The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored
I don't have to sell my soul. He's already in me.
Album: The Stone Roses [debut album]
Recorded: London, England
Genre: Indie Rock, Baggy, Alternative Dance
Release: May 2nd 1989 [as a part of the album]
Single Release: September 1991 [UK] [US release in 1989]
Length: 4.52
Producer: John Leckie
Vocalist: Ian Brown [26 at the time of release]
Label: Silverstone Records & RCA
Music Video
Live in Blackpool
Live in Manchester from 1985
Charts, Streams & Sales
UK (albums): #19 in 1989, #9 in in 2004, #5 in 2009 [certified 5x platinum in 2024]
UK (singles): #20 [certified platinum in 2021]
Spotify: 137,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 69,000,000 +
2000 NME Awards Winner: Greatest Album Ever
Q Magazine 100 Greatest Songs of All Time (2006): #32
Q Magazine Readers All Time Top 100 Albums (1998): #1
Pitchfork's Best Albums of the 80's: #39
Credits & Gear
Bass, drums, guitar, vocals
Details
- The song opens the album and is largely instrumental except for the repeated lines of "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me" and "I wanna be adored" which is referring to the old trope of a vocalist selling his soul to the devil for a great voice and fame. In later years Brown would claim the song was about the evils of wanting to be adored more generally rather than something that applied solely to himself. In the song he repeatedly states "I wanna be adored" clearly referring to himself but perhaps this is artistic license.
Surely it would have been thrilling for a young band on the brink of stardom to play for thousands of fans chanting their names on a regular basis. Maybe Brown knew the changing tides of fame were dangerous which is why he frames the experience as being provided by devil. As if he has made a pact fully aware of the hell that awaits him so he makes every second of his stardom count, basking in the adulation while he can.
If heaven exists it isn't a place for musicians, especially the young ones, and The Stone Roses came to the fore during the peak of the drug fuelled Madchester scene, and all the temptations that came with it.
There is religious imagery in 'I Wanna Be Adored' that's centred on the sinful nature of fame, of wanting to be adored and celebrated. The bible warns against worshipping false idols and even lists it as one of the ten commandments. The band, whose sophomore album is called 'The Second Coming', in a reference to Jesus Christ, have a fondess for religious iconography and in the music video for this song walk around the desert sands like a baggy, Mancunian version of Jesus and his disciples. The Stone Roses song 'I Am the Resurrection' also directly references Christianity.
The video takes place in a desolate landscape. The camera pans slowly to reveal a vista under maroon skies which is free of life and populated only by sand dunes. It creates an air of mystery which captures the viewers attention and goes on for 40 seconds while primordial noises swirl around.
All of a sudden, music and people (the Roses) are there, walking around the sands like Jesus and his disciples in the desert. These 40 seconds of barren, ambient sound draw a parallel with the Gospel of Matthew which tells us how Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the Judean desert and how during that time he was tempted to make a deal with the devil. Jesus declined and Brown didn't need to accept. He already had the devil in him. Fame is something he had wanted for a long time. - The Stone Roses are credited as being the forerunners of Britpop. Acts that would go on to typify the genre such as fellow Mancunians Oasis would take the catchy, singable choruses of The Stone Roses and elevate them to anthemic status. They would leave out the long instrumental sections in favour of simple chorus-verse-chorus song structures. Britpop wasn't as experimental as baggy but the seeds of catchy guitar tunes you could sing and dance to, a proto-britpop, were already sewn in the chewns released by The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays in the late eighties.
Artwork
