Audio By Carbonatix
The demise of the Stone Roses was a slow, painful and public dissolution, with plenty of bad luck, bad timing and bad judgment along the way. From a very publicized legal battle with a record label that prevented the band from releasing new material at the height of its popularity (following its eponymous debut in 1989) to a prolonged silent period that culminated in the lackluster Second Coming in 1994 and a breakup the following year, the Stone Roses story didn’t exactly turn out the way one might have expected it to. The Stone Roses, after all, had made Brit-pop cool again with their swanky arrogance, and bands like Oasis eventually stood on their shoulders and reached seemingly impossible heights.
Yet frontman Ian Brown was not the type to go quietly. Working without his longtime collaborator John Squire, he sat himself down, learned to play an assortment of instruments, and put together an album titled Unfinished Monkey Business in 1998, a rather poorly conceived exercise in lo-fi rock and trip-hop that never even saw release in the United States. Golden Greats again plays on the sensibilities of lo-fi rock and trip-hop, but this time with a bit more direction and stronger songs in general (most likely, the change is due to the fact that Brown has been hanging out with DJ Shadow and Unkle, with whom he recorded the single “Be There” in 1999). “Golden Gaze” features an infectious bass line, and the radio-friendly “Love Like a Fountain” is the kind of groove we expect from Brown — a trippy dance floor number with melody dripping from the beats. Overall, though, Greats is far from golden. Brown’s once-signature hushed, whispered vocals are replaced with a stronger, more up-front vocal style; as he’s not a singer of any great range, it’s an approach that doesn’t always work for him. Much like its predecessor, the album has a lazy, listless feel, and there are several moments during which Brown’s lack of musical mastery is all too painfully obvious. Guess we now know where John Squire fit into the Stone Roses equation.
Throughout Golden Greats, Brown seems a bit too eager to distinguish the Ian Brown of 2000 from the Ian Brown of 1990. Unfortunately, while Golden Greats is a tolerable, even enjoyable listen, the early version of Brown is still preferable.
