WHAT A DRAG IT IS GETTING POLLED – ILM Artist Poll #16 – The Rolling Stones (Extended deadline: April 1st)

well that's depressing

my ballot is going to be boringly 67-70 heavy

Not boring! Those are the good ones!

well obviously but it still feels less than authentic

I feel like the more time I spend listening to albums the more depressed I get about ever being able to narrow down to 20.

And have I ever thrown myself into anything with as much verve and dedication? doubtful.

For some reason, nothing from my favorite Stones album made my top 20. I wish I understood why I did that, but I think it's because I hear the album as a whole, and it seems weird hearing something from it in isolation.

xp Haha, yeah, I made a list of all possible ballot-worthy songs, thinking I wouldn't have 20, and I had 60. My ballot could easily change day-to-day...or hour-to-hour...but the more I listen to my #1, the more I'm convinced I did the right thing. And it's not one that immediately sprung to mind as a #1 (or even a top 10).

xpost I think that's what I'm wrestling with with a few of the Exile songs. I think of them with the songs around them so much that listening to them in isolation is kind of dissatisfying. Which doesn't bode well for them.

themthemthemthem ugh

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kD8c7xNEX8U/TZZ_LCC3JfI/AAAAAAAAN5M/VcONbl5zGF4/s1600/Gloria.jpg

Yeah, wrt Exile, some of my favorite moments are things like "Just Wanna See His Face" or "Hip Shake," but they lose a lot out of context. Still, managed to get about 3 or 4 Exile songs on my ballot.

Rocks Off is such a KICKASS opener but I don't know how I feel about it just as a song song...and Tumbling Dice fucking rules but why does it feel so plodding away from the rest of the album.

I need a xanax.

i feel totally the same way about Exile!

i mean, it's hard seperating the individual tracks from the overall album experience

It's not as hard with Sticky Fingers or Beggars or Let It Bleed, but then it's that thing of how MANY to pick, and are ALL these songs off this album really THAT awesome? Then you start playing lifeboat with your best friends, 'sorry, you can't build anything, you'll be useless on the island, bye I love you"

I threw "Sway" a life preserver.

i appreciate that because i think i had to scrap it :/

^^^u MAD

i'm gay (i'm happy)

WHY WOULD YOU SCRAP SWAY

In the early-'70s, my grade-school friend Pat Hutchinson's family had a boarder named Heather living with them. She was a total hippychick, and I still remember seeing the words "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" painted on the wall of her room in very elaborate and colourful script. I knew next to nothing about the Rolling Stones at the time, and while I may have heard "Ruby Tuesday" on the radio, I didn't associate the song with them or the words on the wall with the song.

where is heather now and does she know you loved her

She does now (pitter-patter)...probably Communications Director for Michelle Bachmann or something.

I don't think I fully appreciated Exile til I was in my post-grad year of uni doing my teaching degree, hanging out with jaded 30 year olds who smoked and drank with an abandon I'd never known (I was about 21). This particular night the whole group of us hung out at this one guy's apartment listening to Exile on his record player, chain smoking and drinking red wine out of coffee mugs. everyone was singing and getting wasted and it was fucking brilliant.

It's a good drinking album.

^^ yeah, i've drunk a lot of red to Exile.

really dig some of the gems tucked away right at the end of the album. "all down the line" is a totally unhinged good-time killer track and "soul survivor" just has perfect flow, despite being made up of seemingly disparate parts. they are both going to get some love from me in this poll.

dang those are both songs i wish i had voted for. exile is the stones album i enjoy listening to the most, but my favorite songs of theirs cluster around the late 60's period.

i wound up with something like exile 10 tracks on my short list, far more than any other single album, but wound up "only" including three in my top 20. two begin with the word "sweet" and the other involves what can be accomplished only while asleep. struggled bitterly with "soul survivor", "ventilator blues" and "turd on the run", but eventually let them go. flirts with being my favorite record of any kind, ever.

listen to "100 years ago" if you haven't yet

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Friday, March 23, 2012

it's a van morrison song, i'n'it? until it isn't.

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Friday, March 23, 2012 7:48 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idgi. it's credited to jagger/richards. you saying it sounds like a van morrison song? i guess i don't know VM well enough...

That Jagger/RS interview was really interesting.

Never really took the time to appreciate Jagger's, um, economy of words. Like, he doesn't want to say a lot but he's very good at succinctly drilling to the heart of something when he wants to. His thoughts about the cross-dressing/male-female appeal was really interesting, and his thoughts about him as a 'rock star' now vs when he was starting out, the whole thrill of forging a new road in still very new style of music vs doing it now where it's pretty much the standard.

And I admire his early rebellion, given the environment he grew up in, it must have taken some balls to just put his foot down and forge ahead.

I dunno, I came away with a slightly better view of him than I've had in a while. I like him as a performer, I just never always liked him, but I guess he never really wants anyone to know him so..

My top-rankIng Exile track is Rip This Joint. Not sure they ever rocked that hard before or since.

