When it comes to certain forms of pop music, orthodoxy has a way of setting in so gradually, so agreeably that almost no one questions it until an artist comes along and pulls the curtains down all at once. More often than not said artist will be vilified as much as she is celebrated depending, of course, on just how desperately the masses cling to their cherished expectations of what a particular music should be. The obvious historical example is Bob Dylan in the mid-60s turning the folk world on its ear by knocking the golden calves of American music off their pedestals and reassembling them in his own image. But pop music has had to weather similar storms on other occasions as well. If I'm allowed to paint in broad strokes, then in my opinion, by 1989, the conventional approach to popular pop music had become so ossified, so staid, that it no longer had any danger or aspiration to greatness. Furthermore, it was excruciatingly uncool. The revolutionaries had abandoned ship for hip hop, new wave, punk rock and all the other proto-indie movements that arose during the 70s and 80s. Pop music was in a bad way. Rock 'n' roll was even worse. Rock, for most of its tenure as a popular art form, had been dance music. It had strong beats and addictive melodies that had people out of their seats before they knew what they were doing. But as music fractured into genres and subgenres, "dance music" came to mean a lot of different things (house, techno, club, rave, disco, trip-hop, trance) and none of them even remotely resembled rock. Rock 'n' roll wasn't dead, but - when it came to dancing - it had been locked up in a home for convalescents. Within this climate, The Stone Roses' debut was a breath of fresh air to an audience that hadn't realized it was oxygen-deprived. This is brazen, tough, unimpeachably cool pop. There's jangle and hooks for days, but there's also a good deal of swagger from a band who knows just how good they are. To some extent their messianic fervor - the rock-band-as-savior motif they half play for laughs - can be off-putting. But, then, any band willing to name an 8-minute freak-out "I Am the Resurrection" and their sophomore album "Second Coming" can't be taking their own hype all that seriously. Besides, rock music has always been in love with its own mythology, with guitar players cutting their teeth down at the crossroads. But why hone your chops when you're good from the get-go? As lead singer Ian Brown sings on the opener, "I don't need to sell my soul / he's already in me." Now all they want is to be adored. With music this expertly played, this consistently catchy, this well-supported by such a danceable backbeat, that has held up this well over the past twenty years, adoration shouldn't be a problem. Grade: A
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