Sabotage Times, We can't Concentrate so Why Should You?Sabotage Times, We can't Concentrate so Why Should You?


A Tribute To Stone Roses' Fools Gold

by Craig Campbell
12 October 2014 13 Comments

Four lads from a Manchester council estate shouldn't really have had the ability to create the coolest funk groove of the late eighties but in 1989 that's precisely what happened.

tsr

The first time I heard the Stone Roses’ ‘Fools Gold’ I simply assumed the main riff had been sampled. Like those brilliant hip hop records at the time I was certain that it had been lifted from an old Bobby Byrd track or James Brown number. It just seemed too authentic. Too liquid. Effortlessly the Roses had tapped into the heart of black American music and recreated it on their own terms. They’d locked it down as the saying goes and the world instantly sat up and took notice.

It was a spectacular time for British music. Tony Wilson standing up at an American music conference and uttering ‘wake up America’ you’re dead’ seemed to sum it all up. On these shores rock music had been loosened up by acid house and chartered effortlessly into new waters. The poster boys of this revolution  were the Stone Roses. Mysterious. Aloof. Other wordly, they’d already dropped one of the greatest debut albums of all time and their momentum was spectacular. By the time ‘fools gold’ dropped they had a whole generation eating out of their hands. Wherever they went, people followed.

You could see it on dance floors at the time. Whenever those snaking drums of ‘fools gold’ kicked in over the speakers, people literally ran from the bar to get to the dance floor. Ian Brown was the pied piper of his generation in that respect, albeit with a better haircut and much cooler threads. It didn’t matter that you couldn’t work out what he was singing, you went with him. You felt it. The Roses’ deeper meaning was never born out of being intellectual anyway. It was putting your good foot forward and leaving your troubles by the door.

There were bad times ahead for the Roses of course. Recriminations. Inactivity. A band slowly crumbling behind locked doors. ‘Fools Gold’ however was never a history lesson. It was the blue touch paper for living in the moment, an energy flash where rock and dance came beautifully together. For a brilliant moment in 1989, it shook the entire world and it’s dancefloors.

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image descriptionCOMMENTS

Sandy 4:18 pm, 12-Apr-2014

Well said bud.

Chester_Perry 4:20 pm, 12-Apr-2014

The drum beat was sampled from a Bobby Byrd track. Hot Pants. Reni is a great drummer but he can't match the genius of Jabo Starks.

Craig Campbell 9:57 pm, 12-Apr-2014

The Stone Roses inspired me to write and a million others to pick up guitars. Make no mistake: without them absolutely nothing. They were the ones. The real fucking deal.

Paul 8:12 am, 13-Apr-2014

The Stone Roses are as overrated as Shack are underrated. Their reunion reeks of cash and defacates on all that went before it. Truly vulgar.

amancalledbuck 4:11 pm, 13-Apr-2014

'The Roses’ deeper meaning was never born out of being intellectual anyway. It was putting your good foot forward and leaving your troubles by the door.' That's shite, min. They always talked about aiming for greatness, being the best you can be. Knowledge is power.

Sammy 9:16 pm, 13-Apr-2014

I loved their third album.

Middlerabbit 3:10 pm, 17-Apr-2014

Council estate lads? Not quite...

Green mist 11:13 pm, 9-May-2014

I loved their 4th album.

jimi kumara 11:20 am, 13-Oct-2014

Actually the drum beat reminds me more of I'm so green by the german band Can.

squeesh 3:01 pm, 13-Oct-2014

Loved this song---I called up a local station to request it years and years ago before I went to work, and they actually played it, and I taped it---I actually still have the tape! Really good psychedelic hip-hop influenced tune that was probably an underground club hit here in U.S. at the time it came out.

Keith 10:19 pm, 24-Oct-2014

I loved their fifth album.

sonny7 7:00 pm, 25-Oct-2014

The rhythm of Fools Gold was inspired by a great english/caribbean funk group from the 70's called Cymande & the Young MC track 'Know How' produced by the great Dust Brothers.I think this was what made that period interesting, white guitar bands, taking inspiration from the rhythms of black american music and putting that back into their own music without becoming some terrible faux funk or soul group like Jamiroquai. Early Happy Mondays were really influenced by Northern Soul & Sly and the Family Stone.

Sergio 9:38 pm, 21-Dec-2014

I loved their 'live at the Budokhan' double live concept album.

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