The Stone Roses Essentials

The Stone Roses didn’t know if they wanted to hurdle into the future or revel in the past, and that’s what makes their music so beguiling. Channeling the euphoric pulse of UK rave culture, classic Madchester anthems like 1988’s “Elephant Stone” and 1989’s sublime “I Wanna Be Adored” carved a path forward for guitar-based alt-rock in a world remade by house music and techno. Yet, the mercurial Brits (whose roots reach back to 1983) just as frequently crafted jangly hooks and translucent harmonies nostalgic for mid-’60s psych-pop. If the songwriting tandem of singer Ian Brown and guitarist John Squire mapped this unique trajectory between rock history and dance-music modernity, then it’s bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield and drummer Alan “Reni” Wren who provided the engine. Steeped in funk and Northern soul, they powered the band’s 1989 self-titled debut and its leaner and tougher follow-up, 1994’s Second Coming, with hypnotically swirling grooves that would reinvent rhythm for an entire generation of British rock acts. After a series of lineup changes, the band split in 1996 before reforming in 2011 for a series of gigs. In 2016, they released their first new songs in over 20 years but had disbanded again before the decade was out. Mounfield passed away in 2025 aged 63.