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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 7, 2019 6:26:48 GMT -5
Greetings! And welcome to Prole Hole vs 1970's Rolling Stones, whereby I attempt to get to grips with a transitional period of one of the most well-known bands this small little planet has ever produced. Background: I'm a huge Beatles fan. Always have been, always will be. They were the first band I got into when I was just a little 'bot and they remain a staunch favourite today. And I love The Kinks, obviously. But for some reason I never ended up having much appreciation for The Rolling Stones, a band I've always thought of as the mid-point between The Kinks and The Beatles. I don't dislike them and haven't advoided them, they just never appeared on my musical radar, a few predictable scattered 60's hits aside. I mean, sure I love "Gimmie Shelter" or "Sympathy For The Devil", but who doesn't? My parents were not big music lovers - just the occasional dip into Radio 2 on the drive to work or school - and the Stones just weren't a band that anyone I knew cared about one way or the other. Even as a student they passed me by. I'm at a loss to explain it really - it's kind of a challenge to avoid them quite so adeptly, but here I am having done just that. I've wrangled with R.E.M. and I've battled with Bond, so now it's time for me to sidle up to the Stones! Well, part of them anyway. So, Prole, What's Going To Happen? Well, I'm going to go over the albums in the same way that everyone who does these Discography reviews does. I don't feel like doing the whole discography (really, who wants to review Bridges To Babylon?), and the 60's stuff seems a bit... obvious. But, with the obvious exceptions of Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St, I'm almost completely unspoiled on the 70's albums - I don't know if they have a good or bad reputation, and I know nothing whatsoever about their production or in what state they were recorded. Thus this will be a relatively "pure" reaction. Oh, and I'm also going to start with Let It Bleed, even though it was released in 1969 (just - December 1969 to be exact), so at least I get a bit of a lead-in before tackling Sticky Fingers head-on (heh). There won't be any specific schedule to this, as ever it will just be when I get a moment to sit down and have a listen (commuting, in all probability) and then when I get the chance to scribble something down, and as ever I shall be dispensing with the twin straitjackets of objectivity and consensus. But I hope you'll come along with me on this journey whether you're a hard-core Stones fan or just dipping your toe in the water like me. The run will be: Let It Bleed (1969) Sticky Fingers (1971)Exile On Main St (1972)Goats Head Soup (1973)It's Only Rock'n'Roll (1974)Black And Blue (1976)Some Girls (1978)Also, the first article will be in a couple of weeks time, in all probability. But anyway - feel free to start the conversation! Prole
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Feb 7, 2019 6:51:17 GMT -5
*rubs hands*
This is an excellent set of albums - it includes three of their absolute best, from the greatest four album run anyone has ever done, and only one that's a little so-so (all right, maybe two). So here's hoping it isn't too much of a hardship to get through them. Rest assured, I will have thoughts as we go along.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 7, 2019 7:18:43 GMT -5
*rubs hands* This is an excellent set of albums - it includes three of their absolute best, from the greatest four album run anyone has ever done, and only one that's a little so-so (all right, maybe two). So here's hoping it isn't too much of a hardship to get through them. Rest assured, I will have thoughts as we go along. It goes without saying that I'll immediately disagree with "the greatest four-album run anyone has ever done" (Murmur-Reckoning-Fables-Lifes Rich Pageant or Autobahn-Radioactivity-Trans Europe Express-The Man Machine-Computer World and I'd make a case for Revolver-Sgt Pepper-White-Abbey Road). But I am really looking forward to this! And really looking forward to thoughts.
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Post by Superb Owl đŠ on Feb 7, 2019 9:35:46 GMT -5
I insist you carry over "What percentage of this film album could be cut?" and "2019 Cringe Factor" from your Bond reviews.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 7, 2019 9:46:10 GMT -5
An excellent suggestion!
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 17, 2019 10:26:02 GMT -5
Let It Bleed (1969) And so we start our journey into the 1970âs Rolling Stones catalogue in 1969. Obviously. Let It Bleed will be our gateway drug, but will a band who never seemed all that natural a fit with the hippy and psychedelic trappings of the 60âs be able to produce a compelling album as the decade draws its last breath? If Iâm To Be A Camera: The front cover is a kind of modern sculpture â a platter made up of a cake (I know this was made by Delia Smith, simply because itâs become part of rock lore), a (bicycle?) tyre, a pancake, a clock-face, a metal tape can and a plate all on a spindle, underneath which sits the LP and an old-fashioned gramophone needle. Thereâs little itty-bitty models of the band on the cake part, like youâd find on a wedding cake. While faintly surreal it elucidates next to nothing about the album it fronts. The back cover contains a horizontal track listing at the top and the same sculpture ruined â the record is smashed, there is a wedge out of the cake and the band members have fallen over. A metaphor for the death of the 60âs? Mmm. I also know â from my MC Escher fandom, not Stones fandom â that Escher was asked to design a cover for this album but diplomatically turned down the opportunity. Pre-existing prejudices: Well obviously I know âGimme Shelterâ (because is there any single Earthling alive that doesnât?) and âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ, which was one of the earliest songs I ever learned to play on guitar despite the fact Iâve never been a Stones fan. Beyond that I donât think I have heard or even recognise the title of a single song on this album. What an adventure! Songs: âGimme Shelterâ Ah yes, that rambling, slightly sloppy guitar intro. Lovely. Then everything tightens up and in comes Jagger, but heâs not the most impressive voice here â hello Merry Clayton! Thereâs such an urgency about this song, itâs so damned important to everyone. Love the harmonica â not words I thought Iâd ever type â being followed by Richardsâs guitar into the instrumental. Wow, listen to Clayton go! âRaaaaaape! Muuuuurder!â What a fucking great performance. âLove In Vainâ Much cooler, much more measured. Some really great work from Keith Richards here, a straightforward and simple song but very heartfelt. Touching, almost. Jaggerâs doing his best blues swagger and more or less landing it. Yes, this could have been a car crash but it works really well. Mick Taylorâs slide work really is terrific. âCountry Honkâ Oh hey this is âHonky Tonk Womanâ, sort of! Itâs not great though. Oh dear. Sloppy-sloppy rather than sloppy-disciplined, this just sounds like a rehearsal take that nobody bothered to finish. Scratchy fiddle brings back worrying moments of âDonât Pass Me Byâ by The Beatles. This could do with a little Ringo actually. The song is decent but this just seems lazy and unfulfilled. âLive With Meâ Some good bass work going on here from Keith Richards, but this song is all about My Man Charlie. Listen to Watts on this, heâs incredible! What a fantastic work-out from him â Jaggerâs working so hard to make this all about him and heâs doing a good job of it, but Our Charlie takes the award for Most Valuable Stone this time out. Sleazy and winking lyric, somewhere between Carry On and outright sleaze, but Jagger makes it work. Very very 1969 without the blues or country feel thatâs dominated the album up till now. âLet It Bleedâ Delightful! What an absolutely great song, completely infectious and a great work-out from all involved. Jagger is playful and teasing, Richards has some great guitar work going on and itâs all just very hard to listen to without grinning. The overall mood puts me in mind of the similarly-infectious âItâs Only RockânâRoll But I Like Itâ but this is a stronger song (and âItâs Only RockânâRollâ is great!). The cheeky lyric work from the last song is carried over here by Jagger to great effect. Yeah, love this, what a brilliant song! (Side 2) âMidnight Ramblerâ Tricky one, this. Some really great musicianship on show here. Again, Our Charlieâs really a powerhouse here, slipping between speeds. Lovely moment when the song essentially stops dead â âDid you hear about the Boston, honeyâ â and the band are really tight. Vocal is just a little indistinct, but that kind of fits the song as well. Itâs not a song that lends itself to clarity either in subject or delivery, but itâs also hard not to wish Jagger was just a little more distinct at the same time. Some great chugging work on âoh, donât do thatâ creating a real sense of momentum. Yeah, a really interesting song that lends itself to multiple re-listens, which I shall enjoy doing. âYou Got The Silverâ Quick palette-cleanser with Richards on vocals rather than Jagger. Itâs surprisingly great, and he carries the song in a way I donât think Jagger quite would. Thereâs always a degree of affectation to the way Jagger sings but Richards just delivers this straight and itâs a bit more effective for that delivery. Some good guitar work going on, and apparently Brian Jonesâs last contribution to a Stones record, not that youâd know it if it wasnât pointed out. This is fine, but itâs just a transitional song. âMonkey Manâ Is that a vibraphone on the introduction? Why yes it is! Hurrah! Yeah, this is a solid rock workout with everyone delivering. Jagger's yelping and screaming at the end of the song are quite something and itâs great to hear him really stretch his vocal chords. Lyrically thereâs a lot of self-pity going on here and âIâve been bit and Iâve been tossed around / by every she-rat in this townâ is definitely straying into yikes territory. But the lyric feels fairly tossed off, despite more drug references and itâs a solid rock jam. Neither the best nor worst on the album. âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ Man, I hate that choral introduction. So terrible. The song itself is fantastic though, love the French horn before Jaggerâs weary vocal kicks in. Great clatter of instruments before â⊠you get what you need!