The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (20th Anniversary Legacy Edition)

Now this, music industry, is how all reissues should be done. You want people to spend money on music rather than downloading it? Then give them something they can't download, like a hard case, a gorgeous booklet with essays from the band members (minus guitarist/songwriter John Squire, unsurprisingly) and journalist John Robb, expanded artwork, 2 CDs (the album and a collection of unheard demos) and a DVD (live plus all the related video clips). It's a beautiful artefact quite apart from the music on the damn thing.

And that music is extraordinary. My opinion of the Roses has gone up and down over the years, and I'm prepared to go out of step with critical consensus and say that their self-titled debut isn't actually the perfect distillation of everything brilliant about UK music in 1989 (there are at least two unnecessary songs: playing 'Waterfall' backwards might have seemed liked a zany idea back then, but the resultant 'Don't Stop' is still just a waste of time, as is the ludicrous '(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister' in which Ian Brown's never-stellar lyrics hit a nadir with the chorus line "every member of Parliament trips on glue". Zing! Take that, the Government!).

However, the spine-tingling moments are still incredible: few albums begin and end as strongly as The Stone Roses. The agenda-setting 'I Wanna Be Adored' emerges from studio murk on Mani's hypnotic bassline before Reni announces the band's arrival with two strident snare beats and Squire's triumphant guitar riff. Then it gets even better with the indie-dance classic 'She Bangs the Drums' and the swirling, jangling arpeggios of 'Waterfall'. Midway through the album is the band's greatest achievement, though. The magnificent, defiant 'Made of Stone' is where everything great about the band coalesces perfectly, with Brown's greatest lyrics locking to Squire's most inspirational music (and a guitar solo that can only be described as kick-ass). And then the album ends with possibly the greatest one-two punch in contemporary music: most bands would have been satisfied with the emotional, driving climax provided by 'This Is the One' – whose repeated coda vanishes into reverb, neatly echoing the beginning of '...Adored' – but then, almost as an encore, the band launch into the martial double time of the epic 'I Am the Ressurection', where Brown's declarative vocal makes way for the band to launch into an extended instrumental groove, proving that the band were blessed with one of the best rythmn sections in UK music.

As with the original CD version of the album the full nine-minute-plus version of 'Fools Gold' is tacked on as an afterthought (although, oddly, the other original CD-exclusive bonus track – 'Elephant Stone' – is absent on this edition) and the bonus disc of demos is going to be of interest only to fans. But if you want to go back to a simpler, more hopeful time when it really seemed like positive vibes, great music and MDMA could change the world, here's your soundtrack.

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