a vision, big open Kingston/Dusseldorf tings much better suited to hip-hop, to some real verbals, some real loops. Then look what the twats from Timperley slop on top: Brown's vocals sound like a first-go you'd ditch, Squire's attempts at Free-style silkiness and liquidity coming across way more like Reef-style lumpeness and flash. That horrible wah-wah and all those funkless chops became the bedrock of the next decade's appalling attempts for lad-rock to get 'dancey' — you can hear a whole flotilla of Kula Shakers and Ocean Colour Scenes listening attentively.

...cuz i think the track has a lazy charm, though i really hate the middle eight.

I guess he is positive about the rhythm section in SYD, but Squire's guitar in that song,e specially at the end, is gorgeous, and it's Ian's best ever vocal performance!

i'd agree with you on squire's playing there, it has a lovely ethereal, liquid jendrix thing going on. but that middle eight is a considerable blot on a fine landscape, to me.

hendrix obv

Lots of good shit here but for me, it's AR Kane.

*goes and listens to middle 8*

It's the weakest part of the tune, but the coda totally and utterly redeems it for me.

I had half those albums at the time, and the Fools Gold 12" is still the only Roses record I own or want. Will vote for Paul's when not ON IPHONE

other albums i was listening to a lot in 1989 that i like more than stone roses debut:

galaxie 500 - on fire

cure - disintegration

new order - technique

d.o.c. - no one can do it better

mekons - rock 'n' roll

voivod - nothingface

pussy galore - dial m for motherfucker

carcass - symphonies of sickness

neil young - freedom

jesus and mary chain - automatic

madonna - like a prayer

neneh cherry - raw like sushi

tears for fears - the seeds of love

schoolly d - am i black enough for you?

divine styler - word power

just listed stuff that i bought and listened to that year. not stuff i heard after the fact.

one of my favorite music years ever. i literally couldn't keep up with all the stuff i liked. between rap, metal, top 40 pop, r&b, house/techno/dance singles, rock, indie rock stuff, etc. it probably is my favorite year for rap ever. every day another amazing single would come out that i had to buy.

ooo-ooh this my shit

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Ninetyalbumcover.png

one of my favorite music years ever

Yeah, same here. My keeper from the year would have to be Disintegration but there's almost too broad a swathe of things for me to choose from -- also helped that this was the year I started DJing at UCLA's radio station, so by default expanded horizons on top of all the other stuff I was already familiar with, etc.

in 1989, it was soul II soul's world, the rest of us just lived in it.

or wait, maybe it was tone loc's world...

jive bunny's

true story: sitting in a cab in philly i hear funky cold medina for the first time and i swear that my life has changed as a result! it was a life-altering experience!

yeah, stuff like that doesn't happen as much anymore. but every once in awhile...

good list scott

emporer ming
10 hours ago

Keloid, the 'we' I'm talking about is the people who love the record and have loved it since they heard it because they love its melodic power, its atmosphere, its fluid rhythmic power, its lyrical bite and its sense of community- all things that weasely journalists hate. The Stone Roses were discovered by people and not hyped, the music press got on this one too late and jumped on the bandwagon- they will never forgive the band for that. years later they still look down from their ivory towers sneering at the music that the public like- that's why no-on reads the music press anymore, that holier than thou attitude just doesn't wash any more. the re-writing of rock history to suit journo ends has seen music journalism disappear into the void. So what you don't like the record but while you desperately hyped the Pixies, Jungle Brothers, Young Gods, Fugazi etc- I still laugh at the Melody maker's desperate hyping of Slowdive and Chapterhouse type of bands at the same time a whole youthquake was going on- it was like getting told what to listen to by your parents! the music press stopped being important by the late eighties- the public were already ignoring you! the best party was on the other side of town with acid house and Manchester and you were still trying to flog your crummy college mates bands to use...out of touch and out of time and still bitter about it after all these years!

^kind of in awe at this post tbh

Godflesh

So true. Speaking as a weasely journalist, I can affirm that I hate melodic power, atmosphere, fluid rhythmic power, lyrical bite and a sense of community. Those qualities are only for scruffy losers and proles.

Actually, what he gets right is that the Roses album is overrated by regular music fans whereas most canonical albums are overrated by critics. The critics have basically been playing catch-up over this record for the last 20 years. It has a talismanic power among a lot of my friends which is almost beyond rational criticism. It signifies the community, celebration and groove of E culture + old-fashioned guitar tunes and is so deeply entrenched in their memories of adolescence (and mine to a lesser extent - I was more of a Screamadelica man) that there's no picking it apart. I'm guessing that this Ming feller feels that Neil isn't just criticising a record but trashing his youth - and of course regional/class affiliations play a part. I like Neil's review but think he underrates the album's generational significance. Even if you think it's flawed, which it obviously is, it's not hard to work out why it's more venerated than the Young Gods or 3rd Bass. I would love to read a review by someone much younger who is coming to it fresh, rather than viewing it through the prism of arguments in the Melody Maker office.

None of these are better than "The Stone Roses". However, XTC, Paul McCartney and Lightning Seeds all released albums in 1989 that were.

