Could Aftermath work as a double album?

I don’t know y’all. I think the US Aftermath is damn near perfect!

No Paint It Black equals no Aftermath for me! Perfect opening song. And I like Goin Home at the end.

Yep... US Aftermath is perfect as is!

 

I can relate to a point but oh the sound of the Decca Mono or Stereo LP or the London late 80's Stereo CD are clear winners for me.

 

Not a double album because the band were churning out too many weak, tin pot songs at the time. I listen to the US album in mono from time to time but this configuration would've been a killer album (hell, I think I'll burn myself one):

Side One
Paint It Black
Mother's Little Helper
Lady Jane
Under My Thumb
It's Not Easy
Flight 505

Side Two
19th Nervous Breakdown
Out of Time
I Am Waiting
Sittin' On A Fence
Goin' Home

 

Incidentally the US Mono is a fold down and not a true Mono.

 

Are you sure? I remember reading that there was a true mono mix and that there were detectable sounds on the true mono version as opposed to a fold down. I listened heard the sounds on the one that I have (CDR from flac or MP3 can't remember).

 

I thought the same as you particularly that it would be logical in mid 66' Stateside for Aftermath to be a true Mono. (After all Between The Buttons is and it is from half a year later)
There is a great thread here dedicated to advising what 60's issues of various artists are Mono or Foldowns.
I hope someone can put up the link for you.

 

I still burn cdrs. I listen to them in the car or at work and burn copies of compilations I make for people sometimes.

 

I am 99% certain it's from the December 1965 sessions.
Reasons for this
1. It's included on the tape marked "Miscellaneous Tracks Album- untitled" dated 14th December 1965 in the ABKCO tape inventory.
2. Beat Instrumental (February 1966?) reported that 10 tracks were recorded at the December sessions and lists 10 tracks which match the ABKCO tape and include Looking Tired.
3. Rolling Stones Monthly (I forget which issue off the top of my head but early 1966) reviews the songs and mentions Looking Tired as being written in Nashville. The band played there on November 16th 1965 and to my knowledge had not been there before though I could be wrong.

Based on those observations I think that nails the origin of Looking Tired until better info comes along. I asked ABKCO if they could confirm this but I Am Waiting.
The sessions took place evening of December 8th to morning 9th, evening of December 9th to morning 10th and evening of 10th to morning of December 11th 1965 and we have photographs taken at all three sessions. If I could post a pdf here I think I could demonstrate persuasive evidence on that front. I spent some time sifting through a pile of contemporary news reports and think I managed to get accurate dates for both sets of sessions (December 65 and March 66) and most likely best details/number of tracks recorded at both at least until ABKCO pull their finger out and start including tape box info / session sheet details with their releases.

Back to the question, I have been listening to these 10 tracks a lot and while there are some weaker tracks, as a whole it's a very enjoyable listen. The March 66 sessions also sound great together but Aftermath (UK) is a very good album, probably their best pre-Beggars. So I say no to a double.
It would have been cool if the Stones had released them as two separate LP's but I don't think a double would stand up so well unless you opened the gatefold and placed it upright.

 

I thought so and why the heck not, i probably would if i could.

 

"Looking Tired" is actually Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues." They just changed the title and swapped out some of the verses.

If you use Audacity you can try fading it out somewhere around 3:35 - 3:45 for what will seem like a complete stand alone track.
Frankly "Going Home" works better for me without the extended 7 minute jam, ( but I do feel like I can hear the seeds of
"Midnight Rambler" at times within those 7 minutes.)

 

Hello all. I found this thread about a month ago and it inspired me to create my own double-length LP of the Aftermath sessions. I should mention that making comps has been a solid hobby of mine for almost 40 years, and one that I'm super geeky and picky about. So I tend to get pretty obsessive.

I just spent about three weeks of my spare time putting it together. I set two parameters for myself:

a) I wanted to use the true original mono mixes, as I feel they are far superior to the reverb drenched, wide stereo mixes. I know that some people on this board love the stereo mixes, and I fully respect that; this is just my personal preference. I also did this for continuity's sake, as to my knowledge Sad Day and Long Long While have never received stereo mixes. The only exception is that I tacked the stereo ending of Under My Thumb (which I collapsed to mono) onto the original mono mix, as I like the longer ending on the stereo mix. I worked very hard to make the edit seamless and now even I cannot detect it.

b) I tried to make the LP side lengths as close together as possible (within a minute of each other) for what would have been a logical and feasible release in 1966. I noticed that quite a few of the track lists proposed in this thread didn't take this into consideration, and setting this parameter for myself made the project WAY more challenging relative to the track sequencing.

