“What I felt was a sense of kinship,” Laura Barton wrote on remembering the Stone Roses, 30 years on. “The accent in Ian Brown’s vocal was pleasingly familiar in its northernness, as were the band themselves … carrying the unquestionable air of trouble.” The Stone Roses eponymous album is seen as an iconic debut, embodying the cultural force of Madchester. Three decades after the release of their first record, readers share their memories of the Stone Roses.

‘We all wanna be adored’

Working in London for the summer. First time outside of Ireland on my own. My pasty white arms sticking out of an “I Wanna Be Adored” t-shirt, as I walked down the Strand. A taxi driver standing by his cab called out, “Me too, mate!”. What an album. Hermann

‘It felt like local people had just made the greatest album of all time’

I was 14 in 1989 and growing up in Lancashire as well. It was a glorious, technicolour time. It was incredible to feel like local people, people just a bit older than you, had just made possibly the greatest album of all time. They had just pulled it off and it was fantastic. I’d argue that as a single body of work, a collection of songs, a statement, it tops any album by that band from Liverpool. Bang bang, pretty pretty. ClixbyBream

‘Wait till you’ve listened to this’

The first time I listened to the Stone Roses was sat in the back of my mate’s Dad’s Montego while he was driving to Blackburn. He held a tape between his fingers, looked round, and said: “Wait till you’ve listened to this!”

Since that moment I’ve never had a car that didn’t have either the tape, CD, mp3 or stream of that album. timetoshine

‘This felt like the sound of Manchester’

I remember going to Nottingham for a residential training course in the summer of 89. I’d heard the singles since “Sally Cinnamon” and bought the album on cassette whilst I was there, sticking it on my Walkman when I got back to the hotel. I don’t think I’ve been so blown away by an album since. That first couple of minutes of “I Wanna Be Adored” still sounds both magnificent and haunting on headphones.

Having grown up in Salford and Manchester this felt like the sound of the place, brilliantly combining the dark sounds of Joy Division with the pop sensibilities of the Hollies. Stoned Love indeed ... salfordexile66

‘Everyone finally admitted synths were awful and guitars were great’

It was great. The Berlin Wall had just come down. Everyone finally admitted that synthesizers were awful and guitars were great (as I’d been unfashionably arguing for years), we hadn’t started worrying about the environment, and I wasn’t middle aged yet. Andrew Forbes

‘Musical perfection’

I remember I am the Resurrection mainly from clubbing in dark dingy student/indie clubs initially, though at the time I struggled with the rest of the songs. Then somehow, somewhere it clicked and for me it’s aged better than pretty much anything else from the period.

When you compare with the other bands of the time, the level is generally higher and more consistent, and some of the Second Coming was great as well, but by that time music was changing and that ship was leaving.

I’ve said it before and will probably say it many times, but I am the Resurrection for me is pretty much musical perfection. Stillgrizzly

‘It was a game changer’

Being down south, this record was amazing. I was working in and heavily into the music scene at this time, seeing lots of bands, but this was and still is a game changer.

I remember reading the reviews, accompanied by those paint splattered photos of the band, to you, they looked like lads you knew, to us, they looked like they were from another planet.

So here were the reviews to die for, an image that looked amazing, so how good was the record? Put simply, it was one of the best, most influential and important albums ever made. It really was that good. What a moment that was. richardr

‘It was like a psychedelic bomb went off in my head’

I remember around 1988 everyone in my peer group at school agreeing that we didn’t like music, as there seemed to be nothing but Kylie and Jason clones clogging up the charts. The consensus was that music was for kids – us secondary school lads had video games to play and football to watch.

Then one day I heard a guitar riff coming out of a car radio, and it was like a psychedelic bomb went off in my head. It’s still exploding today. Celtiberico

‘Ian Brown couldn’t sing in key to save his life. But that was never the point’

One of the greatest debut albums. I’m 33 so don’t have memories of the original era of the band, however the sheer joy at finding out they were reforming in 2012 was something else.

I’d moved to Australia by then, but scheduled my trip back to see family around their opening night show at Heaton Park. It was a special night.

The following year they played at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. It was a surreal experience getting to the venue at 8.30pm, grabbing a beer and still being able to get one behind the rail to see them from a few feet away was a different sort of awesome experience.

Yes Ian Brown couldn’t sing in key to save his life. But that was never the point. With a guitarist, bassist and drummer like the Roses had, the last thing you wanted was a vocalist taking too much attention away from the men playing behind him. Abhishek Mallik

‘A magical time’

It was absolutely a magical time. They felt important, and to be part of it felt to be part of something important. It’s been weird seeing Spike Island become a cultural shibboleth of sorts, given that I don’t think anybody I know who was there rated it much at the time. But I guess Woodstock was probably pretty similar for people who attended – a badly organised shit-show that nevertheless came to symbolise the dying seconds of a brief window in time that felt like the world was changing. asdgasdfgjusapdoi7