â and the song kicks up a gear. Great lyric, by turns personal and political and somewhat resigned but not defeated, some really deft work there from Jagger. Itâs pleasingly multi-dimensional. Thereâs a slight hint of the âHey Judeââs about the songâs ending but overall this is a great end to the album. In Conclusion: Thereâs an inherent contradiction that lies at the heart of Let It Bleed. Itâs an album that is simultaneously exhausted and burned out, and also deeply involved in the world around it. That produces some fantastic suspense and pressure throughout the album, as the desire to comment on and observe the increasingly apocalyptic-seeming end of the 60âs mixes with the flamed-out nature of those making the album. âGimme Shelterâ may be an an inescapable clichĂ© these days (thanks, Martin Scorsese!) but itâs still a phenomenal piece of music in its own right, and indeed one of the best album-openers thatâs ever been penned. Itâs both observational and critical, both global and personal, and itâs the mixing together of perspectives that helps give the song such power and launches the album in such an incredible way. Merry Clayton â drafted in at the last moment to add some of the best contributions to rock music ever with a stunning performance â really makes the song here, giving it extra dimension and force, yet after the rage of the track itâs Jaggerâs almost tender âitâs just a kiss awayâ at the end that brings everything back down to the personal level and completes the songâs perspective. Itâs a completely captivating piece of music â and thatâs just the first song on the album. If thatâs what the first song is capable of â personal and political, contemporary and timeless, powerful and vulnerable â what could the rest of the album deliver? Honestly, nothing quite as good, though thatâs not really a criticism as such because âGimme Shelterâ is such a stunning piece of music. The album is bookended by âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ which flips âGimme Shelterââs perspective â while âGimme Shelterâ is vastly political but taps into the personal, âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ is deeply invested in the personal and limits its politics to one verse, though thereâs a political implication to the other topics the song discusses. The sequencing of tracks on Let It Bleed is an absolute masterclass of how to arrange an album, and in bookending the album with these two songs shows a real understanding of how to construct an album that makes it a coherent whole. Putting âLet It Bleedâ as the centrepiece of the album obviously works â it is the title track, after all â but that allows side one to build up to it (âLove In Vainââs stab at authentic blues, the country meanderings of âCountry Honkâ and the briskly contemporaneous âLive With Meâ) and allows breathing space to come down from it (the threatening, slinky âMidnight Ramblerâ, the Richards-sung blues of âYou Got The Silverâ and the rock-out of âMonkey Manâ). That the title track itself is so brilliant â a blend of blues-style chord progressions, Jagger in cheeky over-exaggerated-vocals mode (âwell we awwwwllllla need sommmmmmeone we can-a leeeeeen owwwnâ etc) and a stupendously infectious sense of fun that everyone gets in on â means the tracks on one side really do all build to something worthwhile. Sequencing albums isnât something that tends to get much focus, but when you see it done as well as it is on Let It Bleed then it really deserves to be drawn attention to. Importantly, though, everyone in the band gets their chance to shine â Jagger is on fine voice here (âMonkey Manâ in particular) but this isnât simply Jagger-and-also-some-musicians, but instead everyone gets to really hammer home how important they are to the band. New boy Mick Taylor makes an immediate impression on slide guitar, adding real dimension to âLove In Vainâ and generally fleshing out the bandâs sound in all sorts of interesting ways, but just listen to how Charlie Watts is able to to hold together âLive With Meâ â itâs his song through and through, and try though they might, nobody in the band can come close to matching his contribution. Thatâs not a swipe at the rest of the band â you can hear them fighting to match Watts and everyone ups their game appropriately, delivering an absolutely barnstorming track. Heâs the key player on âMidnight Ramblerâ too, a song which also demonstrates just what good musicians the Stones are. Shifting time signatures and keys mean that, as a band, you have to be tight and Watts sits at the middle of the song, positively motoric at some points, fluidly shifting speed at others, and providing exactly the anchor Jagger and Richards need to hang their strange serial-killer tale off of. Richards himself is on fine form here as a guitarist â that hardly needs to be said, really â but also gets to contribute a surprisingly great vocal on âYou Got The Silverâ, a refreshingly straightforward blues number that acts as an excellent palette-cleanser between âMidnight Ramblerâ and the rock yelpings of âMonkey Manâ. The tension between Richardsâs continued straightforward but evolving evocation of the blues and Jaggerâs investment in the now produce some of Let It Bleedâs finest moments. Are there any down sides here then? Well yes, and itâs unsurprisingly âCountry Honkâ, a tossed-off sounding version of âHonky Tonk Womanâ that feels more like it belongs in âshit, we need a B-side, stick that outâ territory than it does on the album proper. Itâs not really bad as such, but itâs noticeably lacking the same spark thatâs shot through the rest of the album, and thatâs a bit of a pity when thereâs a much better version of the song sitting right there. The 60âs practice of sticking out singles separate from albums resulted in a few real injustices â the absence of âStrawberry Fields Foreverâ and âPenny Laneâ from Sgt Pepper, most obviously â and here that injustice feels especially sharp because Let It Bleed is so near to being perfect only to be let down by one track that just canât carry the weight that it feels almost unfair. But, aside from that, itâs hard to see Let It Bleed as anything other than a triumph. Itâs not the most celebrated of albums in the Stones back catalogue â see the next two instalments for that â but itâs an incredibly strong set of songs from a band that still clearly have a huge amount to offer in terms of writing and performance. And itâs a bracing reminder of just how talented all these musicians really are â the Stones rarely get much credit for being good musicians rather than songwriters or performers, but the sometimes-sloppy sounding work absolutely belies just how tight and disciplined a band they could be and Let it Bleed highlights that wonderfully. This is, in short, a terrific album that makes full use of everyoneâs talents to turn in an absolute belter â and you canât ask for a lot more than that really, can you? How Much Of This Movie Album Can Be Cut?Not so much cut as substituted. âCountry Honkâ is in every way inferior to the completed version of the song â âHonky Tonk Womanâ â and a straight-out swap would strengthen Let It Bleed. The country scratchings of âCountry Honkâ do provide a bridge between the straight-up blues of âLove In Vainâ and the more modern âLive With Meâ but no more than âHonky Tonk Womanâ would be able to do and the single version of the song is just obviously superior. Elsewhere Iâd drop the choral intro to âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ â the song itself is obviously amazing but the choir intro is cheesy as hell and ultimately distracts. Having the quiet acoustic guitar, the lonely French horn then Jaggerâs exhausted vocal come in is far more affecting and allows the song to build better â the choral work at the end is a terrific, restrained addition but the opening just feels out of place. So letâs say 2%.
