Stubbornness.
My memory might be dodgy on this, but The Stone Roses occupy a unique place in the timeline of British rock music. Largely by luck: they came along right after the demise of The Smiths. They, along with the Happy Mondays, were the biggest band in England in the late-80s and first few years of the 90s. They were considered important because they were seen as the standardbearers of post-80s indie rock, a genre which The Smiths all but killed. 1987 was really the last year for the "pure" strain of 80s English guitar pop. Afterward, aside from some swan songs, the scene really changed. Drugs, allied with hip-hop and dance music, altered the landscape significantly, as seen by the Mondays' success. But the Stone Roses were the darlings of the press because they were seen as carrying the torch from The Smiths-- not as the "next Smiths", but the natural evolutionary leap onward from The Smiths.
The first of the new breed is always canonized as unique and important. Think of The Clash for punk, The Jam for post-punk, The Smiths for indie rock, The Stone Roses for post-Smiths indie rock, and Oasis for Britpop. It's as if the giants of one mini-era in British rock stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants of the next era. When you read a lot of music criticism in the NME and elsewhere, you'll note they always present the history of rock and roll this way. Like kings, one band always inherits the previous band's crown in a grand and endless succession of nobles in the aristocracy of British music.
The problem with this idea of succession is that it does not allow for gaps. All kings must be equal. In other words, you can't say-- as some people whispered at the time-- that The Smiths killed indie rock in England. You can't conclude The Smiths represented the end of anything-- or, you can, but your initials must be S.P.M. There has to be someone else who comes along and inherits the throne. The world of music criticism would die if that weren't true because sales of magazines would plummet if they dared to tell the truth. So The Stone Roses filled the vacated throne. They were just The Next Big Thing-- because music critics mandate that there must be a Next Big Thing.
Once this kind of thinking is enshrined in one Top Ten list after another, it becomes accepted without critical reappraisal. The merits of dozens of albums might be debated, but bands who occupy symbolic places on some imaginary chronology can't be touched. This is why The Stone Roses remain, and stuff like Pulp and Prodigy comes and goes. Years pass, and no one really challenges the accepted wisdom. A few plucky souls certainly do-- I recall a hilarious bit in the NME years ago in which a writer (or a reader writing in to express an opinion, I forget which) argued with the idea that Patti Smith's "Horses" was worth of its legendary status. It went something like, "I know it was influential, but has anyone actually played 'Horses' recently? It's utter shit". Blunt but true: I happen to like a lot of "Horses", but like other sacred cows (such as 3/4 of The Velvet Underground's material), the music has mostly stood the test of time without really living up to the hype that accretes around it over the years.
Of course, it helped that The Stone Roses were good. They had intangibles, too. They were charismatic, ambitious, artsy, from Manchester, and safely rock and roll in contrast to the Mondays. They stood strong against the rising tide of American rock in both its benign (R.E.M.) and vulgar (grunge) forms. They bridged a gap between a golden age of English rock and a new, uncertain era in which styles were mingling, DJs were stars, basement experimentation was the norm, and for a time no one really stepped up to be Rock Heroes. Remember, around that time the shoegazers were in vogue-- shoegazers are no one's idea of sweaty, glorious pop stars ready to make our lives fun again. In short, rock music wasn't what it was. If they have a permanent place on critics' lists of honor, it's because The Stone Roses were the brightest stars in a very dull sky.
