Rod Stewart album by album thread

Songbooks

I really don’t have the motivation to write a lot about this series of albums. Life is too short.
I don’t like this era of Rod’s career, but I do not consider his Songbook concept to be a sell-out. [Ian McLagans view says more about the state of the relationship between them than the motivation behind the releases]. He had considered doing this back in the eighties - he genuinely loves the material - but was talked out of it. The first volume was him doing something he really wanted to do at a time when he had little to lose after a decade of commercial decline despite strong output. He could hardly have expected it to do so well. The second (his manager had negotiated a two album deal) was him improving on something that had surprisingly done well. It was here that he lost me though. III and especially IV were clearly milking it and to revisit the sequence with V after a five year gap was just a kick in the teeth for those of us wishing for a return of the real Rod at the time.

I have no reservation in asserting that Volume IV was the worst album he has ever released. That I cannot name the tracks on it speaks volumes given how closely I have followed his music. I will never listen to that album again. I tried again about three years ago and failed. Volume V was somewhat better but by 2010 we had the Rhino stuff to listen to, and that relief was welcome.

Songbooks are OK background music and my parents and grandmother liked them. But not for me, thank you. As others said, you could extract one reasonable CD from the bunch. The rest just all sound the same. And they waste Rod’s talent. I expect he will hit this genre again someday, certainly on tour, but hopefully I will be too busy listening to Can’t polish a turd to pay attention.

 

I know the rock covers is coming, I think.

That said...I'm still spinning Another Country an awful lot, & when I have Time...Time.

I don't know how AC sold or is selling, but I really love that record. I just hope Rod doesn't care how it sold and wants to keep making records like this. Dig em both. I know I'm jumping ahead, but wanted to say that Matthew.

Thanks. Goodnight all.

 

AC bombed stateside but went platinum in the UK..and Rod is working on two albums, one of which is another collection of mostly originals..

 

Indeed...mothers and grandmothers. But don't they prefer Sinatra or whoever doing the songs ?! I know I wouldn't get my kicks from Miley Cyrus doing the 60's songbook...

 

Volume V was part of him finishing his contract. He said in 2008-09, that he had a soul covers album, one more volume in the "Songbook" series, and a country covers album, before he was to begin writing original music again. As of 2017, only the country album has yet to be released.

 

He is hardly tied to J for a country album at this stage? He said in 2012 that he had a three album deal with Universal..Christmas, originals and country...he has done three with them now, although a second originals replaced the country one.

 

But your kids, if u have any, might think you would like the songs and buy a Miley one for you for Christmas...it was all in the marketing.

 

my thoughts

Songbook Series


i thought the first album was great. a new idea. rod sings these well. this is a great release to listen to on somewhat cold fall day. the rest of the series though didn't do much for me and i thought rod drove it into the ground

 

Beautiful words to hear. Thank you!

 

I tried Human this weekend without much success. The Songbook series also, about the same, in a different way. There are a few tracks yet though that remind me of much or some of the kind of 1980's, '90's RS I do care for , enough so that I'll be buying a few tracks online!

 

FWIW those few tracks I alluded to in the previous post will be part of your next album post . I didn't find them on Human or Songbooks, but will try to give those albums another listen post-thread also.

 

up next

Still the Same...Great Rock Classic of Our Time (2006)


Track Listing
1. Have You Ever Seen the Rain
2. Fooled Around and Fell in Love
3. I'll Stand by You
4. Still the Same
5. It's a Heartache
6. Day After Day
7. Missing You
8. Father & Son
9. The Best of My Love
10. If Not for You
11. Love Hurts
12. Everything I Own
13. Crazy Love

 

Played this once and dismissed it. Somebody must have figured 5 volumes was enough for the Songbooks but didn't want to dismiss the concept idea. So we're getting this weird mixture of songs, half being extremely well known in original hit versions. So there's no winning those, really. Not thagt they're bad, but you just can't help comparing to the original and I'm afraid Rod dréws the short end of the stick in every case. I'll give him a little more credit for some of the lesser known covers. But the concept is lame and nobody was able to give an interesting spin to it.

