Rolling Stones Album-by-Album Thread (Part 12)

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1.) "Come On" | "Poison Ivy (single version)" | "I Wanna Be Your Man" | The Rolling Stones EP
2.) "Not Fade Away" | The Rolling Stones
3.) "It's All Over Now" | Five By Five EP | "Time Is On My Side (single version)"
4.) The split in the Stones' US and UK discographies | 12 x 5
5.) "Little Red Rooster" | The Rolling Stones No. 2
6.) SIDEBAR #1: The Rolling Stones at the BBC
7.) The Rolling Stones, Now!
8.) "The Last Time" | got LIVE if you want it! EP | "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
9.) Thoughts on Brian Jones' changing role within the group: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
10.) Out Of Our Heads US | Out Of Our Heads UK
11.) "Get Off Of My Cloud" | December's Children (and everybody's)
12.) "19th Nervous Breakdown"/"As Tears Go By" | Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass)
13.) Aftermath
14.) "Paint It, Black"
15.) SIDEBAR #2: The Covers Codex -- The Rolling Stones Play Other People's Songs
16.) "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?" | got LIVE if you want it! LP
17.) Thoughts on the impending, inevitable collision between the Stones and the Establishment: Part 1 | Part 2
18.) "Let's Spend The Night Together"/"Ruby Tuesday"
19.) Between The Buttons
20.) Flowers
21.) "We Love You" | outtake#1 - Oscar Wilde, Mick Jagger, and irony writ large | outtake #2 - The Beatles, The Who and The Stones
22.) Their Satanic Majesties Request
23.) "Jumpin' Jack Flash"/"Child Of The Moon"
24.) "Street Fighting Man"
25.) Beggars Banquet
26.) "Honky Tonk Women"
27.) Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2)
28.) Let It Bleed
29.) 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!' - The Rolling Stones In Concert
30.) Sticky Fingers
31.) SIDEBAR #3: 38 Special - The 38 Essential Decca-Era Outtakes
32.) Hot Rocks/1964-1971 | More Hot Rocks (big hits & fazed cookies)
33.) SIDEBAR #4: Exile On Main Street -- collective preliminary discussion
34.) Exile On Main Street
35.) Goat's Head Soup
36.) The Brussels Affair '73
37.) It's Only Rock 'N Roll
38.) Metamorphosis
39.) Black And Blue
40.) Love You Live
41.) L.A. Friday - Live '75
42.) Some Girls
43.) Some Girls Live in Texas '78
44.) Emotional Rescue

Tattoo You is next, and we've had some discussion already about that one. For those re-joining the thread, EsotericCD is having a busy few weeks and has deputized me to do the next round of write-ups in his (temporary) absence. He may drop in now and again to add his comments, though!

I'm also sticking to eCD's plan: after Tattoo You, we will cover Sucking in the Seventies before getting to the 80s live releases. Which means Undercover won't be for a while yet!

 

Thanks, botley.

 

#5
Mr deputy

 

Nice save, Botley!

 

I remember we were so happy when Emotional Rescue was finally released. It was in heavy rotation immediately.

 

In hindsight, I view Emotional Rescue as the beginning of what we thought was the end of the Rolling Stones. ER could properly have been titled "Oh, Shut Up, Keith."

Keith had finally kicked and wanted to be the equal of his old Glimmer Twin who, according to Keith, was "listening to a lot of bad records." Mick had nursed his old friend off drugs and helped out with legal battles, but by the time they got back to Paris after Some Girls, not even Ronnie Wood's positive ("great playing, mate!") glue could keep Mick and Keith together.

 

yes, and it's a victory for his public relations team, imo, that keith tends to have come across as the more sympathetic partner in this situation, when it could easily have been spun the other way. I think he finally turned some people off with his over-the-top boasting in Life -- and there's actually been a humanizing aspect to mick's efforts on the Frankenstone tracks, I think -- but otherwise, every crass decision the Stones make tends to get blamed on mick, even when keith was happy to take his share of the $ from corporate sponsorship, tacky videos, etc.

he sure does some great guitar playing in the '80s, though...

 

Really happy the thread has escaped the rolling boulder of Death and lives on, Indy Jones-style!

Emotional Rescue was It's Only Rock and Roll Pt. II for me — the sound of a great band losing ground and marking time and shifting units despite a couple of excellent cuts (esp. the soulful “All About You"). Which makes the final exclamation-point triumph of Tattoo You all the more surprising and sweet.

And thus endeth (for me, with TY) the joyous Book One of the Rolling Stones, World's Greatest blah blah blah WHATEVER that was, and the beginning of Book Two of the Rolling Stones, Legacy Band and Touring Monster, which has had its moments despite the metallic sheen and overall diminishment.

 

I'm hoping this thread will actually serve to highlight that "its moments" post-81 were actually far more numerous than what the band gets credit for. Even Crossfire Hurricane, the supposedly career-spanning 50th birthday doc, cuts from 81 to The Present Day like nothing happened in between. Rubbish!

 

Love ER, it was one of my first stones albums. I stole cassette copies of ER, Tattoo You and IORR from my mom's boyfriend, sometime in the mid 80s, after seeing a repeat of the Hampton, VA pay per view. Maybe that's why I still love those three albums that many people see as weak. For me, the only song on ER I hardly ever listen to is Summer Romance, but I think everything else is top notch. It's a fun album, I think a lot of the negative rep is from people trying to see it as some sort of artistic statement.

I keep seeing people mention that Neighbors was a new song on Tattoo You, but I actually prefer the original version of the song, the little reggae influenced "Send It To Me." Like Botley, it has my favorite lyrics ever.

