498: The Stone Roses — The Stone Roses (1989, Silvertone)

Overall rating: 2

Level of prior familiarity: 0 (pretty much never listened to The Stone Roses, ever)

How I Listened: On Spotify, mostly in the car, partially in the office

Well, maybe I just had to be there when this was blowing up. But I wasn’t. I was 8 years old, and I certainly wasn’t listening to semi-obscure proto-alternative bands from the UK at the time. And by the time I was listening to obscure post-alternative bands from the UK, nobody really cared much about The Stone Roses anymore.

Unfortunately I still don’t get it. Not that this is a bad album — it’s not, at all — but it’s also just not my thing. “I Wanna Be Adored” is pretty great, and gets the album off on the right foot. And it’s hard to deny the effect this album had on a generation of bands to come (Blur, Pulp, Oasis, every other one-name Britpop band). Still this album just falls flat for me.