Mani seemed like the kind of guy who would be around forever, an impish, hilarious fixture on the music scene, both with Primal Scream and The Stone Roses, and simply as a personality who energised and inspired whoever he met.
His death should rightly mean people plunge into his back catalogue, and here’s our pick of his best tunes with the Roses. Best bassist ever? No-one could touch him for danceability as well as swagger.
10. Ten Storey Love Song
From the Second Coming, the following up album to their classic debut which took forever to make - and was quickly labelled a disappointment by critics. The years have been kind though, and this soaring song captured the Roses’ knack of making your heart soar while keeping your feet on the street.
9. Begging You
Meaty distorted dance tune which was like Fools Gold sent down the Autobahn. Early indication of what Mani would later do for Primal Scream on XTRMTR. A skittering piece of avant-disco which damns the drug trade disgracing Manchester while also being, well, a very good tune to do drugs to.
8. (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister
Easy to forget the gentle lyricism of these pre-Oasis Manchester bands, the folkiness at the heart of Johnny Marr’s guitar playing in The Smiths and in the subtle interplay of all of The Stone Roses which made their debut album immortal. Ian Brown’s vocals were always most effective when dreamily soft, and this little lovelorn ode to a girl selling candy floss has the beautiful young love tenderness of a Shelley poem. But yknow, with plenty of guitar.
7. Made of Stone
These are all classics now with barely a cigarette paper between them. What can you say? Everything about it is transcendent and possessing the mystery which truly made The Stone Roses mythical as an entity at the time and which is the secret to their music retaining its freshness even after so many listens. It alludes to the death of Jackson Pollock in a car crash - John Squire’s inspiration for the band’s artwork - but seems to embody an entire psychological mindset of a generation, one rebelling and uniting, but also possessing a death wish.
6. She Bangs The Drums
Dreamy sex song that has been the soundtrack to a million indie disco song, with simply staggering work by Squire. His playing was a perfect mix of Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, with a sensitivity all of his own. But yknow, this turns into pure pyrotechnics.
5. Love Spreads
And sometimes those pyrotechnics took over the whole song. This was the big second album comeback single and is, as Liam Gallagher might say, biblical. Both in size and in content, with a typically mystical gospel lyric by the much underrated Squire. ‘The messiah is my sister, ain’t no king man, she’s my queen.’ Ultra-cool song from the days before bands starting apologising for themselves.
4. This Is The One
An anthem for dreamers, with Brown pulling people to their feet to look beyond the ordinary. A psychedelic classic which retained the spiritual/physical liberation idealism of the 60s. Grab the moment. Go for the one you love. Stop waiting for life to happen.
3. I Wanna Be Adored
Opening track to the debut can still leave you breathless. ‘I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me.’ Has there ever been a better opening line to a record or album? No. And in bringing out the innate need for adoration, both as a rock star and just as a human, it possesses all the strangely vulnerable self-belief which made the band so appealing. Swaggering music for the damned.
2. Waterfall
Again, the Roses had the ability to make the everyday mythical. Brown sings mystically of escape and shifting sands, as Reni and Mani show why they are one of the most lauded rhythm sections of all time. Just an irresistible wash of a song where Squire’s circling riff hypnotises you into an alternate state.
1. Fools Gold/I Am The Resurrection
Yes, we cheated the entire format, but how can you decide which of these songs is better? Impossible.
So Fools Gold is the immortal single which marked this band out as something entirely new in rock history. It encapsulated the E generation, set Madchester in motion and made everyone dress like they were in The Byrds. What a band performance - Mani on this! - with Brown singing weird shit like, ‘Marquis de Sade don’t wear no boots like these’. A masterpiece.
And speaking of masterpieces, there’s I Am The Resurrection, the last track on the debut record. Has there every been a more exciting song made? Defiant, about putting a wrong ‘un behind you, it is a break-up song that then launches into a famously improvised final section which grazes the heels of God. Still astonishing. What a band. And what a bassist. RIP Mani.