I did my own digital remastering, including using a LUFS meter plugin to set the levels at an integrated loudness of -12db, and speed correcting a few tracks that have ALWAYS run too slow, which I assume was the result of transfers between tape machines. I realize that some may consider this step to be heresy, and again I respect that. However, as a musician who possesses absolute pitch, and as someone who has listened to these songs for 40 plus years, it has always driven me nuts. As proven with the 2002 remaster of Beggars Banquet, it is not unheard of for 60s Stones recordings to have been released at the wrong speed, something that thankfully seemed to be ironed out from Let It Bleed onward. I also corrected the tape drag near the end of 19th Nervous Breakdown.

By sticking firmly to the rule of keeping the side lengths roughly the same, I went through at least 20 different configurations of the track order before I was satisfied with the overall musical flow of the songs. For instance, I initially planned on beginning with Paint It Black as the original US LP does, and as some of you here prefer. Ultimately, however, I felt that in the context of the rest of the material, it was too dark and too powerful of a track to start with. I also LOVE having it begin side 4. After trying several other tracks as the opener, I finally decided to go with Mother's Little Helper, as the UK LP did.

I also wanted key relationships between the ends and beginnings of tracks to correspond and not be too jarring. This is fully the musician coming out in me, and admittedly super-obsessive, but having a track end with an F major chord and having something like Under My Thumb follow it (starting with an F# minor chord) just sounds too weird to my ears. Adhering to this rule across the board presented even more of a challenge in determining a solid track order.

OK!!........ If I haven't bored you to tears yet with my lengthy over-explained intro, I now present my final and permanent track list, decided on only yesterday. I am firmly convinced that within the above-mentioned parameters I set for the project, this is absolutely the perfect track list for what could have been a double length Aftermath in 1966. Dare I say it, I think it MAY have even made for a better double LP than Exile On Main St.

Side One - 19:04

1. Mother's Little Helper - 2:46
2. Stupid Girl - 2:50
3. Doncha Bother Me - 2:40
4. Lady Jane - 3:07
5. Out Of Time - 5:14
6. What To Do - 2:27

Side Two - 18:10

1. Flight 505 - 3:26
2. Sittin' On A Fence - 2:56
3. Under My Thumb - 3:37
4. Looking Tired - 2:15
5. Sad Day - 2:58
6. Ride On Baby - 2:58

Side Three: 19:03

1. 19th Nervous Breakdown - 3:58
2. Think - 3:11
3. High And Dry - 3:07
4. Take It Or Leave It - 2:51
5. It's Not Easy - 2:54
6. Long Long While - 3:02

Side Four: 18:08

1. Paint It Black - 3:43
2. I Am Waiting - 3:09
3. Goin' Home - 11:16

 

Great effort!

 

I love your (multi-faceted) reasoning (as well as the result).

Are you sure it took only three weeks?

 

Thanks!! I left out a third parameter I'd set for myself: I wanted to include a "hit" on each off the four sides: Mother's Little Helper, Under My Thumb, 19th Nervous Breakdown, and Paint It Black. I know that technically Under My Thumb was not a single, but its inclusion on both Hot Rocks and Forty Locks, combined with the fact that it was played on classic rock radio most of my life, qualifies it as a hit in my eyes.

 

I also took and slightly modified the brilliant artwork by andrewskyDE and Guy E to use for my set:

https://i.imgur.com/AupxJKJ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0soX0ck.jpg

Oh Really Records is my fake label for my comp projects.

 

I'll take this....

