Stones' "It's Only Rock n Roll" Song by Song Thread*

Ehile @babaluma's Exile thread is wrapping up, I've decided to finally start a song by song of my own, but instead of an indisputed classic like say, Pet Sounds or Exile, I'm doing a more overlooked record and the first one I'm going to do is the Stones' 1974 opus, It's Only Rock n Roll.

I'm going to post a song about every two or three days to space it out, and each will sum up the backstory and I will then give my review of the song. I would also like to know how you first discovered this album, what your first impressions were, and how your relationship with it changed afterward, if at all.

Anyway, how I discovered this record was by building up my Stones collection. At that point I had the Big 4, Aftermath, Between the Buttons, Some Girls, and Goats Head Soup. At first I was somewhat ambivalent towards IORR, I was like "this isn't Sticky Fingers." But as time went on, I went back to it and found more and more that I liked about this record, and while it is still my least favorite with Taylor, it is better than it's reputation indicates. Now onto the record starting with...

If You Can't Rock Me starts off with a riff by Taylor sort of bouncing off Charlie's drums with a processed guitar mixing between the two. Mick sort of snarls his way through, noticing all the ladies in the audience and knowing he can have any one of them. Of course, he's Mick Jagger. He's on top of the world, the band as a whole are on top of the world, as the album cover portrays, they are basically gods at this point. Then after the chorus at 1:26, we get sort of a boney bass solo from Keith, which transitions into Taylor's riffs at 1:34 which sort of leads the groove before turning into a solo at 1:50 and it's a pretty good solo that lasts until 2:08. One thing I would criticize is that this track should have had a few seconds shaved off, and this is where you start missing a Jimmy Miller or just a producer in general because with the Glimmer Twins(or Mick, if we're being real here), there's no outside voice to say no. But overall, I think it's a great song and on a scale of one to ten I give this, a really good frozen pizza. It may not be restaurant pizza, but it's pretty good when all is said and done

 

I love this record. Search for underrated in Oxford Dictionary. You will find a picture of IORR album cover.

 

Got new in '74; cause that's what Rockers did!

Sure KSAN "The Jive 95" SF CA played cuts before album was gotten. "It's Only R&R" was BIG immediately. Like the cover art as well!!

"If You Can't Rock Me"; was a "Down & Dirty" two guitar-slamming drums attack. Great start!
Mick spit out the vocals, meaning every syllable.
Still holds up as a "Roadhouse Rocker"!!!

 

I discovered this album while building my Stones collection many years ago. While in college in the 90's I worked at a warehouse in the summer and there was another kid that worked there, piercings, hair different color everyday, a real punk look and I was more straight edge. I was 19 at the time, he and I never spoke much but then one day he comes to work in a Stones t-shirt and we got to talking. He told me yeah, he was a punk rocker at heart but he loved the Stones (whom I feel had a lot of influence on punk) and he told me It's Only Rock n Roll was his favorite Stones album.

I often say that if this album had been released by a different band it would be highly acclaimed. As is it contains one of my least favorite Stones tracks and while some of what is here comes across as retreads of other songs in the Stones catalogue, Time Waits For No One and Fingerprint File are, to me, two of their greatest achievements in the 70's.

A perfect album? Hardly!

Does it still kick ass when you crank it at a party? Absolutely!

 

I love this song...everything about it..wailing guitars Mick Jagger yelps and howls....great drums ...great lyrics

 

"If You Can't Rock Me" is perhaps the most underrated song in the band's catalogue because one can safely conclude that few casual fans are likely familiar with the track. The band kills it on that song, from the dynamic lead guitar, the riffing, the clavinet, the raunchy groove, to Mick's perfect vocal delivery. It is a great Rolling Stones song, one that is probably overlooked and even unknown by many.

 

I thought it was a highlight during the Licks tour.

 

It's Only Rock 'n Roll is the most underrated Stones album.

 

Surely Keith is playing the rhythm guitars on "If You Can't Rock Me." Taylor is strictly on lead, at least that's what I hear.

 

Yes it is Keith on rhythm.

