(Credits: Far Out / livepict.com)
Thu 20 November 2025 16:31, UK
When Mani first joined The Stone Roses, rock and roll wasn’t exactly in the best place on the charts.
As much as their music was among the finest indie rock that anyone had heard up until that time, there was no telling whether they were going to go down in history or have the same kind of legacy as other upstart bands like The La’s before eventually disintegrating. While they did arrive a few years shy of the true Britpop explosion, the bass legend knew that their legacy was already secure years before.
Because when listening to The Stone Roses, it feels like it’s being beamed in from another planet half the time. Other artists had used similar sounds before, but once everyone heard Ian Brown vocally strut his way through songs like ‘Fools Gold’ and ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ paired with John Squire’s fantastic lead guitar lines, kids finally got to hear something that sounded like the future of rock in years.
And a lot of the foundation behind the record comes down to the way that Mani plays the bass. What he played was never too flashy compared to what Squire was doing, but there’s a certain weight to his sound that went beyond a traditional bassist. Even though the entire band delivers a masterclass on a song like ‘She Bangs the Drums’, that initial bass groove that kicks everything into motion is what gets everyone excited before the guitars come screaming in.
Even years after the record had come out, Mani remained defiantly proud of every song on the record, saying, “That record’s going to sound as pristine and beautiful as it does forever. We tapped into something only music could unlock.” But even if the band were one of the biggest names in the UK underground, the biggest boost that they ever had came directly after, when they started to influence the Britpop scene.
Whether it was working with The Roses or Primal Scream, there would be no Oasis without Mani, either. The band had always tried to catch up to what their idols were doing, and while it was all very friendly when Mani started coming by Oasis sessions when they were making Definitely Maybe, he knew that precious few people were going to have the same reaction as they did when listening to his record.
Despite how bad things got during the band’s later years on Second Coming, Mani said no one could take their self-titled away from him, explaining, “We were light years ahead of our time, and the Stone Roses album will always remain light years ahead of the new so-called supergroups. Read ’em and weep, guys, you all know who you are!!!! Back to school with you and try harder. Listen and learn from the masters.” That might sound like traditional Manchester self-confidence, but it’s actually true in lots of ways.
Even when the biggest names in Britpop were making waves, there’s a certain energy captured in between the grooves of The Stone Roses that’s impossible to duplicate. Not everything is played right on the money and even Brown has a few moments that aren’t exactly Freddie Mercury-worthy behind the microphone, but it’s all about the chemistry of them working together that made each song sound great, whether it was the bass anchoring a track like ‘Waterfall’ or the euphoric high that comes at the end of ‘I Am the Resurrection’.
Nothing about rock and roll is meant to be perfect, but whether you were there listening to them play the songs on Spike Island or are discovering them secondhand through their musical successors, what Mani accomplished with the rest of The Roses is going to reverberate strictly on the quality of the songs. Any other band could have made music that was smoke and mirrors, but the purity on display here is well above anything else in the Britpop arsenal.
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