Robbed hit of the week 9/9/19 - The Stone Roses' "Love Spreads"...
from the album Second Coming (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #54
This week's "robbed hit" comes from the British alternative rock band Stone Roses. The group came together in the early 1980s in Manchester when former schoolmates Ian Brown and John Squire had gone through a bunch of band names and band mates before settling on the Stone Roses. Taking on guitarist Andy Couzzens, bass player Pete Garner, and drummer Reni (Alan Wren), the band released their debut single "So Young" in 1985 to little notice outside of the city. Still touring to gain exposure, the Roses put another single in 1987, "Sally Cinnamon". Eventually, Couzzens and Garner left the band, replaced by Mani (Gary Mounfield) forming the most recognizable lineup of the band.
With the quartet in place the band signed to Silvertone Records and released a single, "Elephant Stone", that was partially produced by New Order's Peter Hook. The addition of Reni and Hook's detail to the rhythm section side of recording gave the single a much different (and punchy) sound that slowly but surely was adding up bonus points. That song would eventually find itself on the American release of the band's self-titled debut album, but in their native UK, the lead single would be "Made Of Stone", which ended up popping on to the pop chart there at #90. Their fortunes changed with the release of the follow-up, "She Bangs The Drums". The song landed them their first British top-40 hit at #34, while in America, it climbed all the way to #9 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock list. It also got them a hit Down Under reaching #37 on the New Zealand top 40. The fourth release from the set was the "double-A side" single "Fools Good" (originally the "B-side") and "What The World Is Waiting For", which climbed to #8 on the British chart. The mix of the dance music of the former (which got to #5 on the American Alternative Rock chart) and the jangle-pop of the latter made for the perfect first big British singles success, as well as making the top-10 in Ireland (#9) and the Netherlands (#10). The dance remixes of "Fool's Gold" even had the single make Billboard's Dance Club Play chart at #27.
During the American promotion of the debut album the Stone Roses recorded and released a one-off single "One Love" in the summer of 1990. The single rose to #4 in Britain, while scoring another Alternative Rock top ten hit in America at #9 and in Ireland at #6. That same year, a re-release of "Elephant Stone" put the song back in the pop cart, with a high of #4 in Ireland and #8 in the UK. Suing to break free of their contract, the boys took yet another break from recording to only reunite for the recording of their sophomore album Second Coming. The lead single from the album would end up being their biggest success on the pop charts of England and America. "Love Spreads", written by Squire with production by Simon Dawson, again fell in the "Loser" by Beck vein...
While "Love Spreads" spent a week at #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart and hit #4 on their Mainstream Rock list, the song was not eligible to place on the official pop Hot 100 since it wasn't released as a commercial single in the states. However, it gained enough mainstream pop airplay to place at #55 on the Airplay component of the chart in February of 1995. It would be the Roses' last charting single in the U.S.
The band's next single, "Ten Storey Love Song", just missed the British top ten at #11, followed by "Begging You", which went to #15 in the UK. But with the latter sporting a music video with female dancers donning mask-faces of the band, things were way awry. Reni quit the band just after the second album's release, and after a bit Squire would leave as well, with Brown shutting the band down in 1996. The latter half of the 90s saw two re-releases of "Fool's Gold", in 1995 and 1999, with both reaching #25 on the British singles chart.
The end of the 1990s found the Stone Roses going in different directions. Squire re-emerged with a new band, The Seahorses, whose sole album Do It Yourself spun off two British top ten hits with "Love Is The Law" reaching #3. Mani went to join the Scottish dance/rock outfit Primal Scream, landing a series of successful singles including two top ten UK hits with "Country Girl" going to #5. Brown's solo career proved to be the most fruitful, with six top ten albums (including a hits set) and fifteen top-40 hits in his home country. Three of them made the top ten, with "My Star" and "Dolphins Were Monkeys" both reaching #5. Reni kept the lowest profile, his band the Rub never found any chart love.
In 2011, the classic Stone Roses lineup of Brown, Squire, Reni, and Mani reunited for a hugely successful tour and individual concert gigs. Five years later, they re-emerged with two singles, first "All For One", which went to #17 on the British chart, then the epic seven-minute "Beautiful Thing", which landed at #21. But in 2017 it seems like they called it a day for good. Brown released a solo album this year, Ripples, which hit the albums chart in the UK at #4.
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Here's the band live in 1996...
...and on their reunion tour in 2016...
And finally, an intimate studio live recording from 1995, with Reni gone from the band and Robbie Maddix filling in on drums...
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