 

2006 Still The Same

Talk about a missed opportunity and a disappointment. After four Songbooks, with the fourth being the worst album Rod ever released, spirits were raised somewhat when news broke of Rod returning to his original genre. The fact that it was to be a covers album diluted the optimism a little, but given his track record, pre Songbook, of finding gems and making them his own, that didn’t seem like too big a deal. New Boys and Spanner was almost entirely cover albums anyway and Once in a Blue Moon totally so. Leaked pictures showed Rod in the studio with the musicians implying a level of involvement not seen since New Boys. In hindsight, that was probably a one day photo shoot rather than a series of in the studio diary pics.

The musicians used for the sessions may be best described as an experienced “safe set of hands” and a bit conservative…Lee Sklar, Kenny Arnoff, Dean Parks etc…but there was no sense that what was coming would essentially be a sanitised karaoke session comprising some weak song choices that really tested the honesty of the album title. There is so much wrong with what could have been a reasonable album.

Tracks like Everything I own and Love hurts brought back memories of the car crash that was Sometimes When We Touch; the overly Americanised accent he put on at times just sounded wrong and forced; and even songs that may not have been classics but were nonetheless enjoyable in their original manifestations were robbed of all soul as neither Rod nor band brought anything new to the party.

I had loved Missing You in the eighties...and like Rod singing Windy Town I was looking forward to his version of a favourite – but it’s soulless. Stand by You similarly. Still the Same lacks the spark of the likes of Lady Luck. It tips along nicely but hardly cries out for the repeat button in the way that so many of his best songs used to. All the pieces are there, but there is no life force. It’s a Heartache was probably too obvious a song to do, although it’s not the worst on offer. Admittedly Father & Son stands out as a strong effort.

I saw Rod in 2009 and he was still singing Have you ever seen the rain and It’s a heartache...and they were actually really well received and energetic. They worked fine in the party atmosphere that his concert performances generate. But on disc, they were just not the same.

Bonus track Lay Down Sally was actually not too bad...but relegating that to bonus level and dropping songs like Me and Bobby McGee (that Rod thought was superb) just illustrate the problem with having a committee pick the tunes and record company executives manage everything else based on what market research told them. Maybe it’s a bit like radio programming in the US? Lowest common denominator stuff.

A second volume on this theme was recorded with a 2007 release in mind, I believe at the same time, but the generally negative response to this one –despite it topping the chart - meant that it was shelved. Songs recorded during those John Shanks-produced sessions include Doctor My eyes, Sweet child of mine (possibly), Only Love can break your heart, Hungry heart, Me and Bobby McGee (Rod is on record as saying this was a brilliant version but they dropped it as it didn’t quite fit with the other songs [which perversely makes sense if it was actually good J ]).

I seriously doubt that we will ever hear the second volume of so-called Rock Classics, nor the other vault material that J records may have (a second Soulbook and possibly a Songbook recorded between numbers 4 and 5). Whilst I’d be curious to hear even a handful of good songs from that combined batch, I doubt we’re missing too much.

Having released a studio album each year for six years, Rod took a break after this one. It would be three years before he unleashed another concept in Soulbook, which was another false dawn, although it did have some redeeming features.

 

More later when I'm awake.
FWIW I love Heartache and If Not For You. There's no mistaking for me that the first hits me hard in a soft spot and the second kind of moves and inspires me. I really needed to hear both these tunes as sung by the man himself and as they are here despite their approximately generic productions. Within the production morass, in those tiny places under the polish and sheen, and with it, I can feel and hear that heartache and the longing, like 20th century RS. Also, the way he sings the line about Winter and Spring. I only thought of them as seasons. I didn't get the wordplay (spring as a verb) until I heard Rod do his version. Anyway, will add more jibber jabber later on those 2 tunes maybe later, but I guess I said my peace for them too. +1 on Lay Down Sally as that's the 3rd one I enjoy in a more modest or carefreee way. No disrespect to E.C. but I enjoyed the song as sung by a 'singer-first' and RS in particular. Sally feels a little like an afterthought, but while it's happening, I like it, but fwiw I'm all in on the previous two tunes mentioned.