 

Here are some live clips I found of this song:

 

jagger lyric genius, here. This song kicking off the album with "The band's onstage" sets it all up in a nice obvious way. And the line always gets me, "I've got one heart and it hurts like hell" -- what on earth could that mean? Something dirty probably. It's Mick F'ing Jagger after all.

 

This and Big Hits were my first two Stones albums. "Fingerprint File" only seems to get better (& maybe more relevant) with age. Love many tracks on this LP, but it has at least one outright bomb also - for me "Luxury" is pretty unendurable. This ought to be a cool & interesting thread, focusing on an oft- overlooked album!

 

That clavinet tone on "If You Can't Rock Me" is the definition of raunchy.

 

Out of the mid-70's releases, It's Only Rock and Roll is the best of the 3 for me. I think the general flow of the record is consistent even if some songs fall flat like Till the Next Goodbye or Short and Curlies, there's some keepers like Time Waits for No One, the title cut, Fingerprint File and If You Can't Rock Me. I also like Luxury and Dance Little Sister and even Ain't Too Proud to Beg is nice to hear once in a while; I'm not the biggest fan of Motown and prefer their cover of Just My Imagination over Beg, but that's beside the point. Pretty good Stones release for its time.

 

"If You Can't Rock Me" is Keith clearly channeling Bill Wyman on bass. I wouldn't be surprised if this is yet another Stones song where Bill says the actual credits are wrong and he is indeed playing bass...when I found it it was Keith I was surprised.

What I wanna know is, is that a fuzz bass overdub (by Keith or somebody) underneath the call and response between Keith's bass and rhythm guitar before Taylor kicks in with his solo?

Believe it or not, "If You Can't Rock Me" was edited down for the album, as was "Dance Little Sister" (the full versions circulate on b--tleg)

It's a good opening track, no question...my biggest problem with it is the overall sound. I've never liked the production sound of Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock And Roll. Wimpy-ass sounding records for the most part IMO. All apologies in case I end up saying it a few times over the course of this discussion but I've always found it amazing that IORR and Black And Blue were recorded in the same studio (Musicland in Munich) by the same engineer (Keith Harwood) less than a year apart yet manage to sound so radically different.

 

I agree the sound is what has stopped IORR from being ones of my favourites. It just feels to clean and spindly. Each instrument is well recorded but some how when it was mixed something was lost. Andy Johns who mixed some of the tracks is critical of the other mixes, saying they lacked "air".

 

I find with IORR is the album lacks balance, it just feels like it has too many ballads or mid to slow tunes. However one great thing is the return of Keith on guitar after his relative absence from GHS. His playing sounds like he means it again on If You Can't Rock Me and his rhythm guitar has a nice crunch to it. Taylor seems distant, both in the mix and his approach. I know he was absent from some of the sessions and I think he missed If You Can't Rock Me's initial tracking session so his solo is an overdub.

I am not sure which other songs he was absent from (apart from the title track) but he says he helped contribute significantly to Till The Next Goodbye and Time Waits for No One and must have been about to play the funky bass on Fingerprint File at the initial tracking for that track.

 

There is a fantastic interview with engineer Andy Johns about IORR and general facts of recording the Stones which you should check out for this thread.

https://vintageking.com/media/article-archives/pdf/andy-johns.pdf

 

Great idea for a thread. Books have been written about Nellcôte and Exile on Main Street, with IORR it’s the opposite. There are no Mojo specials about IORR and no lengthy interviews with Keith/Mick/Charlie/Bill about the album. The Rolling Stones are still underrated and every one of their albums deserve serious consideration.

For me and probably for many others, IORR marks a period of transition. By 1972 the Stones had accomplished everything, they were the greatest rock and roll band in the world, had released five classic albums in a row and had left England behind. In 1972 the band were using drugs, by 1974 they were abusing drugs. And the album suffers from it. A lot. Moreover, everyone in the band were in their early 30's, often a time of reflection, challenge and change. All this is noticeable on the album which to me almost feels like a Mick Jagger solo album. Apart from the brilliant dirge of Coming Down Again, I wonder how many songs Keith actually wrote between Happy and Before they make me run? Although if GHS is uneven, IORR is really the first bad or at least not so good album by the Stones. Overall most of the songs feels generic/bland and there is no Jimmy Miller production fairy dust around to save the album from lethargy.