<rant>

I love the intro to this review but as soon as i got to the part where he reps for The Manic Street Preachers, i stopped reading. This guy is a fucking moron if he thinks the Manics ever did anything reaching the quality of one of the Roses backwards tracks let alone a fucking bside like What The World Is Waiting For or Going Down. The Manics are shit, were shit and will forever be shit unless you're a fuckwad who is still fascinated by a junkie killing himself and having the press fap themselves out of business speculating where he may be. Fuck the Manics and fuck you too if you think the Manics are better than the Roses. You are wrong.

</rant>

I do love the Lightning Seeds album from 89. Love the story of Hooky's mom calling him to say she loved the new single she heard on the radio only to find out it was Pure, not a New Order tune.

Only thing I can get behind with that post is that the Manics are/were shit tbh

Er, Richey wasn't a junkie. Are you drunk?

Voting Young Gods.

Never understood why people thought Stone Roses were good.

Some more good-to-great 1989s (most of them better than Young Gods, even):

L'Trimm - Drop That Bottom (Atlantic)
Will To Power - Will To Power (Epic)
Faster Pussycat - Wake Me When It's Over (Elektra)
Warrant - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich (Columbia)
The Real Roxanne - The Real Roxanne (Select)
Company B - Gotta Dance (Atlantic)
KC Flightt – In Flightt (RCA)
Seduction - Nothing Matters Without Love (A&M)
Skid Row - Skid Row (Atlantic)
Stacey Q - Nights Like This (Atlantic)
Pajama Party - Up All Night (Atlantic)
Malidita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5 Patio - Malidita Vecindad Y Los Hijos Del 5 Patio (Ariola Mexico)
Lil Louis – From The Mind Of Lil Louis (Epic)
Les Negresses Verdes - Mlah (Virgin)
Taylor Dayne - Can't Fight Fate (Arista)
Lord Tracy - Deaf Gods Of Babylon (Uni)
Hugh Harris – Words For Our Years (Capitol)
Gipsy Kings – Mosaique (Elektra Musician)
Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood (Elektra)

No Meat Beat Manifesto Storm the Studio?
That was my number one in 1989.

I don't know if he was a junkie or not but he cut himself to get publicity and he 'vanished'. You'd have to be high or stupid.

Good thing for your argument that none of the Stone Roses could ever be accused of having being either high or stupid eh?

Uh. Sure, whatever.

I'm glad Kulkami mentions the King of the Slums, a great band that only a few people seem to remember. As for the Roses, I always thought they were a decent jangle pop band with an exceptional rhythm section.

Is that damning by faint praise?

I just bought that King Of The Slums record. I like that Once A Prefect EP but never heard much else by them.

Never really followed what they did next cos from the little I heard they sorta went to shit, but all the stuff collected on Barbarous English Fayre is fucking great IMO. Charlie Keigher could really write a good lyric, like 'Up To The Fells' is just perfect in nailing that sense of frustration he's trying to get across. Maybe I should pick up Dandelions at some stage and give that a fair crack.

Good thing about King Of The Slums is you can pick up their records for nothing.

Unless you're after the CDs and then they start costing you.

Weird thing is, they've just had a new record out:
http://www.myspace.com/kingoftheslums2009

Yeah, I'm damning the Roses with faint praise. When I first heard the Roses' debut album I really loved it, but the more I played it the less interesting it became.

The only stuff I've heard by the Slums is Barbarous English Fayre. I can't vouch for the quality of Dandelions or anything else they may have put out.

I don't know if he was a junkie or not but he cut himself to get publicity and he 'vanished'. You'd have to be high or stupid.

Ironic accusations of being high and stupid #124

voted i, which is the encyclopaedic mess of late 80s indie-into-dance that I had imagined the stone roses album would be before I heard it.

A few more:

(Various) - Jive Presents Acid House (Jive/Zomba)
Mano Negra – Puta’s Fever (Virgin)
The Angels From Angel City – Beyond Salvation (Chrysalis)
Wolfsbane – Live Fast, Die Fast (Def American)
Princess Pang - Princess Pang (Capitol/Metal Blade)

lol at the thought of Wolfsbane being better than anyone.

morbid angel from the list but alex in sf names flubber - that's like all-time top 3 for me I think, so, y'know, that one easy

I guess it's my turn to join the challops parade: Roses' debut always bored the shit out of me, but I came to it after the fact. Three-foot High… is over-rated both in the history if hip-hop and as an actual album; pretty much any other De La album is better. Cactus kicks ass, and folks underselling 3rd Bass probably never heard it. AR Kane bores the living fuck out of me.

Other musicians who put out better albums than the Stone Roses that year: Grant Hart, Tragically Hip, Janet Jackson, Dog-Faced Hermans.

Fine Young Cannibals - Raw and the Cooked
Clint Black - Killin Time
Keith Whitley - I Wonder Do You Think of Me

I get the feeling that the real challops on this thread would be if someone said they DID love the Stone Roses album.

Everyone knows I love that album(and the second coming)

Tell you what, I saw that 'superdeluxe' box set in HMV yesterday, blimey that's heavy!

tbh i think i care more about the roses' debut than anything on that list except 'three feet high and rising'

i guess i look at that list and think 'man, fuck 1989'

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Pixies will walk this, won't they?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

WHERE WUZ YER MINDS?

I'm going to sue the makers of the poll for leaving off Technique. Repoll with Technique vs. Doolittle for great justice.

Kulkarni obviously didn't care about it

No Key Lime Pie no cred.

corny indie fuxx0rs