 

Horrible, just horrible.

It did achieve the seemingly impossible though, it made the Songbooks sound like a sensible creative project.

 

Absolutely superb post.

 

Agreed. The artistic failure of the project should not be totally discounted, had it been successful, there would have been subsequent volumes. One was clearly enough. Think about the irony, Rod Stewart, a rock and roll legend, covering other's rock standards. People should be covering Rod's rock and roll songbook, not the other way around. And even if one thinks the idea is good, to hear Rod's interpretations on other's rock and roll tracks, the execution on Still The Same was very pedestrian, ordinary, and without any spark. Not one lift-off on that album.

 

my thoughts

Still the Same...Great Rock Classic of Our Time (2006)

a huge mistake . as others have stated rod is a rock classic. why cover songs from peers that most of them were already well known hits. at least we get another Dylan cover which rod always excels out. anyone else find it funny he covered a song mostly associated with bonnie tyler since most people say she sounds like a female rod stewart?

 

Rod doing Bonnie doing Rod....hmmm.
Rod doing Oasis doing the Faces worked...but the Bonnie one wasnt bad just because it was so obvious...it was poor because he brought nothing new to it at all.

 

up next

Soulbook (2009)

Track Listing
1. It's the Same Old Song
2. My Cherie Amour
3. You Make Me Feel Brand New
4. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
5. Tracks of My Tears
6. Let It Be Me
7. Rainy Night in Georgia
8. What Becomes of the Broken Hearted
9. Love Train
10. You've Really Got a Hold on Me
11. Wonderful World
12. If You Don't Know Me by Now
13. Just My Imagination

 

Because Rod has a tradition with this type of material, I can rate this slightly higher than the previous album. Still, it's not an album I actually play. Who on earth is the person responsible for Rod doing these Songbooks ?! It's one thing to gather them up on a Standards album, but why not include a few original songs here and make it a "regular" album. I think I'll give this another spin and see what it says after all these years. Not really looking forward to it though...

 

Unlike Still The Same I remember this album as being inoffensive, just dissapointing

I'll give it another spin over the weekend as I just can't recall which tracks were more than just mildly enjoyable.

 

Oh no, I was wrong.

Two songs into the album, the vocals on My Cherie Amour are dreadful. No passion, no character, no joy.

 

2009 Soulbook


This was a while coming – three years after Still the Same. Enough time for the masses to forget how bad that effort was perhaps. It’s not like Rod spent more than a few days phoning in vocals from Florida hotel rooms, so the long gap was not because they were hard at it in the studio. That said, I recall reading that Duane Hitchings was writing something for Rod around the middle of the decade so maybe he was trying things in the background.


Soulbook is a mixed bag. It suffers from the overly polished and largely soul-less production values that afflicted Still the Same but Rod does give a few solid vocal performances. There is also some abysmal song selection. Some are just so far removed from what Rod should be singing that it beggars belief.


The Good: The opening song, It’s the same old song. Rod does a good job and it’s a lively number. Similarly strong vocal performance on Tracks of my tears. I have a soft spot for You really got a hold on me and Wonderful World isn’t too bad either.


The Bad and Ugly: My Cherie Amour, You make me feel brand new, Let it be me…..I don’t want to talk about them.


The Rest: Love train sounded good enough live in the months prior to the album release but, disappointingly if not unexpectedly, the studio version is watered down. Higher & higher is ok...but I never loved the original so a J records cover isn’t going to change that. Across the remainder, there are some classic songs on which he does an ok job but they are not that memorable and certainly don’t displace the originals.


All in all, a step up from all his other J records albums of the decade, but still only faint glimpses of the old Rod. Rod doing soul songs in his old way, producing himself, might have been interesting. This was not particularly so. It did well though – double platinum in the UK and it was his sixth consecutive Top 5 album on Billboard.


For all the artistic failures of the decade with J, Rod did really well commercially. After struggling for gold in the nineties in the UK (after Unplugged), he was hitting platinum in a declining sales market with regularity in the new millennium.

Of course Soulbook compared poorly with the other big Rod release of 2009…Sessions!