Rolling Stones: Classic or Dud

Woops, was that fontswitch my fault? I forgot to close the endtag. I just thought it screwed up my message, but it appears to be screwing up everyones?? I just ended the tag, so maybe it'll look normal again?

A long time ago, galaxies away, I went through a brief period of trying to like them, but everything about them rubbed me the wrong way: voice, style, lyrics, attitude, general crankiness. I just couldn't stand them -- they always sounded like a glorified dumb bar- band. I gave up, and then I realized that it's okay to dislike bands that rock critics think are classic.

And I like the Smiths, so I guess that makes me a pussy.

Some further thoughts: for me The Stones are year zero, i don't care about Elvis or any other blues guys they ripped off. and with year zero's you just need a lot of mythology, I would say mythology + intensity + riffs = rock 'n roll. Now regardless of The Stones becoming old farts, I immediatly forget when I put on "Beggar's Banquet" or "Let it "Bleed", for that moment you live in that record and what you get is: psychotic cops cracking skulls, cities burning, lots of knife-pulling, mountains of drugs, under-age girls, armies of rapists flooding the streets, the danger of getting hit by a stray bullit at any moment. Now, in real life I'm a very sweet, liberal, no- violent guy, but this shit excites me. :) Anyone remember the way Guy Pellaert drew them in "Rock Dreams"? A bunch of English dandy's dressed up in SS uniforms drinking tea with naked little girls on their laps. So you see why I don't really find The Smiths very interesting ;)

With the Stones though, the cult of Mick n' Keef is far more important than the actual music. The court cases, publicity stunts, Brian Jones' death, Altamont etc all loom large over the music. The press seem to perpetuate this to such a ridiculous level - I mean who wants to hear about Altamont again and again? If you strip all this away and get back to the music it's pretty obvious that Jagger is a fairly average singer and that a lot of their material lacks the kind of excitement that you might expect it would have if you'd read about it first.

Also I was talking more about the mythology in the music itself, the images of the lyrics (although eventually the spilled out into the real world). All those tales of debauchery eventually become stale, though Nick Kent's 'Twilight Babylon'(in The Dark Stuff) is a great read about the Stones in the 70s, very sick and amusing. Also some brilliant characterizations esp. of Mick 'n Bianca Jagger (man, did he see through them :)

As for Rock Dreams, it's a great book but the whole Godstar decadence trip on the Stones didn't wash with me. It would have worked better for Led Zep I think. Generally though it makes the best case for classic rock and pop of any book out there - some of the images are just magnificent, capturing everything you need to know about a star in one image (the Brian Wilson one stands out).

aside from the odd single ("under my thumb" may be my favourite), a ho-hum dud i wouldn't bother thinking about if they weren't so acclaimed. stiff and wooden rhythm section, mechanical faux-blues vocals. give me the stooges any day. "hand in glove," "handsome devil," or "what she said" are infinitely heavier, more biting, harder rocking, and more dangerous (since when is macho more threatening than effeminate?). in fact, the idea of the stones, an institution as thoroughly mainstream as kellogg's corn flakes, being threatening at all is positively hilarious.

ah well. better get back to stephin merritt and iancu dumitrescu.

I'm prepared to throw my theory out, although since i was re-reading The Dark Stuff I noticed how Kent was fascinated by Mozzer's fear for thugs, crowds and rude violent behaviour (I put 2 and 2 together and built myself a hypothesis, nothing to serious, so I'll take those comments on the wooden rhythm section & the heavyosity of The Smiths with a pinch of salt).

"Oh, I bet they'd be billionaire marrionette ghouls by now..."

But Eminem has come along to CHANGE all that!

Pretty awful, by and large.

Jody Beth - comparing a Jagger vocal and a B&S vocal seems odd - the one is operatic (i.e. meaning lies in what he does with the voice), the other theatrical (i.e. meaning lies in the relation the words and phrases have to 'natural' speech),

good point...don't know how i would anwer this.

good point...don't know how i would answer this.

Good answer, if a bit glib.

Does your taste in rock music run to the hard stuff at all? (Thinking of all the "wimp rock" stuff mentioned above.)

I don't think I have a "taste in rock music" anymore. I like noise and aggression in music sometimes but for me the particular form of 'rock' as The Stones et al. practised it seems to diminish the noise and aggression, straitjacket it and make it an 'attitude'. (I love attitudes and striking poses but this particular one is 35-plus years old and doesn't connect with me any more.)

That's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course - but take the Stooges, who you mentioned. I like them, but the bits of them that draw a bloodline from the Stones (Iggy as onstage 'Rock God', the extroverted attitude of Raw Power as opposed to the introversion of "No Fun"/"1969"/"Dirt") are the bits that stop me loving them. And on the G'n'R thread I suspect I'd be one of those beside-the-point people who like the band for their 'genre synthesis' (the New York Dolls, too), i.e. for their pop qualities. The Stones tracks I do like, I like for those qualities too.

