The Stone Roses-Don't Stop : A "Totally Shuffled" extract

On the night that Stone Roses announce another massive gig, here's my extract from "Totally Shuffled" about them..

Proceed with caution....

June 15^th

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.    

This is an extract from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"

        

  and what "Totally Shuffled" is 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.     

Get/read Totally Shuffled here

Kindle:
          

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X