BREAKING INTO HEAVEN: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE STONE ROSES
Mick Middles
OMNIBUS £9.99
It's ten years since The Stone Roses first shuffled on in a blur of baggy cool, and rarely did a band begin with so much. They had the look, the style and the sound - that first album was the era's defining record. But, enticed by America, they signed their future away, spent five years working on "the follow-up", and had their thunder stolen by the moronic Happy Mondays. Then along came Oasis……. Mick Middles' book takes you every step of the way. Denied access to the band, Breaking Into Heaven still scores high, largely because Middles interviewed manager Gareth Evans at length, gaining the inside track on Madchester, the Silvertone deal and Spike Island. The Stone Roses were blessed and damned in equal measure: few debut albums have been so assured, few second albums as sprawling and ill-focused. This is a book about grandeur and folly, decline and fall. A rattling good read, tinged with murky tragedy.
(4 / 5)
PATRICK HUMPHRIES
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