When Mancunians grew increasingly provincial about their music scene, Brown shouted back during one concert what has become, in England at least,
     a classic rock quote:

     Oddly, The Stone Roses debuted in a series of shows in Sweden after a chance meeting with a neophyte promoter. They quit their day jobs 12 months
     earlier when they realized they had something worthwhile. Then came the legendary, and illegal, warehouse gigs. The band would often go on stage at
     four in the morning for the thousand or so fans who had moved on in their round-the-clock partying after the Hacienda nightclub closed. An
     underground scene developed and they were its favorite band.

     "So Young" (1985) was their first single, "Sally Cinnamon" (1987) their next. But it was "Elephant Stone" (1988), produced by John Leckie (XTC) and
     with Mani on bass, which broke them into the Top 10 of the U.K. indie charts. The single "Made Of Stone" was released just prior to the April 1989
     launch of The Stone Roses, on which the song was also heard. The album (which included "I Wanna Be Adored") shot to the top of the charts and
     other singles followed: the Top 40 "She Bangs The Drums" and the Top 10 "Fools Gold," the best-selling independent label single of the year. The three
     singles from the album were ranked among the top four of the year by NME, which also named The Stone Roses the Band of the Year.

     The Stone Roses, the U.K.'s best-selling indie album of 1989, was named the Best Album of the Year in Sounds and one of the Top 20 albums of the
     decade by the readers of Melody Maker. More than 300,000 copies were sold in the U.K. (where platinum certification is 200,000) and nearly as
     many in the U.S. Despite the lack of an American tour, it stayed near the top of the U.S. college/alternative charts for several months. The band did tour
     Europe and Japan however, where they were accosted with Beatles-like adoration.

     In early 1990, a new, non-album single, "One Love," again reached the Top 10. But thanks to the ensuing legal difficulties and recording delays, it
     would be the last the public would hear from The Stone Roses other than in a courtroom until 1995. (A problematic collection of B-sides of singles,
     Turns Into Stone, was released in 1992.)

     From the start, The Stone Roses have been a contradiction in terms, right from their very name with its connotations of hard and soft. They say they
     sacked their first bassist because he didn't like the Beatles. The Sex Pistols said they sacked theirs because he did. Yet The Stone Roses could very
     well be the offspring of a marriage between those two bands. Compelling and defiant, innocent and worldly, lascivious and laconic, sincere and
     sarcastic, The Stone Roses are both translucent and opaque.

     If theirs was a contrived image of all-things-to-all-people, it might be subject to scrutiny. But they suffer no self-analysis, no introspection. They have
     never believed what's been written about them, only what they believe about themselves. Without a shred of Angst or self-deception, they are who they
     are. Armed with a dry, deadpan sense of humor, they take their lives in stride. As a certain group of neighboring Liverpudlians once replied to explain
     their success, "It's the trousers."

     The only existential constant for The Stone Roses is that they live for the moment, hope for the best and encourage others to make their lives worth
     living too. It's not live fast, die young, they say, it's live fast, die old. For The Stone Roses, every performance, every album, is played like it was their
     first--and their last.