2019 Cringe Factor 2019 ObservationsNot a vast amount in terms of cringe, hence the shift to Observations. Most obvious, really, is how explicit the album is when it comes to discussing sex (âthen you can cream on meâ) and drugs (âcoke and sympathyâ, both lines (heh) from â Let It Bleedâ). And âLive With Meâ contains not-exactly-cryptic references to ânasty habitsâ and asking if thereâs a place for the subject of the song âin-between the sheetsâ, and thatâs before we get to a butler enjoying a maid âbehind the pantry doorâ. Subtle it is not, though itâs never really cringe-worthy â Jaggerâs got a light enough touch here to make things feel titillating, and possibly even scandalous, without just becoming unpleasant. Itâs cheeky for the most part, though thereâs also a slight air of desperation about it, the desire to persuade the songâs subject to stay as much proof that the singer can persuade them rather than because he needs or desires it in a romantic sense. That air of desperation feeds into the drained, depleted feel much of Let It Bleed exhibits, and though that makes the album easy to read as a whole âdeath of the 60âsâ piece itâs also obvious is just how much Jagger still has to say. References to Vietnam (âGimme Shelterâ) and civil protests (âYou Canât Always Get What You Wantâ) lock the album in time but belie the idea that Let It Bleed is only about the end of the 60âs dream. Thatâs certainly a part of it, but by no means the whole, and the striking relevance of much of what Jagger chooses to write about shows someone who may be burning out (emotionally and chemically) but who is still extremely invested in the world around him. Aside from Jagger the deep commitment the album has towards country and blues demonstrates Richardsâs ongoing obsessions but thereâs a real engagement to them â this isnât off-the-peg three-chords-and-done blues work, and âLove In Vainâ and âYou Got The Silverâ show Richards still fully committed to the form in more than just straightforward replication. White guys singing blues always has the potential for cringe and embarrassment, but everything is executed so well here itâs pretty tough to argue with. What Else Happened Musically In 1969? It was quite the year, as it turns out. The Rolling Stones themselves had a brush with infamy when a fan was stabbed by a member of Hells Angels and died at a concert in Altamont, California. The Beatles release their final album, meisterwerk and undisputed classic Abbey Road (and then one year later released the exact opposite of that). Johnny Cash released San Quentin, Elvis had his big Vegas comeback, both Led Zeppelin and The Stooges released their debuts, and a little-known artist called David Bowie scored a hit with âSpace Oddityâ, a novelty song from a one-hit-wonder that I canât imagine will be troubling this section much further going forwards. Oh and The Who have their stab at a meisterwerk as well, releasing Tommy. And does it even need saying that this was the year of Woodstock? Because it was. And in December, the same month as Let It Bleed was released, The Jackson 5âs debut album is released with the catchy title Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.Best Track: I mean, obviously itâs âGimme Shelterâ. But thatâs just such a crashingly predictable answer, so Iâm going for âLet It Bleedâ. Worst Track: âCountry Honkâ Number Of Songs Added To My Rolling Stones Playlist: 2 - "Let It Bleed" of course, and "Love In Vain", to my surprise.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Feb 17, 2019 11:25:01 GMT -5
Yes, a truly great album, and as you say, a peerlessly sequenced one.
A few stray thoughts.
The bit in Gimme Shelter where Merry Clayton's voice cracks, and you can hear Mick shouting off-mic, is one of the highlights of recorded music. If forced to nominate such a thing as the greatest song ever recorded, an impossible task I know, this is the one that comes to mind most insistently. Totally unimprovable.
Country Honk was the way they wrote the song and did it first, it turns out. Strangely, Keith wasn't into the idea of changing it for the single, and had to be persuaded; it was also their last UK no.1. I think I said somewhere in the Random Music Thoughts thread that few songs show as great an understanding of rock music as the single version: it has blues, country, rock n' roll, soul; it's funny and deadly serious at the same time; it's a great summation of rock's past, and just generally totally irresistible. One of Keith's best uses of the open G tuning, too. I kind of like this version on the album, though. It fits with their other almost-parodic country songs (Dear Doctor on the previous album, Dead Flowers on the next). I also wonder if the single version would be hard to sequence? It probably wouldn't sit well next to Live With Me, having too similar a rousing ending. Dunno, can't make me mind up.
The drums on Live With Me are amazing, especially those cymbal smashes at the end. I love a good cymbals smashing. One thing the Stones were able to do effortlessly was build a song up into something fierce on the last verse and chorus. See also Jumpin Jack Flash, and the forthcoming Brown Sugar.
There's a take of You Got The Silver with Mick on vocals. It's fine, though I wouldn't swap it.
As for the boys choir on You Can't Always Get What You Want, apparently Keith was in such a choir, and performed at the Queen's coronation. Then his balls dropped, taking his voice with them, and they were booted out. He's extremely annoyed about this still, writing in his autobiography that it was one of the things that formed him as an anti-establishment rebel. So this might have been his nod to that. The single version omits the start, and I don't know ... the song doesn't feel right without it to me.
Hard to pick a weak spot on an album like this, so all I can say is that it took me quite a while to come to like Jagger's vocal on Love In Vain. It's still not quite one of my top blues songs from them. And I would like Let It Bleed a lot more if the stereo separation wasn't so stark. But yes, fine stuff.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2019 11:55:31 GMT -5
Fan though I am of Charlie Watts, I always had a sense that "You Can't Always Get What You Want" would have been diminished with his behind-the-beat shuffle (background: Watts "couldn't get the groove right," so producer/session guy Jimmy Miller sat in on the track).
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Post by songstarliner on Feb 17, 2019 15:24:39 GMT -5
A producer/friend called Merry Clayton in the middle of the night to do the vocal for 'Gimme Shelter', and she showed up at the studio in curlers, silk pajamas, and a fur coat - and pregnant. She nailed it in just a couple of amazing takes, then went home to bed ... where she unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. Heavy stuff. Whether or not the emotional exertion of her performance caused or contributed to the loss, for many years she couldn't even listen to the song, much less sing it.
Here's her isolated vocal track. It's pretty great.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Feb 17, 2019 16:28:01 GMT -5
Wow! All of Prole Hole 's additional context, as well as songstarliner , pantsgoblin , and Dellarigg doing their part of revealing interesting morsels, lends this record some really nice flavour. Well done, folks. Given songstarliner 's deep cut info, that does make me feel strange and sad about her later solo version on her own record.
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Post by Superb Owl đŠ on Feb 17, 2019 20:02:35 GMT -5
I can forgive that awful choral intro because it led to one of the all-time Tig Notaro stories on Professor Blastoff (RIP)
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 18, 2019 16:03:09 GMT -5
I can forgive that awful choral intro because it led to one of the all-time Tig Notaro stories on Professor Blastoff (RIP) I have no idea what any of this means...
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Post by Superb Owl đŠ on Feb 18, 2019 16:15:30 GMT -5
I can forgive that awful choral intro because it led to one of the all-time Tig Notaro stories on Professor Blastoff (RIP) I have no idea what any of this means... Tig Notaro is a comedian of some level of niche-fame. Before becoming most well known for the series of comedy sets and documentary that come out of truly hellish year of her life (months of digestive illness, mother died, cancer diagnosis, etc.) she was part of a podcast called Professor Blastoff. The conceit of the podcast was that 3 comedians stumbled upon the hatch of the secret lab of a time-and-space-displaced scientist and used that as a jumping off point to talk about and riff on science topics. Early episodes made much more of an effort to stick to the set-up and topics at hand, but the show really found it's groove when they settled into just freestyling. Invisible Goat was also a fan. Anyway, on one of the episodes Tig relates a story from her childhood, like junior high age. Her class apparently each have a turn to bring in a record from home to play for the class. A classmate who wanted to appear cool asked Tig, who had reputation as a cool 'bad' kid, to help pick a song off of his dad's Rolling Stones album. She picked "You Can't Always Get What You Want". The day the kid got to play it in class, they apparently got juuuuust to the end of the choral intro when the class bell rang and the teacher turned off the record. Said kid refused to talk to Tig again.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 18, 2019 16:54:52 GMT -5
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ArchieLeach
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Post by ArchieLeach on Feb 18, 2019 23:23:16 GMT -5
What a great idea for a thread, and what a great beginning - I agree with pantsgoblin about Jimmy Miller's drumming on "You Can't Always Get..." and with just about everything Dellarigg says, and Tig Notaro story from Owl 2k19 is priceless.
The main thing I'd want to throw in for perspective is that despite the way we contrast the Beatles and the Stones in our minds, the Stones could really bring the pop when they wanted. Aftermath has lots of pop and little of the Chicago-based R&B of their early records, and the piano-driven Between the Buttons is a psychedelic folk-rock gem. In later years hits from records like Tattoo You and Steel Wheels sounded equally comfortable on AM and FM stations.
Although I prefer the acoustic blues of Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed is probably the best gateway to the Stones for its variety and for its strong filler tracks. I have a hard time getting past "Gimme Shelter" these days - it's one of the most powerful tracks in all of rock, and that moment when Mick goes "woo" in surprise to Clayton's breaking voice is as genuine and unguarded as you'll ever hear. Mick is a terrific harmonica (or blues harp) player - this won't be the last time he'll knock you out.
To me, the way the album's mix changes me from song to song took a while to get used to. "Country Honk" has an especially thin sound - if it had been beefed up a little in the mix, it might have come off as well as Beggar's Banquet's "Dear Doctor." (Another surprise - how often the Stones do joking country tracks.) "Live With Me" has that goofy widely-separated mix which is hard to explain when the opening of "Monkey Man" is impeccable. "You Can't Always Get..." also does a fine job of balancing all its elements.
