The Stone Roses: Legacy Edition

Recently, The Stone Roses' debut record was given the reissue/remaster treatment, and boy did it need it. I don't know why, but for some reason a lot of albums released at the tail end of the vinyl era have an icy sound. Perhaps the crispness now available with CDs made mixers completely forget about low end. Albums like Disintegration, Bleach, and The Stone Roses, all desperately needed some polish and are finally getting their due. You can now hear "I Wanna Be Adored" as soon as you hit play. The outro to "She Bangs The Drums" has a richness that was never audible before. The intro to "This Is The One" finally has the full kick it always needed. All and all, everything is how it should be, but with one slight drawback in that "Elephant Stone" is not included. The reissue emulates the original UK release although they seemed unable to resist throwing "Fool's Gold" on at the end as a bonus track. It's a tough track to part with, and there seems to be no easy solution in dealing with its absence. Leaving the old version on your ipod sequence among these remastered giants will most certainly have a catastrophic plummet in volume when it comes on.

The second disc offers a surprisingly listenable outing of demos, resequencing most of the original album with an ample amount of extra tracks that would eventually end up finished on singles. 'The Lost Demos' stands as proof that despite John Leckie's wonderful production techniques, the songs are still great without him. Going on to produce such stellar records as The Bends, it would be interesting to hear if Radiohead's demos hold up as well as these. I'm sorry to say I have not watched the DVD yet but will most likely give a separate post for when I do. Still, even without the DVD, the demos, or the booklet, it wouldn't matter. This record doesn't make one false move (okay, "Don't Stop" is a waste of everyone's time), and now sounds better than ever. In a year full of more reissues than anyone knows what to do with, The Stone Roses might be the best of the bunch (although it is tough to beat those Beatles reissues).

UNRELATED THOUGHT:  Today I watched the film The Flame And The Arrow. In it there is a scene where Burt Lancaster says "...and send a message to Rudy: that his father will see him soon". Perhaps the inspiration for the reggae classic, "A Message To You, Rudy"?