rank the songs on STICKY FINGERS

Same '95 interview:

A: We made records with just Mick Taylor, which are very good and everyone loves, where Keith wasn't there for whatever reasons.

Which ones?

A: People don't know that Keith wasn't there making it. All the stuff like "Moonlight Mile," "Sway." These tracks are a bit obscure, but they are liked by people that like the Rolling Stones. It's me and [Mick] playing off each other – another feeling completely, because he's following my vocal lines and then extemporizing on them during the solos.

Sway
Moonlight Mile
Wild Horses
Bitch
Can't You Hear Me Knocking
Sister Morphine
Brown Sugar
You Gotta Move
Dead Flowers
I Got the Blues

My favourite Stones album, without a doubt.

Took me forever to recognize "Dead Flowers" as a drug reference. Ever passive aggressive, interesting to note the number of Jagger lyrics this era calling out folks for heroin use. "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Dead Flowers" (mocking Gram Parsons?), "Monkey Man" ...

Taylor wrote Midnight Mile too? Now I know that one is in open G, which would point to Keith. On the other hand it is very melodic, which would point to Taylor...dang

"Sway" has the best drumming on any Stones song. Which is to say, some of the best drumming on any song.

from the April 1989 issue of Spin's "Great Moments in Recording Studio History":

In the middle of the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" session, piano player Ian Stewart stopped things dead, and told Charlie Watts that his tom-toms were out of tune with the bass guitar.

"I never tune my drums," Watts told him blankly, and they started playing again. But a bit later, Stewart stopped everyone again and looked at Watts.

"What do you mean you never tune your drums?"

"Why tune something I'm just gonna go and beat the shit out of?" Watts answered. "I'll hit them for a while and then they'll be in tune again."

I just listened to the Clapton take of Brown Sugar...there's no way those are Jagger vocals from the period. He did this too on the Exile outtakes.

and on a couple of the Some Girls outtakes. It's glaringly obvious. Way too many singers do this late-career overdubbing thing (Springsteen, Jagger, Gabriel, Daltrey) and it's never a good idea.

I thought Jagger did a good job on Plundered My Soul from Exile. Salvaged the song for me at least

No excuse for not tuning drums though Charlie, sorry

yeah, Plundered My Soul is the only one that remotely works for me

Naw -- the Some Girls outtakes included in 2011 ("Claudette," my beloved ""Do You Think I Really Care?" in particular) are as good as anything on the album

^^Co-Sign. Much of the new/old Some Girls stuff was choice. I like to joke that it was the best Stones since Some Girls, but ya know...

well yeah

Weren't you at the coke convention back in 1965?

Not that I can afford either at the moment, but my local record shop had both the standard vinyl reissue and the double vinyl with the bonus tracks, for a difference of about $7. I don't usually care about bonus tracks, particularly when they are just different versions of songs I already know, but only the double vinyl has an actual zipper on the album cover. I'm torn.

YOU ARE TORN AND FRAYED

i have a nice original copy at the store right now. sounds awesome.

Listening party

xp Yeah buy an original for ten bucks, it'll sound great and have a zipper.

i'm trying to remember the moment when the stones ceased to be an enjoyable classic rock band that i had listened to since i was a little kid and always liked singing along to and became some sort of SUPER GENIUS musical force where i would just marvel at how they made albums and songs. i can't remember the moment. it might have been when exile finally clicked for me. which was late in life. the same thing happened to me with beatles of course. childhood faves all of sudden become: omg, how and why did they do that nobody did that it's like majik! stones had same majik. it's still a mystery to me. they all seem like pretty normal people with normal interests. but nobody does that shit today. not in the rock world that's for sure. or in a lot of other worlds.

You could argue that at no point has Keith been the best guitarist in the Rolling Stones

xpost scott otm

Seconding that xpost, I had a long period where I just thought I was sick of them as a kid, though, because of CLASSIC ROCK RADIO. Discovering their albums, man... well I don't wanna use the word "revelatory" but.

i was into the stones as a teen but only cursorily - it wasnt til i hung out with 30-something postgrads after college that i learned exile even existed & started on the album freakdom that i now live in

btw i bought a sticky fingers tshirt today
full rabbithole

I have my mom to thank for my introduction. I remember parties where she would play Tattoo You. All the albums were in the house.

Don't wanna be your slave

fwiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MchWI3sLUQo

^^Leon Russell on pianer

Interesting to learn that the Flying Burrito Bros. version was released first! That's sort of like learning Johnny Cash recorded "The Gambler" first, but Kenny's version beat his to the store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8dfR7vZwC8

The only time I've ever been impressed by the drumming on a Stones record is those neat little switches between rhythms on 'Midnight Rambler' - I've never rated Watts as a drummer, it has to be said. Him and Nick Mason.

Charlie swings on Memo From Turner

"Tumbling Dice"!

xpost

idk, I always felt like Charlie was great bcz he has zero flash and he's suuuper tight, like a metronome. Dude can slot in on almost any style and most ppl dont even notice. Idk, I think ppl rate drumming weirdly. god forbid he keep the beat for 40 fkn years, yknow?

"Tumbling Dice" a tough one, because Jimmy Miller played on that, at least a little.

Get Off of My Cloud is some great Charlie. Actually, lots of early Stones has some great Charlie. Once Keith locks into his riff-machine open-G mode, Charlie sort of grooves along like a solid wind-up monkey.

Charlie's an incredible drummer wtf

i have grown to love charlie over the years. i took him for granted for a long time.

Love Charlie but would never call him a metronome

stones def would have been better off wiv i dunno neil peart

lest we forget: "I Love The Look On Charlie's Face" - A Visual Catalog of Charlie Watts

Charlie defines their sound as much as (or arguably more than) any Stone. And they know it. After Wyman left, the choice of bassist was left completely up to Charlie -- no one else in the band had any say. If Charlie and the bassist couldn't lock in together, everything would've been thrown off.

"Tumbling Dice" a tough one, because Jimmy Miller played on that, at least a little.

(iirc) According to Andy Johns, Charlie couldn't nail the breakdown leading into the coda (the stuff under the "You got to roll me!" part), so Miller filled in, and that's him for the rest of the song.

But yeah, Charlie rules. That kick-tom tom pattern under the verses of "Brown Sugar" is what really makes the song.

Yeah it's like beyond debate really, doesn't matter, Charlie was the drummer the Rolling Stones needed

While we're at it, Bill Wyman a massively underrated bassist.

Love Charlie but would never call him a metronome

Oh, no, not at all (see: all the times the Stones songs end up twice as fast as they began). But '70s on, he just started to groove. Fewer fills, etc. Much more of that trick he does, where he never hits the snare and the hi-hat at the same time. Which is what largely makes him look like a wind-up monkey.

http://michaelroyfisher.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/allow-me-to-explain-to-you-why-charlie-watts-is-important/

yeah i didnt mean it as a dis or that he's not creative, just reliability idk

i actually read bill wyman's book as a teenage stones obsessive and it is still prob the single most boring book on an inherently exciting subject i have ever read

bill is a fun vacuum