Pop Culture Press: ACL 2005 Preview

IAN BROWN
Unfinished Monkey Business (Koch)
Golden Greats (Koch)
Music of The Spheres (Koch)

By John L. Micek

In the pantheon of British 1980s pop music, was any band as massively lionized as The Stone Roses? Heralded as the saviors of British rock and the progenitors of the druggy, dance-soaked scene that came to be known as “Madchester,” the Mancunian foursome of vocalist Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire, drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield, enjoyed a brief, but tempestuous heyday that fell in the nether region that separated 1980s indie rock from the first flowering of Britpop. In fact, ask any British rock fan hovering around the age of 40 where he or she was around the time of the first (and still best) Stone Roses record, chances are you’ll get an Ecstasy-flashback smile and a vivid memory tossed back at you. And that’d be fair. Why? Because for a while there, The Stone Roses were the only band that mattered. With the pop charts full of Paula Abdul, C&C Music Factory and God knows what else, Brown & Co.’s blending of 60s-inflected guitar pop with a decidedly modern dance sensibility just didn’t sound like anything else out there at the time. And, oh, those pants! To paraphrase Denis Leary, you could house a homeless family in the flares that Brown and his bandmates were rocking at the time.

Sure, Brown couldn’t really sing back then – and maybe he still can’t – but there was something magical in the way his murmured vocals wrapped themselves around Squire’s dazzling guitar work. Between them, the Roses produced at least two immortal singles, “I Wanna Be Adored,” and “I Am The Resurrection” (being Mancs, modesty was never their strong suit) and at least two more damned good ones in “Elephant Stone,” and “Sally Cinnamon.”

Then there was that difficult second record, bearing the most wrong-headed title of any sophomore release. Second Coming still sounds unfinished and left Roses fans, circa 1995, wondering what the hell had happened during the long five years separating the band from their debut LP. The Roses must have wondered too. They split up barely a year later. Squire went on to a solo career. Mani found his way into fellow Brit-Poppers Primal Scream.

Ten years on, Brown, like his generational brethren of The Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, has emerged as one of the elder statesmen of Britpop. It’s a role that suited him, so much so that he was able to coax one of his acolytes, Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, to guest on this year’s fine Solarized, which drifted further the into dance-pop vein Brown’s been mining for nigh on a decade now. Hot on the heels of Solarized, Brown’s new American label, Koch, has seen fit to re-release his first three solo long-players, replete with bonus tracks and exclusive CD-R content. All three discs have long been unavailable stateside. Intrepid fans had to order them on import if they wanted to sample Brown’s solo oeuvre.

The first, Unfinished Monkey Business (1998) finds Brown in a trancey, dancey sort of mood. One can only assume that the title was Brown’s own attempt to reclaim the British music press’ unflattering comparison of his visage to our simian cousins. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine club kids of the Noughties grooving the night away to such tracks as “Can’t See Me,” and “My Star.” Of all the tracks on this first solo outing, “Nah Nah,” with its chorused acoustic guitar and twangy electrics, comes closes to mimicking the classic Roses sound. For completists, Koch has also included three bonus video clips for “Can’t See Me,” “Corpses,” and “My Star.” The audio portion of the record is also capped with two different remixes of “Can’t See Me,” presumably for those intent on reliving their Hacienda days.

Brown followed Monkey Business, with the presumably unironically titled Golden Greats, in 2000. The sleeve is golden, to be sure. But there’s precious little here to describe as great. The opening “Getting’ High,” drowns under cod rock guitar, while “Love Like A Fountain,” sounds like it fell through a time machine directly from late 1990. It’s not hard to picture Madchester also-rans The Soup Dragons playing this tune.The reissued disc also includes not one, but two remixes of the lovely “Dolphins Were Monkeys,” and inexplicable covers of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” and “Thriller,” and, for good measure, a remixed version of “Love Like A Fountain.” And, as with Monkey Business, there’s also three videos: this time for “Love Like a Fountain,” “Golden Gaze,” and “Dolphins Were Monkeys.”

The Koch reissues conclude with the two-disc set, Music of the Spheres, which includes, along with the album proper, a full disc of remixes and another bonus videoclip (Brown is interviewed by Factory Records boss Tony Wilson). Brown describes the disc as “Bedroom Music,” for that is surely what it is. Each track is deeply electronic, and hints at some of the denser textures that Brown would go on to explore with this year’s Solarized.

For the uninitiated, be sure to bring along your Manc-to-English dictionary for the Wilson interview. For, as your reviewer can personally attest, Brown’s accent tends towards the impenetrable. Still, it’s worth the price of admission to see Brown touchingly marvel at his own longevity, plaintively telling Wilson, over and over, that “I shouldn’t be here … Pop music is supposed to have a brief life span. I shouldn’t be here.”

Yet Brown’s endurance seems to be testimony to his own northern scrappiness and his own belief in his vision – however erratic that sometimes is. And because of that, he’s a little like the indie kids who grooved to him when we were still wearing baggies – muddling through, trying to age gracefully, while still trying to stay relevant.