I heard "Love In Vain" long before the Robert Johnson original, and learned to play and sing it solo, but Jagger doesn't get the devastation of Robert Johnson's original. The live Get Your Ya-Ya's Out version of this and "Live With Me" fill out the sound and are played more broadly, and I like those better. Same for "Midnight Rambler," where the audience interaction hypes the song a bit (I still find it repetitive). As a folk-rock softie, I'll admit to "You Got the Silver" being my second favorite track - the dynamics are great, especially the organ and slide guitar work on the instrumental break.
Although on a song-by-song basis Let It Bleed isn't my favorite Stones album, the looseness of the conception gives the album a chance to breath. There's lots of humor, and they know where the heavy efforts are. In a way, its balance of major and slighter songs is similar to the Beatles' White Album. It's an enjoyable ride.
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ayatollahcm
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Post by ayatollahcm on Feb 19, 2019 3:09:40 GMT -5
(Another surprise - how often the Stones do joking country tracks.) Man, I can't wait for Prole to get to "Far Away Eyes."
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Feb 19, 2019 5:05:07 GMT -5
I heard the live version of Midnight Rambler many times before I heard the studio version (the Hot Rocks comp uses the live take). I don't know which I prefer, to be honest. The live one has a chugging power and is much more theatrical in the quiet section (and as ArchieLeach says, the crowd noise is great - god damn), whereas the studio one is subtler and slinkier. This period of the band brings life to the embarrassment of riches cliche.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Feb 19, 2019 9:51:07 GMT -5
As alluded to by repulsionist, there's also an incredible solo version of "Gimme Shelter" by Merry Clayton that I actually prefer over the Stones' version:
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 28, 2019 6:17:45 GMT -5
As alluded to by repulsionist , there's also an incredible solo version of "Gimme Shelter" by Merry Clayton that I actually prefer over the Stones' version:
Terrific version, no doubt about it. Some pipes. By the way, going forward Album Rankings will get ported over from Bond Rankings as well, and Sticky Fingers should be done in about a week.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 31, 2019 9:26:25 GMT -5
Let It Bleed (1971) Let It Bleed turned out to be really something of a triumph, but few albums carry the reputation of Sticky Fingers. Will this be able to live up to its predecessorâs high standards? Will it deserve its place in the pantheon of classic rock albums? Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions? If Iâm To Be A Camera: Album cover⊠. . . . . OF COCK But thatâs basically it â a pair of jeans, a great big stiffy and a pun. And the album name not-exactly-discreetly positioned for maximum eyebrow-waggling. See? See what we did? Weâre such rotters! The back â or in this case, rear â cover is a picture of, presumably, the same modelâs posterior, along with the tracklisting. Itâs all playful and funny in almost exactly the way the album isnât. Oh and, small point though it is, this is the first Stones album to feature the lips-and-tongue logo, being as it is the first album to be released on Rolling Stones Records. Pre-existing Prejudices: I mean, itâs pretty tough to know anything about music and not have some idea of the reputation both this and the next album have. But Iâve never listened to it all the way though â I know âBrown Sugarâ and âWild Horsesâ of course, and I know the title, but not the song, âSister Morphineâ. For the rest itâs a blank sheet. Songs: âBrown Sugarâ â Like everyone Iâve heard it about a bazillion and one times but itâs still a great song, and a fantastic album opener. Playful, raunchy and walking right up to the line of being too much but not quite falling over it. Love Mickâs vocal here, full of texture and emphasis (âEnglish blood runs hawwt!â). It ought to be incredibly offensive but itâs Mickâs cheekiness that gets it over the line. Mick Taylorâs having a goodâun as well, and - a feature of this album â sexophone all over the place. Irrepressibly great. âSwayâ Well this is just the Mick Taylor Shows Off Power Hour. Ever-so-slightly stodgy blues doesnât just quite land, Mickâs Taylor and Jagger are doing their best but somethingâs not quite there⊠Itâs not Charlie Wattâs finest hour either. Dad rock, mostly. A little piano and string helps give a lift but thereâs a note of desperation here that isnât very appealing. âWild Horsesâ Eh, itâs âWild Horsesâ. Itâs great and all, and itâs one of Jaggerâs best vocals. Keithâs back on guitar having sat the last one out, and it makes a difference. This sounds like the Stones in a way that âSwayâ just slightly doesnât. Charlieâs found his groove again, that helps too. Anyway, you know this song â itâs terrific. âCanât You Hear Me Knockingâ A song of two halves (well, one-quarter, three-quarters). The first bit a fairly straightforward Rolling Stones song, the second an extended instrumental riff where Mick Taylor again gets to strut his stuff. Some good Charlie Watts here, but this isnât really my bag, daddy-o â technically proficient rock jams just Arenât My Thing. Good, but not something Iâm going to love. Still, Iâd recognise that Billy Preston Awesome Rock Organ anywhere, and itâs great (good sexophoning too). âYou Gotta Moveâ Sliding from Rock Jam tm to White Guys Do Gospel, this is wildly unconvincing. Some nice slide guitar work, but eesh, hearing Mick Jagger do Southern slang has not aged well. Mick Taylor (again) holds things together but this is mostly inessential, and occasionally actively bad. Nope. (Side Two) âBitchâ Well someoneâs been to see the odd Blaxploitation movie or two. Some great guitar/sax work going on here, and a generally fantastic riff. This sounds properly energised in a way no track on Sticky Fingers has since âBrown Sugarâ â the passion here sounds genuine, without a keening edge of desperation. Iâd much rather it was this song that ran to seven minutes instead of âCanât You Hear Me Knockingâ. âI Got The Bluesâ Um. I mean, itâs all there in the title. Itâs a perfectly sold Rolling Stones blues song. Good vocal from Jagger, some nice background sax going on. Reminds me slightly of something Stax might have put out were this not fronted by a middle-class English bloke. Nice rock organ though, no getting away from that, but youâd be hard-pressed to call this essential. âSister Morphineâ The Rolling Stones Do The Velvet Underground But Not As Good As The Velvet Underground Do The Velvet Underground. Makes the barely-implicit theme of the album â drugs â exceeding explicit. A worn-out, broken, exhausted drag which likely captures the burned-out junkie experience very well, though itâs little fun to listen to. Not quite as powerful as it thinks it is, though Jagger does his best, and the relative simplicity helps a lot. âDead Flowersâ Country pastiche which, astonishingly, is rather great. Thereâs a real shot of humour through this that seems mischievous rather than the overriding tone of this album, which has been desperation. Thatâs not just in the lyric, but a laconic honky-tonk feel from the musicians in the band give it a nice swing. Even here drugs canât be escaped â âneedle and a spoonâ â but this is by far the most delightful surprise of the album. âMoonlight Mileâ Rather pretty, though it seems to have little connection to the rest of the album. Is this a road song, maybe? Or more drugs? (âhead full of snowâ) Or⊠erm, something? Unusually oblique lyric from Mr Jagger, though itâs relatively effective. It doesnât feel of a piece with anything but itâs a decent song on its own. I donât have a lot more to say about it really. In Conclusion: Sticky Fingers is a tough album to write about â even setting aside its reputation, itâs an album of contradictions. Let It Bleed was too, but thereâs a tightness and focus to Let It Bleed thatâs not quite the case here. Well â thatâs not strictly accurate, but one of the things that holds Sticky Fingers together is Mick Taylor. Heâs a gifted guitarist, that goes without saying, but thereâs a difference between âgiftedâ and ârightâ and the increased role taken by Taylor mirrors the decreased role taken by Richards, and itâs not to the materialâs benefit. Richards is probably not as technically proficient as Taylor, but I donât give a hoot for technical proficiency â itâs the feel that matters, and thatâs what Richards brings. âBrown Sugarâ has it â âCanât You Hear Me Knockingâ doesnât. Thatâs not the say that the latter is a bad song, as such, but thereâs just an indefinable something thatâs missing from it, and itâs impossible not to bring this down to Richardsâs decreased role. What Sticky Fingers really is, though, is a drag. Itâs banal to infinity and beyond to point out just how drug-drenched this album is, yet itâs clearly a key element of whatâs going on here. It percolates absolutely every track, it seeps into absolutely every aspect of the album and absolutely none of it sounds fun. Even the ostensibly-fun country riff of âDead Flowersâ canât escape heroinâs clutches, and of course âSister Morphineâ makes everything extremely unambiguous. Sticky Fingers is a junkie