Left all sorts of insanely great things off, including Satisfaction and Sway. And I guess I can understand hating Ruby Tuesday, but it was the first Stones song I ever loved, when I was about 9 and got into my dad's copy of Flowers, so is a sentimental #1. Love the pummeling snare drum lead-in to the chorus. (also have Lady Jane on the ballot -- soft spot for baroque Stones)

I don't dislike "Ruby Tuesday," but I love other songs on Between the Buttons so much more that I sometimes forget "Ruby Tuesday" is even on that record. So if you're out tonight, don't forget, if you're on your bike, wear white.

It's no surprise Jagger's smart as a whip but it was also refreshing to read that interview in '95 or whatever and realize he remains the least sentimental major rock and roller ever.

I put together a playlist of 61 songs, all the way up to Little T&A and She Was Hot, heh. The first 19 were pretty easy, but #20 is a showdown between 19th Nervous Breakdown, Moonlight Mile, Happy and Ventilator Blues.

Ventilator Blues! It's the most fun to strut & pout to. Whatcha gonna *do* 'bout it?

Such a wide range of recording/engineering quality in the earliest material... "Come On" is crystalline, "I Wanna Be Your Man" is overdriven mud.

Listening to Dirty Work for the first time just to make sure I didn't leave anything important off my ballot. "One Hit" was a contender, but ended up getting cut. This being the first time I've heard "Winning Ugly" in 20+ years, I'm shocked at how not-horribly it's aged. I kinda dig it.

you saying it sounds like a van morrison song?

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Friday, March 23, 2012

Yes. But then it goes somewhere Van wouldn't.

Oh! The other thing I liked about the Jagger interview was the little quip about Altamont: he said something like, oh you journalists talked about the death of innocence, I was just upset that a person had died, for her family. YEAH JANN.

WENNER: What about the contribution of Mick Taylor to the band in these years?

JAGGER: I think he had a big contribution. He made it very musical. He was a very fluent, melodic player, which we never had, and we don’t have now. Neither Keith nor [Ronnie Wood] plays that kind of style. It was very good for me working with him. Charlie and I were talking about this the other day, because we could sit down – I could sit down – with Mick Taylor, and he would play very fluid lines against my vocals. He was exciting, and he was very pretty, and it gave me something to follow, to bang off. Some people think that’s the best version of the band that existed.

WENNER: What do you think?

JAGGER: They’re all interesting periods. They’re all different. I obviously can’t say if I think Mick Taylor was the best, because it sort of trashes the period the band is in now.

WENNER: Why did Mick Taylor leave?

JAGGER: I still don’t really know.

WENNER: He never explained?

JAGGER: Not really. He wanted to have a solo career. I think he found it difficult to get on with Keith.

WENNER: On musical issues?

JAGGER: Everything. I’m guessing.

Volumes here, when you think about Jagger/Taylor tracks like "Sway," "Moonlight Mile," "Winter" etc.

Reading that interview in 199-whatever confirmed my suspicions about where Keith wasn't (i.e. "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile").

that inteview was great. thanks Alfred!

Part of me wonders if Jagger says that stuff about Taylor knowing that Keef is reading...

Not that Taylor isn't great, but Keef is your guy whether you want him or not, dude.

my friend in college had this whole ritual she went through every year - when she was 16 her best friend committed suicide, and so on the anniversary of her death my friend would wear this girl's favorite color (yellow), buy a bunch of her favorite flowers (daffodils), and listen to her favorite song (Ruby Tuesday). She would play that song ALL day. ALL DAY.
And it drove me crazy because by then I had found out about Exile On Main STreet, and Let It Bleed; she had bought the Hot Rocks cd soley for RT, and it was the ONLY song she ever listened to on it bc of this bloody ritual.

it was all just kind of weird and annoying

Loved this btw - I guess it's maybe not something to be especially proud of, but I can totally relate to hating on someone's memorial for spoiling this shiny new album you just bought.

Part of me wonders if Jagger says that stuff about Taylor knowing that Keef is reading...

Not that Taylor isn't great, but Keef is your guy whether you want him or not, dude.

according to an interview Keef gave last fall, there's no hard feelings. He invited Taylor and Wyman to join him, Ronnie, and Charlie to jam.

Vegemite Grrl otm abt the catty subtext of Jagger on Taylor, esp "I obviously can’t say if I think Mick Taylor was the best, because it sort of trashes the period the band is in now." Uh, except you just said exactly that, dude.

And I wouldn't expect there to be any hard feelings between KR and Taylor. It's more that Jagger's statements suggest tensions between Richards and himself.

Interesting to note that songs we like to think of as classic Jagger-Richards compositions like "Brown Sugar," "Sympathy...," and "Miss You" are Jagger-only songs.

Ruby Tuesday is gonna be waaaay up near the top of my ballot--it's a bit tainted by all the boomer love, I suppose, but that melody, my god, so beautiful

What Jagger rather artfully elides in the interview -- artfully because he does suggest it -- is that Taylor left in large part b/ he was fed up with not getting songwriting credit on stuff like "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile" -- for all those "dreamy" lovely lead lines Jagger raves about.

Legend has it that Wood was their first choice before Taylor. The story goes that someone from the Stones' camp called during a Faces rehearsal. Ronnie Lane (or Ian MacLagan, depending on the account) answered the phone and said, "Nope, he doesn't want to join the Stones; he's happy with the Faces." Wood didn't find out about this until years later.

convenient legend that. agreed with alfred that mick is quite forthcoming when you read between the lines.