 

I essentially agree, although I think Exile marks Book One (or the last _chapter_ of Book One...), and then Book Two ... well, the legacy-polishing doesn't begin until Steel Wheels, imo, and Undercover is still an attempt to remain vital, so it's a question of which "Book" to put Dirty Work in (which as an album I actually like a lot of, but the band was in tatters).

yeah, it's said how complicit they are in presenting themselves as a permanent '70s band, whereas most of their fans would have followed them anywhere -- new dance styles, dub, etc. -- if they had really pursued them.

that said, there was nothing they could do about the more general decreased relevance of rock, culturally, after the '70s.

 

ER- Never given it much of my attention until this thread covered it. It's a decent sounding record. For me it kind of runs its length without fully grabbing my attention. Not that it's a bad thing but its just a decent Stones record, not as good as TY imo but probably better than, or on a par with Black & Blue. It' a fun listen, like others have said.

 

Yes, both songs use the same chord progression, but 'Send It To Me' is hardly the 'original version' of 'Neighbours' is it? Any more than 'Sad Day' is the original version of 'Indian Girl' ('lesson number one that you learn while you're young'/'then I looked at the morning mail, I was not even expecting a bill' - same chord progression there too).

 

So it's TY?

Better get to listening. Unlike the new-to-me-for-this-thread ER, I have certainly listened to this one plenty of times. But it's been awhile. I will say initially that for the longest time, I hated "Waiting on a Friend" for whatever reason. Then one day some years ago, it clicked for me to become one of my favorites from the boys -- at least post 1980 favorites.

I think it was when they played it as the "fan choice" on the Bridges tour PPV. But I may be remembering that one wrong. The jumbotron behind them was a huge oval shape, I want to say.

 

Yes, the version with Joshua Redman on sax! One of my all-time favourites. It's on No Security as well.

 

Ah yes, here it is. On their official YT channel no less. LOL at the early use of internet voting.

 

Y'all can't **** with that sax.

 

I don't know about Sad Day, but in my opinion, Neighbors is the same song as Send it to Me with different arrangement/production and lyrics. I prefer Send it to Me, which is the original.

 

Keith Richards has claimed that the master backing tracks for "Start Me Up" and "Miss You" were both tracked on the very same day at Pathé Marconi. Discuss.

 

Hey, everyone...

Just a quick note to say thank you to botley for picking up EsotericCD's torch and running with it, and writing such a quality ER review. I wholeheartedly believe the thread will carry on as strong as ever.

But somehow over the last few days I stopped getting notifications and have fallen behind. Life goes on and your focus goes elsewhere. It's kind of like any long term addiction - you smoke a cigarette every hour and it keeps you smoking, but then when you suddenly go two days without a cigarette you realize you may actually have a chance to quit. The long delays between entries and the fact that I've listened to nothing but the Stones since December means I think it's time for me to seize that opportunity. Thus I'm bowing out before I burn out... possibly for an hour, possibly for a few days, possibly forever. It's hard to say.

The ironic thing is that the general pop culture oversaturation of the Stones' material up through Exile guaranteed that I was less invested in that era somehow than this one. I was here mostly because I was really looking forward to some passionate and comprehensive evaluations of the Stones records that nobody ever talks about, especially the ones after Tattoo You. And undoubtedly when I get back on another kick someday, I will come back to this thread and read all the wonderful contributions from this point forward that I'll be missing... so thanks in advance, guys!

RTW

 

It's like "Boys Keep Swinging" and "Fantastic Voyage" off of Bowie's Lodger. Two songs with the same chords, but still totally different.

I know that "Neighbours" is sometimes rendered without the "u" but since I'm Canadian I'm sticking with the British spelling!

 

Phrasing and rhythmic inflection make up much more of what we consider to be the character of a song, especially in a band like the Stones.
I don't know why anyone expects a blues based band to not reuse chord progressions, that's a big aspect of that genre.

Someone mentioned "Sad Day" and "Indian Girl", but it doesn't stop there. there's also "Let It Bleed", and "Hurricane". They are all done the style of the Carolinas typified by "Cocaine" and "Freight Train"
Here's Keith playing "Cocaine" when he was supposed to be doing the lead part on "New Faces":


This was the first thing Keith learned how to play and it's verging on 100 years old.

And here's "freight train":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UN_6AUgCw

More or less the same thing.

Folk musics depend on having a basic framework and a lexicon of known patterns and imagery, that's part of what makes them universally understood. I have never understood why people get so upset about people recycling chord progressions. There are a finite number or permutations of chords and melodies, and nothing comes from nothing.

 

I defy you to wander through life without reading my passionate and irrational defense of Undercover complete with pictures. It cannot be done.

 

Emotional Rescue (1980)

Having said Some Girls is my fav Stone's platter, we now drop into the time span when I was regularly buying albums.
I was in my first year of college aged 16/17 back then, and my lowly apprentice's wage was spent on my motorbike and collecting albums.
Going into the 80's my head was a melting pot of genre's and different bands.
Even through my teenage years of discovering Punk and New Wave, I never abandoned the bands that shaped my musical DNA.
Although falling short of Some Girls sheer clout I have never thought of Emotional Rescue as a 'average' album.
Emotional Rescue sat nicely along British Steel, Iron Maiden, Ace Of Spades, Strong Arm Of The Law, Sound Affects and Never For Ever in 80'.

Really liked how the singles were tagged on almost at the end of the album......Emotional Rescue and She's So Cold being obvious favourites.
Other standouts for me, opener Dance pt 1, Let Me Go and Down In The Hole.
Nothing to 'skip' on the album, I liked it all.

8/10