Stones LP Flowers: Unusual compilation that really works

Gosh I couldn’t disagree more. But that’s ok. And as for Out of a Time being a weaker cut?? Really? One of my favorite Stones songs period. Just goes to show how people hear differently. It’s like we are listening to 2 different records.

 

I agree that it would have been a far more interesting album had they included We Love You and Dandelion (and therefore waited an additional six weeks to release the LP).

 

I agree, OOT is a highlight of this era for me, loved since I first heard it in COMING HOME.

 

Neat!
I'm sure Elvis knows the song from the UK Aftermath album rather than Flowers as he has acknowledged he was listening a lot to that record when he was making his second album, This Year's Model.

 

It's not a particularly savvy move to repeat two songs from the previous album, especially when both were available as a single.

 

Why is it not savvy when they were hits?

 

I like the song OOT itself but hate the arrangement especially Keef's acoustic guitar during the verses. I never liked Dave Hassinger's production or the Stones arrangements on Aftermath in general. They're too thin and sterile sounding. It's well suited to the softer songs like Lady Jane and I Am Waiting but doesn't work for the rockers like 505, Stupid Girl and Think. The mono mix improves things a little. For me Who's Driving Your Plane (recorded at Olympic I believe) has that bone crunching power and rawness that is what the Stones are all about.

 

Yeah, I’ve never understood the thinking behind the collection and it makes even less sense to me now after reading that Oldham, Jagger and Richard assembled it. There was enough material for an all-new (to US album-buyers) collection:

1. Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
   
2. Who's Driving Your Plane?
   
3. Long, Long While
   
4. Back Street Girl
   
5. Please Go Home
   
6. What to Do

1. Mother's Little Helper
   
2. Sad Day
   
3. Out of Time
   
4. Take It or Leave It
   
5. Ride On, Baby
   
6. Sitting on a Fence.

And they didn’t have to include their limp cover of My Girl. If they didn’t want to include Sad Day, they could have added If You Let Me.

As others have said, waiting another couple of months to build the album around We Love You and Dandelion would have been a total game-changer for this collection.

 

Apparently some combination of RCA and IBC.

 

Flowers (an original mono pressing to be exact) was the album that truly made me love the Stones, along with Hot Rocks. Before that, I always thought the Stones were overrated, overplayed hacks that rode The Beatles’ coattails. Shocking, since they were such a big influence on bands that I love (especially KISS). Mind you, I wasn’t keen on Aerosmith or Guns N’ Roses for a lot of the same reasons; I thought of them as overrated junkies, but they grew on me.

Anywhoo, I think of Flowers as a great compilation that’s still a part of the core catalog, much like Magical Mystery Tour.

 

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. And being a Liverpool lad, I'm sure he was familiar with the Searchers' version, as well. (Which I became aware of just today.)

I was at that Hardly Strictly Bluegrass set with Costello. Take It Or Leave It came totally out of left field. Fun times.

 

I stand corrected, that's what a wiki page says. Hmmm totally different sound on that 45 vs Aftermath. Could the difference simply the producer (Oldham) and engineer (Glyn Johns?)

 

And what about "Back Street Girl" and "Please Go Home"?

 

So then why shouldn't every album contain two hits from the previous, in case someone missed them?

 

I too enjoy trying to make anreleased record better by changing this or that. Totally valid fun exercise. However history tells us what really happened. For me I like the imperfections and warts. It’s part of the charm. For instance The naivety of My girl works for me. It’s not a perfect album. True enough. That’s part of why I like it. More human somehow to me. I’m not comparing this to Aftermath or BTB. Just saying it’s worthy

 

Not sure. There seems to be conflicting information about the post-Aftermath sessions. It would be nice if those were better documented.

Because not every album is a unique compilation like Flowers.

 

I admire the way you try to view these practices in a positive way. I'll take your lead and start thinking about all of the ill-conceived albums out there as "unique compilations," and I'm sure I will like them a lot more.

 

So... what about Brian being the only Flower denied leaves on the cover?

 

Ok.

 

I love Patti Smith's assessment of the album, that it was "for loners and lovers only". Those words really hit home, because I was both at the time, in love with a woman who only loved me as a friend. We listened to it over and over, on some magical rainy fall days.

It's still my favorite Stones record.

 

Fair call.

 

For alternate cover artwork try the original Belgian issue or the French Golden Age issue circa 73'.

 

I can only think for commercial reasons they preferred for example the recent double A side and Lady Jane again.
London did want a product to keep the Stones musically in the minds of the US public.

 

I bought Flowers when it was released... I had a few bucks on me that day in the shopping mall. It included so many great songs that I didn't have on vinyl; Mother's Little Helper, Have You Seen Your Mother Baby?, Please Go Home (a favorite) Back Street Girl, Sitting on a Fence... I loved the album as a 13-year old. It wasn't the first butcher baby cobble-job in my collection and it wouldn't be the last. I knew that it wasn't great value for money, but I was happy to have it and didn't question the mysterious ways of record companies. Also, at the time, I didn't know all of the material that could have been included and I didn't know that some songs had been excised from the UK versions of Aftermath and BTB.

Still, in a perfect world, us American kids would have gotten an unaltered Between The Buttons followed by a an all-new to LP version of Flowers. I think the album would have served the Rolling Stones' legacy a lot better, and rewriting history is an exercise that I've enjoyed since acquiring my first cassette deck in the late-70's.

 

Great post PW, when i first saw (the CIWD Blu-ray with) Sittin' On A Fence well.......it was like a beautiful gift never imagined possible, delivered from the mists of time!
Really (Flowers is essentially) a snapshot of the bands internal chemistry and development in the studio from late 65' to late 66'.
I don't mind as a variant, the short Out Of Time but for me the full 'pop glory' UK version wins all the chocolates plus SQ wise there is no contest either!