album, but thereâs no pleasure here at all â the album is laced with desperation dressed up as liberation but itâs fooling no-one. This is someone trying to keep the party going long, long after it should have wrapped up but everyone involved seem unwilling or unable to stop. That desperation sucks much of the joy from the album â for all of âBrown Sugarââs cheeky bad-boy riffing, itâs the exception here, not the rule, and most of the rest of the album is cycling through various ways of either addressing or avoiding addressing addiction. The punning album cover, the cheeky sense of getting away with something is, in the end, a feint. This is is an album about being worn out. That makes it a pretty exhausting listening experience, even though there are clearly some transcendent moments here. Jagger is mostly turning in very strong work â weâll quietly place âYou Gotta Moveâ to one side here â and though some of that energy he displays has the keening note of the desperate, thereâs no doubt heâd doing some great things â thereâs a reason âWild Horsesâ is so well known, and itâs basically him. But in many ways heâs the exception here â Richardâs diminished role from Let It Bleed does the material here no favours, and Charlie Watts isnât having his best outing either (despite some stellar work on âBitchâ). That gives the album a more fragmentary nature, beyond the clutches of mere chemistry. And speaking of which, âSister Morphineâ is⊠well, what exactly? Itâs tough to say itâs an exorcism, and itâs certainly an admission, but really, what it comes down to is indulgence. âOh woe is me, for I suffer,â is essentially the message, yet because itâs self-inflicted itâs tough to care. What Jaggerâs going through sounds pretty harrowing â but perversely, not quite harrowing enough. Compare and contrast to Lou Reed covering similar territory on âHeroinâ and the difference is clear. Jaggerâs reaching for something, and there is some real power in a few moments, but much of âSister Morphineâ is pity-me and it just doesnât carry the same punch. Good try, though. Away from the chemical, andâŠ. Well there really isnât any âaway from the chemicalâ. So much of the material here is obsessed and infused with drugs that thereâs very little else to talk about. Everything is subservient to that so when thereâs frustration expressed on the album (âBitchâ), itâs as a result of drugs. When thereâs weariness on the album (âSister Morphineâ, âSwayâ) itâs because of âthat demon lifeâ â itâs not exactly cryptic, is it? And so on. And thatâs a lot of the problem with Sticky Fingers â itâs got one theme, and in the end just singing about that one thing gets boring. Itâs the stoner in the corner who just canât carry on a conversation about anything without telling you how great weed is, maaaan, just with heroin rather than pot. All the emotions on display here are tainted, and nobody either has the strength or the will to inject anything else (pun, sadly, intended). Thereâs craftsmanship, and no outright stinkers, but viewed from a certain angle âcraftsmanshipâ can look a lot like âmarking timeâ. One of the problems with Sticky Fingers is that so much here just sounds like knocked-off versions of Stuff Other People Do. Blaxpolitation grooves on âBitchâ, delta blues on âYou Gotta Moveâ, faux-Velvet Underground on âSister Morphineâ and so on. Itâs no co-incidence that the albumâs two best songs â âBrown Sugarâ and âWild Horsesâ â are also the two that sound most like actual Rolling Stones songs, not The Rolling Stones Do Something Other People Do, But Fractionally Less Well. It wouldnât be right to call Sticky Fingers derivative, that would be terribly unfair, but listen to the soundtrack to Super-Fly, then listen to âBitchâ and the difference is stark (and, I do want to emphasize, âBitchâ is still a great song). Similarly with âHeroinâ from The Velvet Underground and Nico. âSister Morphineâ just canât compete, again good song though it is. On Let It Bleed, when the Stones wandered into other peopleâs musical territory they commanded it. Here, they simply exist within it. Blame apathy, blame drugs, blame personnel, in the end the results are the same, and they just donât quite measure up. So look, letâs be clear. Sticky Fingers is, obviously, a terrific album. It also feels like a clear, obvious step down from Let It Bleed, with none of the focus or tightness of that album, replacing skill and ability with chemicals and lethargy. The coherence, the sense of purpose has gone on Sticky Fingers, even while that absence is, in a way, what binds the album together. Itâs easy to see why people might regard Sticky Fingers as an all-time classic, a straddling of the death of the 60âs and the birth of the 70âs. Jaggerâs on great voice, thatâs undeniable. Mick Taylor makes a huge impression (for better or worse). Itâs slick, competent, has a couple of blistering tracks⊠and thatâs it. So yes. A great album. Really. A great album. I donât think Iâll be listening to it again, though. How Much Of This Album Can Be Cut?Iâd ditch âYou Gotta Moveâ. Itâs pretty cringe-inducing (see below) and just feels like self-indulgence. It also reminded me of the similarly unhelpful âMaggie Maeâ from Let It Be, which isnât the fault of âYou Gotta Moveâ, obviously, but itâs disposable in exactly the same way. 2019 Cringe Factor 2019 Observations: Well, letâs start with âBrown Sugarâ shall we? I mean, thatâs a whole box of yikes right there. How does the song get away with it? Well, an ever so slightly down-in-the-mix vocals helps slightly obscure the lyric, which probably helps. Itâs hard to imagine, even in 1971, that âhear him whip the women just around midnightâ would have passed muster on radio, but it obviously did. Of course, the fact that musically itâs one of the best things the Stones ever recorded obviously helps â because, really, itâs easy to forget just how brilliant the musicianship is here. Itâs amazing. And Jagger just, just, just barely stays on the right side of raunchy, though itâs a close-run thing. âJust like a young girl shouldâ doesnât automatically mean something dodgy, though from a 2019 perspective itâs next-to-impossible to imagine it isnât, and the line âand all her boyfriends were sweet sixteenâ⊠well that is the age of consent for heterosexual sex in 1971 (and indeed today) in the UK, soâŠ. Uh. You wouldnât give it a pass, but itâs not quite a fail either. Yet thatâs also whatâs so great about âBrown Sugarâ â itâs a bucket of contradiction, but the contradictions work for the song, not against it. Moving on⊠well, obviously we have the extremely explicit drug references in âSister Morphineâ, though itâs at least going for naked honesty â you could never claim that the song, nor indeed any part of the album, glamorises drug use. Indeed, quite the reverse â if this album is anything to go by it sounds unbearably awful. Ditto âBitchâ â the reality of addition is a long way from an endorsement of it. Then we have âDead Flowersâ which is appealingly bitchy â though again we have drugs as a substitute for a person, basically âfuck you, Iâll get high insteadâ (itâs muddy whether the âother girlâ the song refers to is heroin or an actual person) â but at least itâs quite funny. And âYou Gotta Moveâ is just cringe from start to finish, and I donât have anything more to add about it. What Else Happened Musically In 1971? Davey Jones left the Monkees, which must have upset at least three people at the time. The first example of âmodern rock charityâ, a road that eventually leads to Live Aid, kicks off with the George Harrison-arranged Concert For Bangladesh, while Harrison himself releases âMy Sweet Lordâ and finds his way into legal history as he gets sued for unconscious plagiarism. Led Zeppelin release their untitled fourth album (âYou havenât lived untilâŠâ etc) which I guess means we have to mention âStairway To Heavenâ. So there it is. Cher gets her first solo hit with âGypsies, Tramps and Thievesâ and Bill Withers releases the beyond-glorious âAinât No Sunshineâ. Simon and Garfunkel release their seminal (and rather boring) Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Who release Whoâs Next, John Lennon gives us Imagine, and T Rex release Electric Warrior, ushering in the era of glam rock. There's also the very first Glastonbury festival which takes place in, um, Glastonbury. And in less joyful news, Rick Wakeman joins Yes, and Rod Stewart has a massive hit with âMaggie Maeâ â get used to him, he ainât going anywhere. Elton John also scores a hit with âYour Songâ, so brace for endless terrible cover versions and terrible karaoke versions of an already-terrible song from now until eternity. Best Track: Gonna have to go with âBrown Sugarâ. Sorry, yâall. Worst Track: âYou Gotta Moveâ NEW FEATURE: Number Of Songs Added To My Rolling Stones Playlist: 1 â âDead Flowersâ Album Rankings: 1. Let It Bleed2. Sticky Fingers
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Dellarigg
AV Clubber
This is a public service announcement - with guitars
Posts: 7,499
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 31, 2019 13:23:49 GMT -5
I love it - prefer it to Let It Bleed, think it's second only to the next up. It has a velvety, purple, smeary feel to it that no other album comes close to. It's also the album that takes me back to certain rooms during my student days more than any other, along with Beatles For Sale.
