The Stone Roses’ new track ‘All For One’ must have been one of the most awaited-for releases of the year for indie fanboys everywhere; and so its appearance on Thursday evening was greeted with something akin to mania. Yet our editors were torn…
Richard: I don’t know, the riff was kinda catchy – I guess. Slightly more overdriven than classic Roses, it made it seem slightly more generic. It sounds like many, many other shoegaze songs, maybe early Blur (I’m thinking ‘She’s So High’) or any song by Ride. What made this worse, however, was the melodic obviousness of the track. It took the three minutes of listening to it to guess the chords; which is not so much a reflection on my ability, as the simplicity of the track. Kinda like it though. It is sort of irresistibly catchy, even if singing the lyrics must be done either ironically or with more than a hint of shame. Plus what once came across as a swaggering snarl now seems more like a catatonic drawl. Bring back the Roses of ‘89, please.
Daniel: It’s just so trite. I mean, lyrically it’s appalling. We’ve gone from legitimate poetry on their self-titled debut to this: “All for one, one for all / If we all join hands we’ll build a wall”. This single screams of its own lack of creativity, its own boredom. The Stone Roses’ relative lack of financial success at the height of their powers has oft justified their comeback, but for money, they’ve created a single which is essentially artistically bankrupt. Not only has Ian Brown seemingly lost all poetic sensibility, but the drive of the song, while hardly horrific, echoes the very worst excesses of Be Here Now era Oasis: overblown, soulless and cynical. I actually do like the riff, predictable as it is, but I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed. If this is the Third Coming, it wasn’t worth the wait
