The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored

Silvertone 1989, Leckie sessions, album opener

Between late summer 1988 and early 1989, The Stone Roses recorded their debut album with producer John Leckie. Work began at Battery Studios in London, moved through Konk, and settled into Rockfield in Wales with engineer Paul Schroeder. The whole album took about fifty-five days off and on. I Wanna Be Adored, written by Ian Brown and John Squire, was always meant to open the record. The band had played a faster live version as early as March 1985 on Piccadilly Radio and once planned it as a follow-up to So Young before shelving that session.

On the album take the picture builds slowly. Mani’s bass enters first, then Reni’s drums, then Squire’s chiming guitar, then Brown’s vocal. Leckie kept space between the parts so each arrival is clear. Squire leaned on a hired pink Stratocaster through a Fender Twin for much of the album after the Gretsch sound did not cut enough in the room. The full album version runs near five minutes; 7-inch edits trim it for radio. Silvertone put the song out as a US single in 1989; it reached No. 18 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart in 1990. A wider UK single release followed in 1991 with B-sides such as Where Angels Play.

The video was filmed near the A57 Snake Pass between Sheffield and Manchester, sharing locations and effects with the Fools Gold clip made for the American campaign. On stage the song often opened sets. When the album finally became a touchstone of Madchester and later Britpop, this opener was the doorway: a demand for love delivered without hurry. Continental press later treated the opener as the template for the whole Madchester swagger. The Silvertone catalog fight that later froze the band’s career makes this early single feel even more like a clean document of the Leckie sessions.