SINGLE REVIEW: The Stone Roses – ‘All For One’

All for One

The Stone Roses are back after their absence from the limelight for over twenty years, and some (good and bad) solo efforts from frontman Ian Brown.

The Stone Roses have a pedigree for sure (they arguably created Britpop with their self-titled debut in 1989), but that doesn’t really seem to match up with their output; one canonised album, and one relative flop (1994’s portentously titled “Second Coming”, which wasn’t, really).

So this is their big comeback single, “All For One”. And, well, no doubt the fans will love this stuff. But that’s its undoing, really, since the song is derivative soup of the type that has been done so many times before.

Opening with a bold yet predictable riff, Brown hits us with some U2-esque vague-but-pretending-to-be-meaningful lyrics “All for one/and one for all/if we all join hands/we’ll make a wall”. Just look at that. Let that sink in. Brown’s breathy inflection seems to stymie any calls that this is some kind of political comment/takedown of Donald Trump. It’s trad stadium soup, and a sonic war crime. It has illusions of being inspiring, but it’s so non-descript that it’s impossible to impart any sense of personal meaning onto it. It just disappears in front of you.

Musically it’s marginally more interesting than its lyrical content, but not really. It’s all chorus, no composition, riff-lyric-riff-clappy drums, repeat. It threatens to get interesting at around the two minute mark with the promise of a breakdown, but sooner than you can say “oh” then it just rehashes what has come before. Before the song is even finished you know exactly where it’s going to go, and when. And that’s a shame, given how fresh their first album was (and, in many ways, still is).

No doubt the fans will enjoy this, and that’s fine. But ultimately this song is the sound of a band that sat down for twenty years and… Stagnated. That is a shame. People like to lament the death of guitar-led rock, but if this is the best the frickin’ Stone Roses can do, maybe we should all pen our eulogies now. This brings nothing new to the table, and the kindest that can be said of it is that it isn’t unlistenable. But it is stale, impersonal, unoriginal; a shame.




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