Prole Hole vs 1970's Rolling Stones
Aug 8, 2019 8:20:55 GMT -5
Jean Luc de Lemur, repulsionist, and 2 more like this
Post by ArchieLeach on Aug 8, 2019 8:20:55 GMT -5
I didn't really drop dead after spilling out every drop of my guts on Goat's Head Soup. It had been a long time since an album mysteriously connected with me on sonics and feel. At this time in my life, with pressures from work, from home, and from inside my brain, finding something to be passionate about is too rare. I'll put a ridiculous number on it and say three. Maybe three times a year I get passionate about something. 'Twas a time when that number was maybe twenty, which means I was constantly in a state of excitement about something.
It's Only Rock 'n Roll
I was given a cassette tape with It's Only Rock 'n Roll on one side, oh gee, thirty years ago. Unbelievable. It cut off during "Fingerprint File." The album didn't take. For one thing, I never liked the title track for a a simple reason - it's a song about rock and roll. Worse than that, it undermines the music with that "only." Even worse, it's really about us expecting too much from Mick. It's performed with a chugging rhythm with separated defined tones, without the messy mass of Exile, so it sounds great, but even there, I like the locomotive force of Exile, and I even prefer the slurred sleaziness of Soup. That's right, I not only like "Heartbreaker" better than "It's Only Rock and Roll," I even prefer that greazy "Dancing With Mr. D."
As for the rest, "If You Can't Rock Me" has a nice chopped up rhythm and structure and some snarling and is an almost, but damn if it isn't about rock and roll again. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll tell you about double entendres.) The stakes aren't as high as on earlier albums. Mick's nowhere the vocalist David Ruffin is, and that's the ceiling for an otherwise enjoyable pop=rocking "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." "Dance Little Sister" seems like a silly tame raver - I don't know why this was played on the radio so much while "Silver Train" cooked up a better momentum. "Short and Curlies" is a silly dirty raver - ain't no "Star Star." I like "Luxury" more than most of the stuff here - if we can tolerate Mick the devil-worshiper, Mick the strung-out junkie, Mick the slave-whipper, we ought to be OK with Mick in Jamaican blackface when the music finds a groove.
Mick sounds like he gave himself some self-directed sensitivity training on some tracks - or maybe he realized that as the rock got weaker the vocal blend was marketable. "Till the Next Goodbye" goes on waaayyyy too long - it actually feels longer than Keith wandering the halls on the very similar "Coming Down Again." Oh look, they do more of the same on "If You Really Want to Be My Friend." I like the idea of Mick returning to the notion of "Time Is On My Side" for "Time Waits For No One," and there's a lot that's attractive in the recording, but why doesn't it catch fire? I used to play along with a slightly edited version of this from Sucking in the Seventies, and it's just a little dull.
"Fingerprint File" is the only thing here that turns me on. That is one heck of a bass line, and the guitar's locked in with some near-jazzy chords. I don't mind Mick's foolishness - his whispering reminds us this is a funky groove worth bopping to, not "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and that's a relief. Keep it shallow but primal, Mick.
In the end, It's Only Rock 'n Roll is a piece of product. It's good product - my summary emphasizes the mild annoyances. I might download a cheap copy someday and play it for when the Faces are too rambunctious. But I'm much more intrigued by the strained failures of the previous record, of how Mick tried to wrestle back control of the band. If Goat's Head Soup is sparks that fail to make a raging fire, It's Only Rock 'n Roll is smoke.
Black and Blue
There is a very clear purpose for this record. Mick and Keith needed a new guitar player. Several walked in and jammed a bit. Jeff Beck was never going to make it - if Mick thinks Keith is a threat, Jeff was going to tear the band apart. Harvey Mandel got a couple tracks in and Wayne Perkins got a spotlight on "Hand of Fate" (he was better on the Wailers' "Concrete Jungle," but then, that's a better song). But Ron Wood was a shoo-in - adoptions all over England were probably checking records to see if Keith and Ronnie shared genes. Besides, Ronnie had all ready given them the main riff to "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" without squawking about royalties like a certain recently departed guitarist had a tendency to do.
None of it means a whole lot. I've always wanted to sing "Crazy Mama" at karaoke, but in real life that's a lame ass guitar solo. "Hand of Fate" is too clean and too long to develop the feeling of danger it needs. "Memory Motel" has the length and structure of an epic, but its supposed depth of feeling is undermined by some questionable lyrical and performance choices ("Her teeth were slightly curved"? That's from Mick, the sweet-talking seducer).
The game we play with the three post-Exile albums is of expectations, and I feel like I've been played by the critics. Dave Marsh, the source of so much guidance during the first 10 or so years I was building my collection, gave Goat's Head Soup a damning and, to my ears, unfair one star rating - if I remember right, even Their Satanic Majesties Request got three stars. It's Only Rock and Roll and Black and Blue got three with little comment, and I want to say that even Some Girls received a dismissing three, or maybe it was a reluctant four. On the other hand, Robert Christgau, who has had an inordinate influence on me over the past decade or so simply because his website is so easy to navigate, gave Black and Blue an enthusiastic A- for its embrace of black R&B. Yes, Black and Blue is a groove album. But it also sounds to me like those outtakes albums which are praised by bootleg lovers. The kernel of something good is there, but I give it an Incomplete.
Prole Hole, you've given our online community plenty to think about and discuss with this thread. Some of us have spent a lot of time with the band and we're tuned into the various dramatic arcs of their career. You've done a great job, and I personally am curious about what you would say about Beggar's Banquet, their first successful record to hold together as a thematic whole (not slighting what came before, gang). Some Girls finds the Stones landing in a location, but a follow through to Emotional Rescue and especially Tattoo You might be surprising to you and would close out that particular arc. I'm curious what the others would say about Undercover and Dirty Work, which is where my collection ends, but there's no question that those transition to a different era.
And I will follow the heck out of your Wings string. It might be lighter lifting for you, but it would address this talented Paul fellow and his sometimes maddening cuteness. And I will fight you if you come down harsh on Speed Of Sound.
[By the way, I've been referring to your writing on R.E.M. regularly over the last several months as I've introduced myself to their output one album at a time. You did a great job there, and at some point I might add some thoughts - maybe after I've digested the I.R.S. years.]