Rolling Stones' Goats Head Soup - is it underrated because it came after Exile?

“Make a million for de Texan, twenty dolla me”

I'm not the biggest fan of some of the faster Some Girls/Emotional Rescue songs, but I can see what you mean with Starfucker as a predecessor, fair enough. I agree that My Girl is terrible, and Ain't Too Proud is much better in comparison, haha.

‘Fingerprint File’ is great...mind you I love ‘Hot Stuff’...

I love punky Stones, I can't stand Slurred Stones.

I had Goat's Head Soup when I was, I don't know, 12 or 13--it was among the albums I junked when I started collecting for real a couple of years later (meaning I started to treat what I bought with care). "Criss Cross" sounds pretty good; don't remember much about the rest of the album beyond "Angie."

Cover art doesn’t do the music any favors

Yes--just godawful cover art.

Another new song - "Scarlet" with Jimmy Page on guitar. Not bad. At least as good as stuff they released at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0COtEG-TM

Like the music, especially the guitar sounds. Lyric is severely underwritten.

I've always felt "Goat's Head Soup" sounded like the shambling, drugged-out, loose and impulsive album I'd always heard "Exile" described as.

Shambling, drugged-out, loose and boring.

dang "Dancing With Mr D" is a stupid song...but I like it.

Basically I don’t really care for the Stones after Exile but this album is particularly boring indeed. It has no groove and is very badly recorded/mixed. I prefer It’s Only RocknRoll which is average but still more alive and fun (especially « Fingerprint File »).

That Page collab is cool though. Sounds better than anything on the album !

this is a top 5 stones record for me, i just can't understand why people fail to comprehend its genius

also the cover art is awesome

it's also a really cool and weird thing to name a record

The first three tracks are the best, after which it's lazy without compensatory rewards, "Star Star" and "Winter" (decent "Moonlight Mile" rip) excepted.

"Scarlet" is a beautiful mess. That Page tone...sweet.

Love GHS.

"Winter" is easily my favourite song from their post-Exile/preSome Girls interzone.

It's the best song on this album by a million miles.

another song for which Mick Taylor likely deserved writing credit

Comin Down Again encapsulates the album for me...and it feels like it's as long as an LP itself

Yes, that song is a chore to sit through. I said it upthread, every single song on the album is at least one minute longer than it needs to be.

yeah, that funk outro on "100 Years Ago" is ghastly and portended worse to come

The problem (with the Stones' mid-70s albums), which I was ignorant of for a long time, was studio musicians and sidemen taking over the band. The real problem with those albums was the band was led astray by brilliant players like Billy Preston. We'd start off a typical Stones track and Billy would start playing something so fuckin' good musically that we'd get sidetracked and end up with a compromised track. THAT made the difference.

- Keith Richards, 1983

What does Keef think of “Moonlight Mile”, then? Or really, does he see Mick Taylor as such a sideman?

He claimed to have come up with part of the closing riff on that, even though he didn't bother playing on the final recording - this is from a 71 Rolling Stone interview:

The only thing in Sticky Fingers I don't have anything to do with is "Moonlight Mile," 'cause I wasn't there when they did it. It was great to hear that because I was very out of it by the end of the album and it was like listening, really listening. It was really nice. We were all surprised at the way that album fell together. Sticky Fingers – it pulled itself together [...] I thought I wasn't on "Moonlight Mile" but the last riff everybody gets into playing is a riff I'd been playing on earlier tapes before I dropped out

Mick Jagger has always said he wrote at least the intro on acoustic, and I read a Taylor interview somewhere about him arranging the string parts, so there's a definite grey area.

So literally the only way you can get the Brussels Affair show now is on this upcoming, $150 box set? Jesus.

The version that came out on CD 8 or 9 years ago, apparently paired with a super deluxe version of the Marquee Club release is going for insanely high three figure amounts now and I can't find it streaming or available to download anywhere either. Hell, I can't even find an active link to the bootleg download.

Sorry, to clarify, I guess it was originally released as some weird exclusive only box set itself 8 or 9 years ago, then later repackaged in Japan with the Marquee set. Either way, both are long OOP and going for absolutely insane prices.

xp

setting aside the fact that i don't really care how keith richards rates his own music, it seems strange to criticize the music because the musicians are so awesome. it's really the musicianship i think that accounts for the depth and nuance of the tunes on GHS, like you can maybe criticize the songwriting on a lot of stones tunes but for me it's frequently about texture and feel, and that's precisely what makes GHS so great. whereas "exile" is comparatively flat, not the record itself, the record is more like a tapestry but the individual components, the tracks, are sort of one-note, kind of homogeneous within themselves. and then you have one of the most celebrated stones tracks, on one of the most celebrated stones records — "can't you hear me knocking" — and it's like, how is that not indulgence and over-extension of a good idea until it kinda becomes a snooze ? i realize that's not a popular opinion but whatever.

It is. Not many ILMers like "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" I don't.

i don't mean just here, although folks here love it too, but i don't think it's controversial to say CYHMK is regarded as one of the best stones tunes.

and then in response to criticism of e.g. "coming down again" like

Yes, that song is a chore to sit through.

my feeling is the opposite, like why would you want a song that beautiful to ever end ?

Because I don't think it's beautiful?

And CYHMK is boring as hell.

My judgment? The Stones were zombies until B&B, on which "Memory Motel," "Hand of Fate," "Crazy Mama," and "Fool to Cry" redeem the last few years. Then Some Girls came along and boom.

Re "Moonlight Mile":

http://timeisonourside.com/SOMoonlight.html

xp lol i understand that other people don't think it's beautiful ! i was just saying that i think it's awesome and could go on forever. somehow five minutes of "let it loose" is fine but "coming down again" is an insufferable bore ? okay.

CHYMK would be rad if it didn't have the boring ersatz santana coda, the guitar riff is so good.

the Santana part rules too wtf @ this thread!

sorry i mean it's cool sort of but i don't understand why it's in the same song.

also the idea of not completely loosing your shit at the opening riff of "doo doo doo doo doo" (holy shit that guitar tone) and then immediately slinking into the grooviest body high when mick starts doing his nonsense drawl is like, i don't know, i just don't understand not being entranced by this weird amalgamation of sounds and emotions.

WTF @ CYHMK hate.

Also: FWIW, this deluxe box is probably gonna end up on Spotify, so there's that.

Seems like Zep was the only act that ever got these multi-tiered reissues right: You just want the album? You're covered! Want the just album & the bonus audio? You're covered! Want both of those plus vinyl and a coffee table book and a bunch of other crap? You're covered!

somehow five minutes of "let it loose" is fine but "coming down again" is an insufferable bore ? okay.

five minutes of "let it loose" is fine but six minutes of "coming down again" is an insufferable bore - to be accurate.

can’t you hear me knocking is fucking awesome

let it loose should be 20 minutes long

here to drop obvious truths in this thread

Is "Scarlet" about Scarlet Rivera?

Track was named after Page's daughter.

who was named in turn after Crowley's many Scarlets

if "Time Waits For No One" is zombie rock then I'm dancing with Mr D

For everybody who wants an extended 'Let It Loose', here's the next best thing - 7 minute long instrumental ballad from Nellcote, courtesy of a Nicky Hopkins worktape:

https://we.tl/t-UBEgmsKtkI

let it loose is great at any length

can’t you hear me knocking suffers in that the opening riff is so insanely tasty it’s kinda all downhill from there no matter what

feel like I need a “POX: Keef kicks it off”

tumbling dice duh, but “love is strong” and it’s twin “wicked as it seems” might make that list

what is 'love is strong?'