lemon revolution

 1989, August. The Stone Roses step out onto the stage at the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool. The Berlin Wall is soon to fall. Margaret Thatcher’s reign is wilting and barely stumbling about on its last legs. Young people have flocked to Blackpool in droves, from all across the north: this is their band and the gig, a 3000-man sellout, is the group’s biggest to date. MANCHESTER IN THE AREA WE’RE INTERNATIONAL WE’RE CONTINENTAL… BUT WE’LL SETTLE FOR GLASGOW screams Ian Brown as he walks on, spinning a yoyo in one-hand, hurling ice-pops into the crowd with the other. Whatever it means, it fits. The Roses embody all that seems somehow hopeful, young and brave in a country that is crawling out of the decade much more tired and much more slow than it steamed in.  I want to see him dead. I want to shoot him -Brown on Prince Charles, 1989 Things didn’t quite work out like that, and the common sense is that the Roses bottled it. Alex Niven talks of how the progressi...

“AINT YOU SEEN GEORGE?!?!!!!! HE’S SLOW AND DUMB LIKE A MUMMY….HE CAN’T CATCH A MAN AS FAST OR AS BEAUTIFUL AS ME! …. I DONE SOMETHIN NEW FOR THIS FIGHT I DONE TUSSLED WITH A WHALE I’D A   HANDCUFFED LIGHTNIN’ THROWN THUNDER IN JAIL… THAT’S BAD… ONLY LAST WEEK I MURDERED A ROCK INJURED A STONE HOSPITALISED A BRICK I’M SO MEAN I MAKE MEDICINE SICK… IM BAD, BAD, FAST! FAST! FAST!! ONLY LAST WEEK I SWITCHED A LIGHT OFF IN MY BEDROOM, HIT THE SWTICH WAS IN THE BED BEFORE THE ROOM WENT DARK!” When Muhammad Ali lifted the Olympic torch in Atlanta, 1996, it was as momentous an occasion as it was touching. For, just as when Ali accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2005, the event was symbolic of how the American establishment had finally managed to capture and cast Ali in their own desired image – a man who they had spent years, public money and federal investigations on, in trying to tie down during the ‘60s, without any succes...

More Life, Drake’s latest album, has been the set of songs I’ve returned to most this summer. Released originally as, according to Drake, a ‘playlist’, Drake’s lyrics explore exactly the same topics we expect him to: isolation and success, sadness and fame, love and heartbreak. It’s the sublime instrumentals - which Drake doesn't receive a single credit for - that keep his music alive and keeps the listener coming back. Whether or not Drake has much choice over the instrumentals, and to what extent his record company aims to manufacture a certain sound for him is unclear - what is clear is that Drakes sound is one which captures the furious moment in which we live like no other. The range of samples at use here is eye-catching, with distorted snippets from The Ojays, Jennifer Lopez and Swedish singer Snoh Aalegra being woven through a rich texture of synths, beats and electronic notes. Just what is about this backing sound, then, that makes this music so good? Mark Fisher ...