In the Andy Johns-interview, Andy Johns states that “With the Stones its very jammy Let’s all play together and see if we can refine it approach” and that the Stones started out as a very “professional band” with the songs already created before they entered the studio but by SF it was more like “Well, what are we going to do tonight? I don’t know, I haven’t got anything. Maybe Keith’s got something. Keith, have you got anything? What”. When that method is working, the Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world. When it’s not, you get IORR. Ideas that had been discarded at the GHS sessions are now accetable. @babaluma, many thanks for the illuminating Andy Johns-interview
If Exile sounded like all the songs seem to be caught in the middle of some greater song, as if it was playing before the guys showed up to tinker with it and kept playing after they left, this, again, is the opposite. Stones struggle to unlock the songs, struggle to find the groove and in the midst of it, Mick Jagger (maybe influenced by Bowie) seems to be very interested in doing almost ironic rock and roll music, consciously striving to make it less important and more basic (It’s only rock and roll being the prime example, but I do think that If you can’t rock me, Dance little Sister and Luxury falls into that category as well). In one way, that approach is more "punk" than the punk tried out on Some Girls

IORR is a bit of The Rolling Stones going through the motions of being the Rolling Stones. No longer celebrating the musical traditions of rural America of LiB, SF and Exile, Stones go glam in New York. If Exile is a soundtrack to a mythological Saturday night in Beale Street in Memphis, IORR is the soundtrack to the taxi drive up to Studio 54 (even if Studio 54 opened in 1977) or Rodney Bingenheimer’s place in L.A, the party is still ongoing, but there’s less joy and the casualties are beginning to pile up. The question IORR asks is how do you keep going after over ten years of being The Rolling Stones?

Having said that, of course Time Waits For No One and Fingerprint File are glorious tracks and, as Munjeet pointed out, the latter seems to get more and more relevant with age. I would love to read an in depth interview with Keith and Mick regarding the Stones of the 70’s, the touring transition from the Delaney and Bonnie-inspired “rock and roll soul revue” of 1972/73 to the worn out funk of 1975 and 1976. The Paris comeback of 1977 and 1978 have all been assessed, but we are still in the dark regarding GHS, IORR and BB.

 

Taylor is absent from "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" and "Luxury". I'm not sure if he actually plays on the title track or not. And, yeah, I believe most of MT's parts were overdubbed, he missed a few of the basic sessions supposedly due to needing a plastic partition put in his nose from too much cocaine use

Keith does a fair bit of the heavy lifting on this album, even if his actual lead guitar work is pretty bad IMO. Take "Luxury": I admit I'd like that song a lot more if Mick Taylor was playing lead and Jagger wasn't singing in that accent- the voice equivalent of blackface. Embarrassing. The IORR album has quite a few high points but the low are pretty g-ddamn low by Stones standards.

 

I love this album, and play it as much as any in The Stones canon. IYCRM is such a great opener. The best line IMO is The Drummer Thinks That He Is DynOMite.

 

Got the album the day it came out, when I was a UMass freshman. The guy at the record store said "I knew we'd get ya for this one". And now I listen to the SHM-SACD version from Japan. Love Fingerprint File at the correct speed.

 

I actually like Luxury myself within the context of the record and find it to be a fun tune to play on the guitar, personally. It's not a classic by any means, and while it might be considered a throwaway number by some, I find it acceptable. Again, I still feel it's more a consistent album than either of Goats or Black and Blue. The variety of styles offered on Goats Head Soup and Black and Blue are interesting to hear from time to time, but overall, those records are a disjointed mess and including IORR, you can definitely pick the stronger songs quite quickly from the lesser inspired ones. Considering the state of the group during that time and with what had come before, it's not hard to understand why the material suffers on these releases and Mick and Keith were in two different worlds, it seems. Keith was becoming more preoccupied with his drug habit and Mick was enjoying the fruits of stardom, that's my observation.

Despite all that, they still managed to keep plugging along, nonetheless.