Future Mythologies

I think I've realized why so many people don't like the Stone Roses. They don't realize that the key to listening to them is "Bye Bye Badman", more than any of the singles. It's all right there, everything's perfect, though I don't know if the credit should go to the band or to John Leckie. Leckie could have taken a decent britpop demo and turned it into a masterpiece of dynamics for all I know. It certainly sounds like he could have done that to the Fall, although they had been evolving for a while and perhaps could have created The Wonderful and Frightening World without him (an album which also includes dynamic excellence).

Listen to the quiet/loud verse/choruses, done un-Pixies like but just as effective.

Listen to the song at 2:36, where the song shifts subtly into quiet mode right before the big finish. And the finish, John Squire's eternal golden braid of a guitar solo, twirling and spiraling out the close of side one. I want to dance inside it. Side two gives us a centuries-old melody threatening the life of the regent followed by a series of the five most epic pop songs that don't feature strings. But it's Bye Bye Badman that is this album's central piece. The first song I liked off this album and one that's so far only become better with age.


My entire career as a musician will be a failure because I will never have been a part of this recording.