My theory on Brown Sugar, which I've never seen validated anywhere, is that Jagger wrote it as a tongue in cheek, teasing tribute to his gal of the time, Marsha Hunt (mother of his first kid). Whether or not that makes it easier to digest in 2019, I don't know. I'm fine with You Gotta Move, the vocal of a piece with the earlier Prodigal Son, and the jangling guitars on Sister Morphine always make me think of skeletons reaching out to get you. Moonlight Mile is one of the prettiest things they did, especially the last few minutes, though I think Keith was out of action on this one as well, and isn't keen on it as a result. Wild Horses has to be within a shout of being their best ballad. The second part of Can't You Hear Me Knocking goes on a bit, I'll concede, and Bitch seems a bit riffing-by-rote, but I wouldn't change anything.
One bit of trivia. The line as written in Brown Sugar is 'scarred old slaver', but Jagger kind of sings 'skydog slaver'. Skydog was the nickname of Duane Allman, who was making a reputation for himself around that time. I think the producer had been eulogising him to the band before Jagger did the vocal take.
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ArchieLeach
AV Clubber
I talk too much, I worry me to death
Posts: 289
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Post by ArchieLeach on Mar 31, 2019 22:05:18 GMT -5
Back when I was building my music collection, purchasing the rock canon as defined by The Rolling Stone Record Buying Guide and numerous best-of lists, Sticky Fingers was an obvious great. There's a weight to it, and none of the tracks seem half-assed. (I know some would disagree with "You Gotta Move," but compare it to "Country Honk" or "Sing This All Together" and even "Move" sounds more put together.) Some of the guest stars were already favorites of mine, including guitarist Ry Cooder and arranger Paul Buckmaster.
Most of all, it was an eclectic and serious album. I loved the desperate romanticism of "Moonlight Mile," one of the songs I learned to finger-pick then improvise on acoustic guitar. In fact, if I go song vs. song, there are lots of places where I prefer Fingers over Let It Bleed. My tastes ran towards the emotionally heavy, and there is a lot of heavy on this album.
But so damn much of it is about drugs, and that's a real hurdle for me. Big Star's Third is also drug-obsessed, but it's also obsessed about how Alex Chilton struggles to communicate with his audience. Little Feat's Dixie Chicken is all about sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and at least they sound like they're having some dirty fun. It's only when this album gets touches on areas outside of drugs that it connects with me - "Moonlight Mile" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" (both Keith's hard-riffing opening and Taylor's spacey jam) are my favorites.
OK, time to confess another issue. I have a hard time with Mick Jagger. He's more a personality than a singer, and as a personality I believe him more as a cynic than as a romantic. For that, over time "Brown Sugar" has seemed increasingly just a bunch of bad boys saying really rude things. The guitar riffs and the hooks are still there, but it's more of a joke, better than "Some Girls" but not really better or even more shocking than Elton John and Bernie Taupin's parody of it, "Dirty Little Girl." As vicious as "Stray Cat Blues" was on Beggar's Banquet, it sounds like a scenario they actually lived, and that gives the song a crackling excitement.
It's hard for me to explain, but I also have qualms about "Wild Horses." It's Keith's song - well, rumor is it's Gram Parsons' and Keith's song. I just don't buy Mick on this song anymore. I swear, it's not to tar all of Mick's singing on ballads, but I don't believe any quality of fragility the man is selling. Supposedly Mick learned the song listening to Parsons' rough take - I've included the link to the Flying Burrito Brothers' version (I can't say definitively that it's better, but it's worth a listen).
A word about Mick Taylor - he's a fantastic blues/rock guitarist whose style never really seemed to mesh with Keith's. The lack of meshing is OK - it pushes the band in various directions they wouldn't have gone otherwise. "Sway" is not a successful song, but this heavy layered wave of riffing guitar was a style the Stones would explore to great effect.
So it's the old "it's an album I admire more than I love" summary. Heavily atmospheric, melodic, fully produced, a unique album, but too limited in subject matter. It does gain stature, however, when considered as part of a sequence of albums. It was a notable chapter of a saga. And now for comparison's sake:
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 1, 2019 8:03:31 GMT -5
OK, time to confess another issue. I have a hard time with Mick Jagger. He's more a personality than a singer
This is a very interesting point, because to be honest it's one of the reasons that I wanted to undertake this project. So much of the Rolling Stones is, to me, just the clichés of Jagger's exaggerated speech patterns, hips, jokes about how old they are (and I'm old enough myself to remember those being made in the 80's, never mind now) and so on that the idea there was an actual band or music that lay behind the clichés or lurid tabloid headlines just got completely obscured. I've definitely had a hard time wrestling with Jagger's image, and the 70's material seemed/seems to strike the balance between there still being some great material to get into but being outside the obvious 60's material (and falling short of the obvious creative downturn from the 80's onwards). The exploration is still going on for me, but I think it's one of the reasons Let It Bleed hit me so hard - it's just great and not at all what I was expecting really, even though it's also kind of what I was expecting as well. It's also interesting what Dellarigg said about this taking him back to a student dorm - I think if I'd been digging this when I was a student myself I probably would have been all about it, and rather than finding it in contrast to the likes of the VU I would have found it complimentary. Too many years later and my taste has moved on somewhat, so I'm left admiring much of this while finding it more-or-less impossible to engage with on anything more than a surface level. That's why this review took so long to write - it was hard to come up with much more than, "it's fine, bit dull, not really for me". And, from my exceedingly limited research, I think most people prefer this to Let It Bleed. I'm the outlier here.
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 15, 2019 13:07:18 GMT -5
Exile On Main St (1972) Sticky Fingers was an odd experience â an obviously-great album that was, nevertheless, just Not For Me. So how is this, arguably the most fĂȘted album in the Stonesâs back catalogue going to fare if their second-most-well-regarded left a decidedly mixed imprint? If Iâm To Be A Camera: A random collection of many, many (circus?) photos in black and white, with the bandâs name and album title spelled out in a horrible red âhand-writtenâ font that Iâm sure thereâs a name for but which I dislike too much to actually look up (or maybe itâs actually hand-writing â horrible either way). The overall effect is pretty ugly. The back cover? More of the same. Pre-existing Prejudices: Not much really, beyond know that this is arguably the album with the best reputation in their back catalogue. I know âShine A Lightâ and âTumbling Diceâ, neither of which would crack my Top Twenty Rolling Stones songs â fine, not remarkable â but the last album had a stellar reputation as well and didnât do it for me. Guess itâs time to find out if this oneâs any better! Songs: âRocks Offâ Ok, weâre cantering straight out of the gate! Powerful, propulsive and actually engaging. Then the brass slides in simple but very effective. Weird, slightly psychedelic break (âfeel so hypnotisedâŠâ) gives a change of feel but doesnât derail the momentum. Our Charlieâs having a good âun! The mixing on this song is strange, voices coming and going all over the place. Lyric incredibly indistinct but I guess Jagger only gets his rocks off when heâs dreaming? Wet dream? Drug reference? Who knows, but a terrific album opener. âRip This Jointâ Terrific 50âs style rocker with huge brass line taking the lead, fab, honky-tonk piano and Jagger bellowing all over the place. Terrific. The lyric is again hard to discern thanks to the mix but this is a short, powerful stab of a song. Two for two! âShake Your Hipsâ First cover of the album. Nice contrast after the first two stompers, slinky and incredibly infectious. Nice restrained guitar work (Richards? It doesnât sound like Taylorâs brand of leadfuckery). Jaggerâs much clearer in the mix, which is great because his performance gets space to breathe. Keeps the 50âs vibe, but more Bo Diddly than the rockabilly feel of âRip This Jointâ. Yeah, rather great in fact. âCasino Boogieâ Another shift in style, this time to straightforward blues. Nice harmonies between Jagger and Richards, really expertly deployed. No idea what this song is about. A casino. And a boogie, I guess? Oh, here comes the big-ass raunchy brass section. Man Iâm such a sucker for a saxophone when itâs used like this. Another terrific outing for Charlie, and great bass work too (is that Wyman? It doesnât sound like it). âTumbling Diceâ Oh hey, itâs âTumbling Diceâ. I mean, itâs obvious why itâs the big hit, and it keeps the stylistic shifting of the album with itâs rambling tale of a gambler who just can't keep on the straight and narrow â bit clichĂ©d lyrically, though the âgotta roll meâ end works well enough. Jaggerâs a bit squashed by the production but Taylor turns in a great lead that finally sounds like itâs in the song not on top of it. Not my favourite Stones song, but perfectly fine. (Side 2) âSweet Virginiaâ And here we go