Following the band's lucrative defection to Geffen Records, Silvertone's desperate recycling of the Stone Roses' back catalogue continues apace. Turns Into Stone is a poorly packaged, cynical collection of A- and B-Sides (everything, in fact, that isn't on 1989's debut album), lacking any kind of cohesion but occasionally packing a delicious punch.
'Elephant Stone', 'Fool's Gold' and 'What the world is waiting for' still sound stunning, and 'Mersey Paradise' and 'Standing Here' are streets ahead of the average flipside. But things are let down by plenty of pedestrian fillers, the terrible 'Where Angels Play' being a case in point.
Patchy, but a timely reminder of how wonderful the Roses could be. Can we have that second album now ?
(6 out of 10)
John Harris
Footnotes:
(1) John Harris would later write discography notes for the inferior The Complete Stone Roses Silvertone compilation. While lauding almost every track on TCSR, he carefully avoids any analysis of Where Angels Play...
(2) Shortly after the Roses' debut had been voted the greatest album of all time in an NME list, John Harris appeared on a Radio Five programme. When discussion turned to the NME list, John rubbished the placing that the Roses achieved, arguing that it "clearly isn't", proceeding to champion the cause of Sgt. Pepper. This somewhat contradicts his parting message in the TCSR sleevenotes - to "tell your grandchildren" that "the Stone Roses created as much magic" as previous greats.
(3) Similarly, a u-turn is to be found for John's reviews of The La's' only album. These are the reviews from 1990 and 2001 respectively.
La -di- da
The La's
'The La's' (Go! Discs) NME 1990
Two Stars
THE LA'S 60'S worshiping 45's, 'Way Out' and the seminal 'There She Goes', provided a tantalizing taste of an apparently impressive talent. Great things were justifiably predicted. Fan's however, were kept on tenterhooks for two years by a band whose quest for the long playing perfection looked nothing short of lunatic.
Those with ears to the music biz grapevine heard strange tales of poured over finished tapes being subjected to the bands chemically-aided quality control tests and thrown on the scrap heap, to join an ever increasing pile of producers, recording equipment and disillusioned members. The whole saga began to look like a scouse Spinal Tap.
Either this version passed the acid test, or the record company stared to get shirty. Whatever, frontman Lee Mavers and his buddies have released a record that, thank's to a twin derth infectiousness and originality, screams ''anti-climax''.
The opener, 'Son of a Gun', sets a disappointing precedent. It's an innocuous '60's pastiche that bears more than a passing resemblance to The Monkees 'A little bit me, a little bit you': pleasant enough, but hardly indicative of the effort that presumably went into it's creation.
By track two, 'I can't sleep', the band have metamorphosed into The Kink's, indulging in a lot of 'chugga-chugga' 'You really got me' type riffing. Mavers' obvious liking for the mod popsters crops up again in 'Freedom Song', but this time he's afforded himself the luxury of impersonating Ray Davies in his wistful 'Waterloo Sunset' period.
'Failure' sounds like the early Who, all surly 'R&B' vocals and distorted guitars. 'Feelin'', meanwhile, bring's to mind the psychedelic whimsy of The Byrd's 'Mr Spaceman, complete with pseudo-surrealistic lyric's and a throwaway skiffle backing.
If the 60's comparisons are starting to wear a bit thin, remember that allusions to pop's founding fathers are probably what The La's want. Their naked theiving of 25 year old styles say's as much.
Their problem, however, comes with their failure to appropriate the most central tenet of timeless 60's pop - catchiness. Only 'There She Goes' manages to rattle around the mind in the best pop traditions.
Aside from that chestnut, 'The La's' is a derivative disappointment. Save your money - there are plenty of group's plundering the past with a lot more panache.
John Harris
--------
Q Magazine 2001
Fuzzy Logic
They thought they were 'shit'. How wrong they were.
The La's
'The La's'
(Universal)
Standout tracks: Timeless Melody, Failure, There She Goes
TO HEAR THAT The La's music has been digitally remastered can only prompt a smirk. According to legend, band chief Lee Mavers - a passionate exponent of the Back to mono approach - came to the conclusion that his group were best recorded on a dictaphone. Failing that, he was allegedly keen to on four-track consoles boosted by ''original '60's dust''. History may yet record him as the first advocate of (de)mastering.
It was Mavers' distrust of modern equipment that caused The La's the lion's share of their problems. Their only album, issued some three years after their debut single, was re-recorded at least twice, with the aid of five different producers. Even then, Mavers was unhappy - forcing the hand of Go! Discs, who released it anyway. There followed one of the more bizarre promotional campaigns of recent years: Mavers claiming the record was ''shit'' while music journalists tried to convince him otherwise.
Ten years on, his disapproval seems even more misplaced. Perhaps thank's to Mavers rejection of 80's production standards, the music has aged beautifully - and it's authors subsequent disappearance retrospectively lend's the lyric's a real sense of intrigue. On the wonderfully doleful 'Freedom Song', Mavers claim's that ''the masterpiece is done'', in the tones of someone announcing a death. Earlier on, he knowingly sings ''I'll see, '95 in doledrum''. The heart-stopping finale 'Looking Glass' (featuring snatches of the song's that have preceded it) is the kind of mindboggling suite that many groups would use to bookend their career, come to think of it, The Beatles did.
All that apart, there is the simple wondrousness of Mavers' song's, and the way the group deliver them. A few examples illustrate the point; the charging euphoric opening of 'Timeless Melody': the Who-esque growl that defines 'Failure', and of course 'There She Goes' - one of the few songs who's charm could survive it's over-familiarity.
As is often the case with these thing's, the five bonus track's add little to the experience, aside from illustrating what may have been Mavers' ideal sound. There is, for example, a song called 'Over', never properly redone, on account of the fact that Mavers believed the original, unspeakably lo-fi recording was unsurpassable. Lending matters to a distinctly biblical twist, it was apparently done in a Liverpool stable.
5 Stars
John Harris
Back To Media 1992