Trivia / The Stone Roses

• Adored by the Network: Despite the band's lack of American success, MTV's 120 Minutes were very supportive of the band during the first half of the '90s.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Sally Cinnamon".
• Creator Backlash: Ian Brown doesn't care for "One Love".
  The chorus wasn't strong enough. We tried for an anthem. We wanted to cover all bases and ended up covering none.
• Creator Killer: Second Coming had been delayed by Executive Meddling, a productivity-halting lawsuit trying to stop them from moving to Geffen, and general band procrastination (moving to Wales to record did not help). The album was finally released in 1994, over five years after their debut album. The album completely failed to live up to its hype, and despite the lead single "Love Spreads" becoming a genuine hit, the album received middling reviews and disappeared from the charts quickly. Both critics and fans were disappointed by the album's abandonment of the dance-influenced sound that had made the band popular in favor of Led Zeppelin-style heavy blues rock and guitar wankery (although the aforementioned "Love Spreads" continues to be well-regarded). The band didn't last much longer: they split up two years later, after a series of badly-reviewed live appearances and the departures of Reni and John Squire. Ian Brown later began a modestly-successful solo career, and the band reformed in 2011 with a successful reunion tour.
• Executive Meddling: Silvertone Records' attempt to get more money by re-releasing singles and trying to stop the band from moving to another label. It arguably ruined their career due to the forced hiatus.
• In Memoriam: Second Coming was dedicated to Philip Hall, the band's publicist, who died of cancer in 1993.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The self-titled album got one of these for its twentieth anniversary. It was released in several formats, including CD/LP+7", 2 CD/1 DVD, and 3 CD/3 LP/1 DVD, the last of which also includes a lot of Feelies and a USB stick featuring a bunch of digital files.
• No Export for You: The band canceled a planned tour of the USA in 1990 saying "America doesn't deserve us yet." That bit them in the arse later on when they toured the USA in support of The Second Coming.
• Old Shame: The band disowned their first single "So Young". Ian Brown said that he "wouldn't pay 10p for it now" and that it sounded like "four lads trying to get out of Manchester".
• The Pete Best: Andy Couzens and Peter Garner.
• Reclusive Artist:
  • The band's relationship with the mass media was notably different from other bands before and after. The members would often display no interest in promoting themselves, which was typified through reticent and capricious behaviour. Even with their reformation in 2011, the group continued to provide few interviews. This approach left many journalists confused and sometimes angered. Although the reformation conference in October 2011 displayed an elated and talkative Stone Roses engaging with the press, it was followed by total media silence. Other than Shane Meadows' documentary in 2013, the band provided no further interviews.
  • Reni seemed to vanish off the face of the earth between his departure from the band in 1995 and the band's revival in 2011. In an exclusive book included with the collector's edition of their debut album to mark its twentieth anniversary, Ian Brown and Mani included extensive written accounts of their experiences in the band, Reni supplied only a drawing and a poem, while John Squire provided nothing at all.
• Referenced by...: The band's music is infamously mentioned briefly in Shaun of the Dead, where Shaun and Ed are throwing vinyl records at two zombies and debating which records to keep. Ed brings up The Stone Roses and Second Coming; Shaun defends the latter, saying "I like it".
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Their early album Garage Flower was recorded in mid-1985 and was produced by Martin Hannett, collecting the band's early songs. It wasn't released at the time because the band were unhappy with the production and songs. It was finally released in 1996.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: They managed only two albums, The Stone Roses and Second Coming and yet were a big influence on many rock bands of the Nineties.
• Shrug of God: John Squire on the hidden meaning of "Elephant Stone", "What is about Love and Death...War and Peace...Morecambe and Wise..."
• Troubled Production: Recording Second Coming was slow, hampered by Ian Brown's and John Squire's new fatherhood, general procrastination, declining relations and the death of several people close to the band. Producer John Leckie ultimately left the project as the band would not sign a production contract.
• What Could Have Been: They missed out on being signed by Factory Records due to them being associated with many former collaborators of Tony Wilson. One wonders how they would prospered under Factory, or if Factory could've prospered under them, given the label's financial collapse and dissolution in the early 90's.

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