with another style, more country this time, and Jaggerâs giving us (who knew?) some great harmonica. Simple, catchy acoustic twanging matched by Jagger slurring and swallowing his words stylistically but heâs up in the mix and giving terrific performance. Just a simple round on the chords as one by one instruments and voices come in. Impossible to dislike. âTorn and Frayedâ Quick slide over into honky-tonk. Some nice backing vocals from Richards, though Jaggerâs over-egging the faux-country annunciations a bit. Yâall. Some decent lead guitar work going on and again feels like its properly integrated into the song. This is alright and doesnât derail the album or anything but itâs by far the weakest song so far. âSweet Black Angelâ OK this feels quite different. Weird, it reminds me of an R.E.M. song, âFinal Strawâ, though this also doesnât feel like itâs an inspiration for it. More great harmonica from Jagger, great guitar from Richards and Taylor, and a really strong, understated bass from Wyman (confession â heâs not exactly my favourite bassist in the word, but heâs doing good here). Really terrific song, and nice to see a lyric thatâs much more engaged with the real world. âLoving Cupâ Sesame Street and/or Billy Joel pianos! Not especially spectacular, though I like the middle-eight as it pulls itself back to the main song. This is fine â a perfectly cromulent ending to the second side, but itâs lacking a special idea to elevate it. Charlieâs got some good fill work going on, and the brass section at the end works hard to convince us this is exciting but it canât quite manage it. Solid but nothing more. (Side 3) âHappyâ Theyâve let Keith sing again! Slide guitars all over this thing! Pretty standard lyric (donât need money to keep me happy maaaaan, as long as I got love) is made up for by a terrific Richards performance, he sounds really invested. More brass on manoeuvres as it kicks in about halfway through and gives the song a lift. Ever so slightly runs out of ideas before the fade but mostly great. âTurd On The Runâ Nice title. Rollicking blues number all over the place. Jaggerâs doing really, really great work here, lots of whoops and hollers and really sounding fantastic. Terrific duelling guitars as well, and some really subtle well-used harmonica. Yup, this is great. Not much more to say about it. âVentilator Bluesâ Ha, this is awesome. Lovely, loping rhythm, just listen to My Man Charlie go! Very funny, somehow, and everyone just sounds like theyâre having a blast here. Jaggerâs mixed a bit oddly again, but it kind of works for this song â everything feels ever so slightly âoffâ but it all contributes. Love the âdonât fight itâ ending. Very restrained when it comes to deploying the piano and brass, the right approach. This song rules. Then we get cross-fade into⊠âI Just Want To See His Faceâ This song does not rule. Faux-gospel recorded by a bunch of whiter-than-white guys is not my thing at all. And Jagger vaguely rambling on about wanting to see Jesus is just weird. Ironically one of the best-produced songs on the whole album â the wordless falsetto is great, and the percussion sounds just fantastic, really well put together. But the song is kind of nothing. âLet It Looseâ This sounds so like The Beatles Lennon and McCartney should sue. Specifically, The Beatles circa 1967, and Iâd know a Leslie speaker anywhere. Like âLoving Cupâ a solid ending to this side, if somewhat-derivative. Charlieâs fill before the brass comes in is so Ringo itâs actively painful. Jeff Lynne would be proud of this song. This is not a compliment. Jaggerâs giving a good performance here, but he canât overcome the imitative nature of the music. (Side 4) âAll Down The Lineâ Picking up the pace again! Straightforward rock song at last that doesnât feel like itâs paddling about in other peopleâs genres, and ties us back to Side One of the album. Some nice lead work (Taylor by the sounds of it) and Jaggerâs on really fine voice here â heâs really got some grunt going. A road song basically, but a pretty damned good one. Great fun. âStop Breaking Downâ Delta blues time, but Jagger has gone some real strut going here â if you have to cover songs like this, well, this is how to do it. Much improved production really lets Jagger take centre stage, heâs doing great harmonica again, and thereâs some serious slidewankery going on in the guitars â Tayler got it nailed down this time out, even with a really extended end-of-song show-off moment (and I like that the song stops, rather than fades out). Nicely compulsive. âShine A Lightâ Jaggerâs still front-and-centre, to great effect. Whoâs on drums here, thatâs not Charlie! Theyâre OK, a bit stiff â like listening to McCartney when he filled in for Ringo, competent but lacking a certain feel or flare. Look, I know this is one of The Great Rolling Stones Songsâą, but it never quite gets its hooks into me. Gospel choice backing vocals are great, Jaggerâs great, some nice organ work, but I dunno⊠it doesnât quite do it for me â maybe itâs just trying a bit too hard. A perfectly solid album track. âSoul Survivorâ Well, itâs kind of a soul-blues things, nicely up-tempo and feels much more relaxed and comfortable with what it is than âShine A Lightâ. Solid way to end the album, âgonna be the death of meâ and of course the title is a pun, so I am legally obliged to like it. I donât really have a lot to say about this one â yeah itâs good, it ends Exile on a solid note, and feels like an appropriate coda. In Conclusion: Iâm glad I started this project with Let It Bleed, because had I begun with Sticky Fingers it might well have derailed it before it even got started. Iâm still not sold on that album, so there was some sense of dread coming to the other big titan of the Rolling Stonesâ back catalogue, Exile On Main St. And that would have been a shame, because this really is a fantastic album more or less from start to finish. A million miles away from the dreary, self-defeating narcissistic solipsism that made Sticky Fingers such a slog, we instead have an album of pace, energy and momentum. Thereâs a crackling energy to Exile that makes is an absolute pleasure to listen to but itâs also a slyly constructed album, whereby thereâs a sense of purpose to exploring the different sub-genres of blues, country, honky-tonk, soul and gospel, and where and how they overlap. Genre straddling is nothing new to the Rolling Stones, of course, but theyâve never managed it with quite the confidence, with quite the sense of purpose, that they delivery here. Side One, especially, is a masterclass of nudging genres by degrees, before artfully sliding into Side Two and its exploration of all things country. The shifts are sometimes subtle, and even slight â the move from the straightforward rock of âRocks Offâ to the 50âs-style rockânâroll of âRip This Jointâ isnât a huge leap, but it's one that nevertheless feels evolutionary (ironic, considering it ought really to be the other way round), and the movement between similar but overlapping genres helps give the album a real sense of pace. The move from âRip This Jointâ to âShake Your Hipsâ keeps things rooted in a 50âs sensibility but allows the style to drift further afield, keeping that sense of development going, and it continues like that for more or less the whole album. Itâs a cunning approach to playing around with genres, and itâs staggeringly effective. One thing you could never accuse Exile of doing is sitting still, even in the moments where it slows down. The important point here is that the Stones are really embracing these genres, rather than simply using them as an excuse to be lazy, as per the last outing. One of the things that gets lost listening to music on a digital device (or even, sometimes, CD) is the idea of âsidesâ and I mention them quite deliberately in the last paragraph, because theyâre important in the way that Exile On Main St is constructed. Itâs not an album designed to be listened to straight through, as such, but rather one that has four distinct phases, and each phase supports and develops from the last. Side One is about rock (and roll), Side Two is about country and ballads, Side Three is about the blues, and Side Four is an effective summary of everything thatâs gone before it. Listened to all in one sitting, with no break, this distinction tends to get rather lost, but listening to it with breaks to allow a disc to be turned over helps reveal just how invested each side is in its genre play. Side Four, in particular, does an amazing job of summarising everything thatâs come before it without taking away from the preceding individual sides â and rather than the apparently-at-random selection of tracks that Sticky Fingers went for, here we see Exile really taking the time to devote chunks of the album to what it wants to explore. âTumbling Diceâ and âShine A Lightâ aside, there arenât any big âquick, name a song by the Rolling Stones!â hits on the album, but in a way thatâs to the albumâs advantage. Rather than getting bogged down in âhere comes the Number One single in among the filler!