Doesn't seem too odd to me... both bands play variations on fairly straightahead rock music, so it's not really apples and oranges. The B&S vocal sound is pretty monotonous, though; the entire range of emotions is sung EXACTLY the same way. It's not a very creative expression of feeling.

"Now let's remember the most fundamental fact of life, folks: everything good is the Beatles, everything awful and bogus and pretentious and gross and condescending is the Rolling Stones.
Okay?
Mainstream pop has routinely offered two paths... One is all about happy times and getting lucky and being not miserable, while the other, at its most fruitful, might lasoo you something venereal in the East Village if you yap long, loud, and boringly enough. If you're past age 23 and the latter is still your idea of fun then you probably thought Will Self's "My Idea of Fun" was too, and, pal-o-mine, all your ideas are wrong. About Everything."

- Mike McPadden in "Bubblegum Music is The Naked Truth"

Most of Jagger's lyrics, save the occasional stutter, bear more than a passing resemblance to normal conversational speech. I can't even think of a case where this isn't so.

The amount of "emotion" wasn't my point (and I fucking KNEW you lot would get on my case about that, which is why I hesitated to use the word) -- it was the range of things Jagger DOES with his voice within the course of a single song, vs. Murdoch, who doesn't offer the listener that much variety.

I don't KNOW whether Jagger would cover B&S well, but to be fair, the stately Britpop of Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request isn't really very different from B&S, is it?

(Mind you I think the stately Britpop era of the Stones is staggeringly awful, loads loads worse than their 'rock' stuff (or even their disco stuff!) precisely because Mick sounds like he's having to squeeze his tongue into a corset for every song. How anyone can listen to "Lady Jane" and enjoy it is a great mystery to me.)

...just because he's sounding like he has to squeeze his tongue into a corset... it's quirky in a good way. also, it matches the harpsichord.

A good alternative to "Lady Jane" is "Play With Fire." Similar mood, similar era, similar theme, much less mannered, much more biting.

bubblegum is good too

it's a continuum

yes! the 7" mixes rule which is why I love that London set

"Country Honk" was recorded before "Honky Tonk Women", though i always thought it was the other way around.

also new to me!

jesus this song is great

https://stereogum.com/2495761/hear-the-rolling-stones-secret-new-7-single-rough-and-twisted/music

I only made it about halfway through the song (short attention span), but it sounded OK to me. Their best 21st century music was Blue & Lonesome, a tossed-off set of blues covers, and this has a similar sound and feel. If they can maintain that energy for a whole album of originals, I'll listen.

I had no idea at all that Charlie doesn't play drums on (the song) "It's Only Rock and Roll," and, for that matter, that Bowie sings back-up.

and Jagger and Ronnie cowrote it

Wyman doesn't play bass on it either, it's Willie Weeks. It's kind of interesting the assortment of Stones songs Wyman doesn't play bass on... "Sympathy for the Devil." "Live With Me," "Emotional Rescue" and probably others.

And no Charlie on "Happy," "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Shine a Light" and ... "Tumbling Dice"?

's kind of interesting the assortment of Stones songs Wyman doesn't play bass on... "Sympathy for the Devil." "Live With Me," "Emotional Rescue" and probably others.

oh yeah, there's a lot -- look at Exile credits.

Watts is on "Tumbling Dice."

xp Charlie is on "Tumbling Dice" expect for one tricky section that Jimmy Miller plays on. Wyman doesn't play bass on it though!

i went to the link and it's just a video of somebody cleaning a toilet?

I was trying to think of what Stones songs Keith doesn't play on. "Winter" from Sticky Fingers is one.

and you can tell which are the Mick Taylor cowrites for which he earned no credit ("Sway," "Moonlight Mile").

"It's Only Rock'n'Roll" was cut during the sessions for ILM's belovedly memed I've Got My Own Album To Do by Ronnie Wood.

Stones songs Keith doesn't play on

Aside from the Mick Taylor songs mentioned, "Stop Breaking Down" and "Heaven" are two.

Looking more deeply into this, I had no idea Wyman does not play bass on "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Stray Cat Blues," or "Street Fighting Man" either. Starting to see a pattern here where most of my favorite Stones basslines were played by Keith.

Yeah! But then consider so many of those pre-1969 bass lines, plus "All Down the Line," "Miss You," "Worried About You," etc.

Thank goodness he did play on "(Si Si) Je Suis un Rock Star." That would've been a huge disappointment otherwise.

"Too Much Blood" is just Jagger, Sly & Robbie, and Keith's guitar tech, who was instructed to "play like Andy Summers".

"Shine a Light" has no Keith, no Charlie and (disputedly) no Wyman - Mick Taylor is the credited bassist but Wyman claims it was him.

Wyman also has claimed for decades he wrote the JJF riff.