The Rolling Stones "Dirty Work" in retrospect

Great podcast. Looking forward to future episodes...

 

With "Dirty Work" they continued the path they went in with "Undercover"; largely irrelevant albums without the great riff-tunes and a serious start of the longest anti-climax in rock history (with the odd spark of greatness).

 

You can pull out a nice four song Ep from every Stones album from "Undercover" till "Bigger Bang" . The worst of the bunch ,imo,is "Steel Wheels" (a serious task to find four valid songs)
Anyway,my "Dirty Ep" is this:
-One Hit To The Body
-Too Rude
-Had It With You
-Sleep Tonight

Very good
Enjoy
Stop

 

It was only until last spring that I listened to all of Steel Wheels, and I kinda like it!

 

As much as I love the thought of Ronnie/Keith making a New Barbarians album in the 80s can you imagine how great an album they could've knocked out in the late 70s!? Between the coke & booze they could've made a true winner.

 

I'm with you. I remember at the time it was released the radio tracks seemed kind of boring. Picked it up at a thrift store about 6 years ago and I really enjoyed it.

 

The album's good. Is it my favorite? Nope, but it's good. And certainly better than anything that came later. And who cares about the album cover.

 

The '86 and '89 albums had mildly entertaining singles but too many bland album tracks.
Now Flashpoint I thought got things back on track somewhat. Good live renditions and the hammy studio track "Sexdrive" recaptured some of their naughty spirit.

 

Disclaimer: There isn't a Stones record that I don't like. If I have a top 100 albums, every Stones record is on that list.


I absolutely love Dirty Work. Even more, I love Dirty Work Japan shm sacd. I have the original vinyl, but since the release, a few years ago of the shm sacd of this, I listen to it more often than ever.

 

I like it lots for what it is . 4 real great songs from 10 is not bad anyway you look at it. Plus Harlem Shuffle makes it 50% perfect. But it is not as if the rest is garbage. These what 35 or 40 minutes are interesting, entertaining, rocking and and uplifting imo. I even do like the cover. Hey that was the way people dressed. Not the stones but others and I do like the colors. hey it is annie leibovitz who is responsible for the cover and photigrapjed the,Sure it was a bad time for the stones but life is not all about peace. love + harmony 24/7 year after year. so what..

 

To be positive.....OK, I got one...it was mastered (on vinyl) by Ludwig.........OK, that's all I got. It really is the low point.....no other real redeeming quality in retrospect...come on guys, listen to it!

 

Dirty Work was the last Stones album with a sense of fire to it. There's an underlying sense of rage to it that is at odds with its slick 80s mix. Honestly I think a remix (Steven Wilson?) would make people really reevaluate this record.

 

Yeah, "Harlem Shuffle" catches a lot of flak, but it's very much in their tradition of covering Motown/soul/R&B songs back at the start of their career, and it's not a bad track at all, and one of the redeeming things about this album. If Mick couldn't be bothered to write new songs, at least cover a cool soul tune.

 

Dirty Work helps make Emotional Rescue sound like Sticky Fingers, for completists only.

 

Last time I listened to Dirty Work I thought it wasn't as bad as I remembered. "Sleep Tonight" is worthy.

The rest of the album pretty much sucks though.

 

No classic Stones tunes like "Miss You" or "Start Me Up," but a solid effort start to finish. Underrated for sure. (Terrible album cover, though.)

 

I think 3 of the songs are great, i.e One Hit, Harlem Shuffle, and Sleep Tonight. Fight and Had It With You are good filler, I hasten to add.

 

The music is just as bad as it was then, the cover shot looks even worse now.

 

I've owned this album since it was first released. I've mellowed towards it over the years. It does have its moments.

I've even take the time to play it (vinyl copy) a couple of times in the past year.

I think One Hit is an excellent "latter day" Stones single.

The b-side to Harlem Shuffle, "Had It With You" is a fine track and basically sums up the Jagger/Richards relationship back then.

The cover is so 1980s and the part where Richards seems to be "kneeing" Jagger in the crotch also describes the history between these two quite nicely back in 1986.

 

I'm glad you have found some worthyness to the album, but I Have tried numerous times to 'give it another chance' and it just fails to move me in ANY way, except for the Ian part that is criminally too short at the end of the album. I actually tagged that onto the ending of my personal remaster of 'Steel Wheels' and it works beautifully there. But no, this album Sucks Donkey......... But I'm glad it's found a fan in you.
the beave

 

"One Hit To The Body" is one of my favorite Stones songs.

 

For me it's exactly the other way round.

Their worst album. So bad, it hasn't got anything memorable on it. Listened to it once. That was more than enough for a lifetime.

 

For me, at least, the end of an era. No Stones album since Dirty Work has been able to hold my attention all the way through. Voodoo Lounge came close, but that's it.

 

I think of Dirty Work as a divorce album. It's one big disagreement set to music. I also think it's the last good Rolling Stones album.