â the album functions much more smoothly for being a single piece relatively undisturbed by big hits. Indeed, after this point in their careers the Rolling Stones will never again trouble the Number One spot in the UK singles charts, but if the pay-off to that is an album of the standard of Exile then thatâs a trade more than worth making. And even when the album occasionally strays into territories it canât quite own â The Beatles-alike of âLet It Looseâ, the gospel of âI Just Want To See His Faceâ - it never feels like the band attempting them was a mistake, rather that theyâve tried them and they didnât work out, so they move on to something else. A negative result is still a result, and neither come close to doing any damage to the album (indeed, âLet It Looseâ is actually a pretty great song, for all that it sounds derivative). While youâd be hard pressed to call Exile âexperimentalâ in any way, you could, perhaps, call it âdevelopmentalâ at the very least. And if not every development works out, well thatâs fine â there's plenty more genres and styles to try out. One of the big differences between this and Sticky Fingers is how well Mick Taylor fits into the band. At last. The last album really struggled to integrate what he did into the ongoing sound of the Rolling Stones, turning in competent work that nevertheless never quite felt like it fitted. Here the reverse is true â he vanishes completely into the band, becoming another element to be drawn on as and when required. I donât mean that in a derogatory way â Taylor simply feels like he fits now, after an album of working out how best to use him. The wobbly, all-over-the-place production actually does him a favour in this regard â rather than having a big brash guitar solo that sits atop and apart from everything else everything is mixed more or less at the same level, allowing his playing to become part of the process. Though, saying that, the mixing itself deserves some mention, because itâs near-universally horrible. This might be the best worst-produced album in history. The few songs that gets the production right (âShine A Lightâ, âI Just Want To See His Faceâ) only shows up how badly off the mixing is everywhere else. Sometimes that can lead to a compelling effect â the vocals on âRocks Offâ fade in and out, come and go, with different singers, and the effect is a sort of audio Cut-Up Technique, eventually becoming almost mesmerising, and itâs curiously effective â certainly it doesnât seem like a song that would benefit from being any cleaner. Elsewhere though it often serves to squash Jaggerâs performances (âTorn And Frayedâ, âTumbling Diceâ) and to little purpose â the fact that the material still manages to soar despite this is a testament to how good what we have here is. Even the crappy production canât ruin it! So thereâs not really going to be an original conclusion here. Exile is great, itâs a thoroughly enjoyably album and it feels like an invigorating restatement of what the Stones are capable of delivering on after the mumbling self-indulgence of Sticky Fingers. The genre experiments feel fresh and invested, Jagger is on fine voice, and everyone contrives something worthwhile. The songwriting is strong and the sheer confidence and swagger deployed here feels like something almost no other band in the world could deliver â the sheer chutzpah on display feels uniquely of this time and of this band. Even a song with a title as stupid as âTurd On The Runâ turns out to be unexpectedly great (and it really is a fantastic song). So yes â like I said, no hint of an original conclusion. Exile is fantastic, and Iâm thoroughly glad to have finally listened to it. How Much Of This Album Can Be Cut?Exactly two song, âI Just Want To See His Faceâ and âTorn And Frayedâ. Itâs always the way with a double-album â there's always something that just doesnât quite live up to the rest, and this time itâs these two (Iâm giving âLet It Looseâ a pass here, though itâs number three on the chop list). Like most double albums, Exileâs whole is greater than the sum of its parts and in truth neither of them derail the album, but taken purely as individual tracks theyâre clearly the weakest of what we have here and need to go. Thus this time out we can be precise â 11%.2019 Cringe Factor 2019 Observations: I donât quite know what to write here this time out. âSweet Black Angelâ obviously deserves a mention, since itâs a rare (and successful) foray into politics for Jagger, but beyond that thereâs not a whole lot to get worked up about, either from the point of view of Cringe or Observations. âTurd On The Runâ is, as mentioned, a stupid title masking a great song, though I donât personally think much of âI Just Want To See His Faceâ itâs not an embarrassment â well, no more than white guys trying to sing gospel would normally imply â and the faux-country exaggerations (âgeee-tarâ) of âTorn And Frayedâ are absurd, though mostly because thereâs little sense that Jagger is in on the absurdity this time out (unlike, say, âDead Flowrsâ). So to be honest Iâm just gonna leave it this time out. What Else Happened Musically In 1972? Well, David Bowie released The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, one of the finest pieces of music humanity has ever created. So thereâs that. Paul McCartney debuts Wings for the first time, while around the same time whatâs left of The Velvet Underground (not much) call it a day. Aretha Franklyn releases Young, Gifted And Black and, in rather less excellent news, Don McLean releases Don McLean, meaning weâre stuck with âAmerican Pieâ from now until the heat death of the universe. And fucking âVincentâ. ELO have their first concert, so brace for a lot of people telling you they arenât just Jeff Lynne desperately trying to recreate Magical Mystery Tour, actually, while Diana Ross gets an Oscar nomination for Lady Sings The Blues. Ready for some hardcore flute action? Jethro Tull are on hand with Thick As A Brick and *shudder* Genesis are there with Foxtrot. Sorry about that. Best Track: âVentilator Bluesâ Worst Track: âTorn And Frayedâ Number Of Songs Added To My Rolling Stones Playlist: 3 âSweet Virginiaâ, âVentilator Bluesâ, âTurd On The Runâ Album Rankings: 1. Let It Bleed2. Exile On Main St3. Sticky Fingers
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Apr 15, 2019 13:50:40 GMT -5
Not to be a contrarian, but ... my favourite song on the album is, you guessed it, Torn and Frayed. Their best country outing by a mile. Pedal steel all up in this mug.
Casino Boogie, according to Keith's book, was written at the end of the sessions, when lyrical fatigue was setting in; he said they used the the Burroughsian 'cut-up' method. One of the lines lost in the murk is 'Kissing cunt in Cannes', which schools all over the world should hold up as a perfect example of alliteration. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Just Want To See His Face was an inspiration for the swerve Tom Waits took on Swordfishtrombones, all buried mumbling and percussive strangeness. Happy was largely improvised on the spot, with producer Jimmy Miller on drums (that's him on Shine A Light, too). Jagger's backing vocals were added later. And Rip This Joint was, and probably still is, the fastest song they ever did.
I love the production on it. It sounds like it was recorded in a basement while one of the main artists sunk into heroin addiction. Also, as double albums go, it's pretty short at 68 minutes or thereabouts - almost 30 minutes shorter than The White Album. Tight but loose.
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patbat
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Post by patbat on Apr 15, 2019 14:05:39 GMT -5
"Torn and Frayed" is the best country song any British band has ever managed, you're barking
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 15, 2019 14:07:16 GMT -5
Woof
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 17, 2019 10:15:17 GMT -5
"Torn and Frayed" is the best country song any British band has ever managed, you're barking Right, in the interest of the non-existent objectivity which I do not possess, I've got back and listened to it a couple more times. I... don't get it. Not sure what I'm missing and doing a bit of reading it seems to be an exceedingly popular song but...eh. Or maybe "the best country song any British band has ever managed" is such a low threshold that this is all it takes to clear it? I'm glad you and Dellarigg like it, but I just don't get it. It's staying in my Worst Song, though feel free to nominate your alternatives for that slot.
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patbat
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Post by patbat on Apr 17, 2019 10:19:50 GMT -5
"Torn and Frayed" is the best country song any British band has ever managed, you're barking Right, in the interest of the non-existent objectivity which I do not possess, I've got back and listened to it a couple more times. I... don't get it. Not sure what I'm missing and doing a bit of reading it seems to be an exceedingly popular song but...eh. Or maybe "the best country song any British band has ever managed" is such a low threshold that this is all it takes to clear it? I'm glad you and Dellarigg like it, but I just don't get it. It's staying in my Worst Song, though feel free to nominate your alternatives for that slot. Iâm gonna say âJust Wanna See His Faceâ is the only song that I straight-up have no use for.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Apr 17, 2019 10:48:39 GMT -5
Casino Boogie for me, I suppose. Good, and I wouldn't remove it, but not great. Also, Soul Survivor, while being a decent song with a decent outro, isn't an amazing song with an amazing outro like the final tracks on the 3 albums before this.
I should quickly mention the bonus disc that came with a remastered edition a few years ago. Some nice stuff on there, though it's hard to see how even the best of them would fit - though that's no doubt my familiarity talking. Purists might also object to overdubs and new vocals nearly 40 years after the fact. But Pass The Wine (Sophia Loren) is nicely funky, and there are some decent gospel touches elsewhere on I'm Not Signifying and Following The River. Unfortunately, there's only 6 or 7 'new' songs, with the disc rounded out by early versions of Tumbling Dice, Lovin' Cup, and a Soul Survivor where Keith mumbles non-lyrics.
Also, a Sticky Fingers 3-disc reissue sees a lot of excellent live stuff from shows in Leeds and London at the time - Midnight Rambler in concert is always superb - and a handful of demos, including a version of Brown Sugar featuring Eric Clapton. Well, I liked it, anyway.
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