The Very Best of The Stone Roses

Their hype may have exceeded the actual Second Coming (never mind that their second, weaker album was actually called the Second Coming), but at least briefly this inventive alternative act put Manchester on the map, and at least briefly they sparkled like no one else in the process. This disc is a far better survey of their work than their other collections as it features all the songs that mattered from their first self-titled album (most of them), their second (not many of them) and their early singles. For me, the finest moments of the band were the glistening "Waterfall," "Made of Stone," their elevated, ethereal single "Elephant Stone" and honourable mention to the jangle-pop mumbler "Sally Cinnamon;" while I am less enamoured of the dopey pop religious namedrops in "Love Spreads" and others, and "This Is The One" has a great feel but its lyrical content couldn't fill a thimble, my quibbles with this entrancing collection are slight. I am, and remain, a huge fan of their first effort, but this gives you almost all of it and some bonuses besides, and spares you the dreck this influential group shoveled out beneath their talent afterwards. (Content: no concerns.)

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