Mother's Little Helper
Stupid Girl
Lady Jane
Under My Thumb
Don'cha Bother Me
Sad Day

Paint It Black
As Tears Go By
19th Nervous Breakdown
Going Home

Looking Tired
High And Dry
Out of Time
It's Not Easy
I Am Waiting
Long Long While

Flight 505
Take It Or Leave It
Sitting On A Fence
Think
Ride On Baby
What To Do

 

Because mythology is a very powerful thing, the whole bootleg industry is based on fan mythology, and that’s where the buzz is. Bootleggers are notorious on taking a sentence from an interview and turning into an unreleased product. Most famous? Get back.
Beave

 

That may be true for other bootlegs, but not Get Back, which was a real, but unreleased, album by that name:
https://twitter.com/IAmTheEggPod/status/1236638281435152389?s=20

Read the Mal Evans preview below the mocked-up album cover. As many of us did in Summer 1969 before it was cancelled.

 

There's enough for a double album, but I see no no point in reordering the tracks. I made a CD-R a couple decades ago to collect all of the Aftermath released (and undisputed) recording session tracks:

1-2 - 19th Nervous Breakdown/Sad Day (Feb 1966 Single)

3-4 - Paint It Black/Long Long Time (May 1966 Single)

5-18 - Aftermath (Apr 1966 UK album)

19-20 - Ride On Baby/Sittin' On A Fence (Jun 1967 US Flowers album)

The US B-Side of 19th is used rather than the UK B-Side since 'Sad Day' is from these sessions, while 'As Tears Go By' was recorded earlier and therefore doesn't belong here.

IIRC that CD-r was several minutes longer than their actual double album EOMS was.

 

Also discussed here: Single LPs that should've been doubles? although not at this length.

 

Awesome work. Only quibbles are 1) Paint It Black will always be the opening of Aftermath for me. Suggest swapping with MLH. Side 2 flags in quality a bit near the end. I might even consider voting Sad Day (and TIOLI) off the island as arguable filler. Finally I'm a fan of the short Out of Time.

 

Nice job.

I've done quite a few rejigged album sequences through the years. Like you, I keep the lengths of the hypothetical LP sides in mind when doing CDR's... it imposes a nice discipline about it. When I compiled my 4-sided beast upthread, I was aware that the "sides" varied in length from just shy of 17-minutes to 21-minutes+ and I was OK with that. 15-minute LP sides were the norm in 1966 and 21-minute lengths and extended 11-minute tracks were highly unusual (unless your name was Bob Dylan).

Aftermath is a wonderful album. It's interesting/strange to me that many fans of The Rolling Stones find a lot of the songs to be slight efforts. I like every track.

 

Thank you so much!! Your quibbles are more than fair and quite valid. Paint It Black began many iterations of the track list for me, but I never was 100% satisfied. I finally realized it was because the powerful, dark tone of it was so different to the rest of the songs that beginning the album with it ALMOST made everything that followed a let down by comparison. So I felt the only solution was to place it far later, still beginning a side, but now in more of a "save the best for last" kind of way. That's just the way I hear it in the context of all the other tracks. Again, I completely understand the want to start with it.

I agree with you about side 2, but I found this was a problem WHEREVER I stuck Sad Day, and I tried MANY different places. I do actually like the song, but I think it's probably the weakest of the set, and it does have the effect of bringing down the material surrounding it. Trust me, lol, this was the best place to put it after MULTIPLE attempts elsewhere, within the aforementioned parameters I had set for the project. For what its worth, it's my opinion that Ride On Baby is a hugely underrated pop masterpiece, and in my opinion having it follow Sad Day helps restore some quality at least.

I like the short Out Of Time too actually, but I wanted to use everything available from both sessions, so long version it had to be.

All good points though!

 

When I made my version I tried to keep the earlier recorded tracks first in the sequence so you could hear the progression of the recording sessions.

 

My version of the 2LP set isn't particularly original, and more of an impulsive approach to track listing, compared to what I've read so far, but here it is:
side 1:
Mothers' Little Helper
Stupid Girl
Lady Jane
Doncha Bother Me
Think
Sittin' On A Fence

side 2
Flight 505
High And Dry
Out Of Time
It's Not Easy
I Am Waiting
Take It Or Leave It

side 3
19th Nervous Breakdown
Sad Day
Under My Thumb
Long Long While
Ride On Baby
What To Do

side 4
Paint It Black
Goin' Home
Looking Tired

As much as I felt GH had to be the last track (as many here), I' m probably so used to listen to LT as the last track off the LP I've heard it first on... and I like it after GH
Doc