Ending My Exploration Of The Rolling Stones Early, Forty Licks Is The Essential Album!

The Good: Some excellent, classic songs by The Rolling Stones, Good use of medium
The Bad: Some less-inspired newer songs by The Rolling Stones, Repetitive.
The Basics: A good, but not extraordinary, album, Forty Licks adequately showcases the works of the Rolling Stones.


When I was studying their music, The Rolling Stones did not grab or sustained my interest nearly as much as I hoped they would. After listening to only a few albums by the band, I feel I get the gist of the group and feel no special desire to explore their music further.

That said, as I reach the end of my listening to The Rolling Stones, I found myself enjoying the two-disc anthology, Forty Licks. Featuring music from throughout the almost forty year career (at that point) of The Rolling Stones, Forty Licks was billed as the ultimate "best of" anthology for The Rolling Stones and it is hard to imagine it being topped since. More than most casual listeners are likely to need or want from the band, this has more than any oldies, classic rock or modern rock station would feature from The Rolling Stones. But for those looking for the definitive collection of the music of The Rolling Stones, including every hit song and recognizable song by the Rolling Stones, Forty Licks is it.

With forty songs on two discs, the total running time of this anthology is over one hundred fifty-five minutes worth of music and it uses the compact disc medium remarkably well. It is largely the artistic endeavor of the Rolling Stones, which has evolved over the years. The two consistent members of the band are Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the two wrote all but two of the songs and the Rolling Stones play the bulk of the instruments on each song and Jagger provides the lead vocals on all of the songs. The album is not produced by any member of the Rolling Stones and it is surprising that a group that has spent so much time writing music has never moved into the production end of their own works.

In addition to having all of the key songs that are recognizable almost around the entire world, like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction)," "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and "Paint It Black," "Forty Licks" features less well-known songs like "Love Is Strong" and "Mixed Emotions." For this anthology, the group wrote and produced four songs and tracks like "Don't Stop" do not hold a candle even to more mediocre songs by The Rolling Stones like "Get Off Of My Cloud." But what Forty Licks actually reveals is how few songs by The Rolling Stones actually rock and hold up over the decades. For sure, there are some truly amazing and timeless songs like "Ruby Tuesday" and "Sympathy For The Devil," but after two dozen listens to this two-disc anthology, I am left realizing that only about a dozen of the songs on here actually are classic songs that truly rock.

Largely the reason Forty Licks leaves the listener less impressed with The Rolling Stones is the simple fact that so much of the album is repetitive. The Rolling Stones are largely a guitar, bass and drums combo and for people who have been making rock and roll for so long, they are remarkably unoriginal instrumentally. Quite simply, the instrumental differences between "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Start Me Up" and "Get Off Of My Cloud" are negligible. Similarly, "Brown Sugar," "Beast Of Burden," and even "Sympathy For The Devil" are not dramatically different musical numbers. The guitar, bass, drums are used in almost the same way with stylistically similar progressions of the songs. As a result, the band creates a lot of songs that have little instrumental variation to them.

Appropriately, the Rolling Stones try some new things on some of the newer songs like "Anybody Seen My Baby?" But even songs like that, where the sound is more developed or the inclusion of keyboards on the ballad "Wild Horses" tend to sound more original than the other songs by the Rolling Stones less for the instrumental accompaniment than for the vocals. What makes "Anybody Seen My Baby?" different from so many of the other tracks is the fact that Mick Jagger actually holds a note.

Mick Jagger provides the lead vocals on every song on Forty Licks and he has a decent baritone voice, but he offers very little variation in his performances, which is why when he actually holds notes as opposed to articulating in shorter stanzas (or shorter meter where it is easy for him to take breaths) it is noticeable. Jagger generally does not vary his vocals from his safe range and on the tracks unique to Forty Licks he embodies exactly what the listener expects from Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, as opposed to challenging that.

The Rolling Stones have an interesting musical tradition in that they come out of the era in rock and roll when the music still had its roots close to folk-rock. As a result, some of the best songs tell little musical storysongs like when Mick Jagger sings "Don't question why she needs to be so free / She'll tell you it's the only way to be / She just can't be chained / To a life where nothing's gained / And nothing's lost / At such a cost / There's no time to lose, I heard her say / Catch your dreams before they slip away / Dying all the time / Lose your dreams / And you will lose your mind. / Ain't life unkind" ("Ruby Tuesday"). The Rolling Stones started off with clever songs that mix well characters and themes and make them musical and different and the real pleasure in hearing some of their hits is hearing how good the initial poetry of the band actually was.

Unfortunately, it did not take long before the band became ridiculously repetitive. Even some of the big hits for the group like "(I Can't Get No Satisfaction)" repeat the title of the song so many times it hardly has any other substance to it. As well, the band has some terrible rhymes that are singsong and droll. With lines like "Love is strong and you're so sweet / You make me hard you make me weak / Love is strong and you're so sweet /And some day, babe we got to meet / A glimpse of you was all it took / A stranger's glance it got me hooked / And I followed you across the stars / I looked for you in seedy bars" ("Love Is Strong") one has to wonder where the group is getting its lyrics. Sure, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have some poetic gifts, but sometimes, they have some real stinker lines.

As well, the storysongs The Rolling Stones write eventually become more preoccupied with the things Jagger and Richards are into, as opposed to truly universal elements. So, they sing about being famous and traveling the world and doing drugs, rather than the love and relationships they originally sang about. This can be alienating as the musical storysong "Mother's Little Helper" is. While some can relate to being stressed to the point of needing to self medicate, as the musical protagonist does on "Mother's Little Helper" which Jagger presents as "'Things are different today,' / I hear ev'ry mother say / Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag / So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak / And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper / And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day / Doctor please, some more of these / Outside the door, she took four more / What a drag it is getting old" but it lacks the universal quality of the band's best songs.

Even so, if one wants an album by The Rolling Stones, this is a great way to go. The recognizable songs are here and there is enough to increase one's appreciation of the group as well. However, it is just as likely that those who have heard The Rolling Stones on the radio will realize that what they have already heard truly is the best the band has to offer.

The best tracks are "Ruby Tuesday" (disc one) and "Beast Of Burden" (disc two) and the low points are "She's A Rainbow" (disc one) and "Angie" (disc two).

For other works by The Rolling Stones, please check out my reviews of:
The Rolling Stones, Now!
Out Of Our Heads
Sticky Fingers
Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones: 1974 – 1993
Bridges To Babylon
Stripped

7/10

For other album or single reviews, please visit my index page for a nice, organized listing of all of the music I have reviewed! Thanks!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Live From The Rolling Stones, Stripped Is Adequate, But Not Extraordinary.

The Good: Some decent tracks/live renditions
The Bad: Not the best mix of all time, SHORT!
The Basics: Stripped is a live album by The Rolling Stones that is surprisingly mellow, dull and repetitive, making it easy to not recommend.


The Rolling Stones are quickly becoming a band that I think got lucky based on what was available at the time. This was reinforced for me when listening to their album Stripped when my wife walked into the room and heard "Not Fade Away" and asked, "Is this that song with 'Who do you love?' in it?" When I replied, "no," she observed, "They all sound alike." Stripped seems surprisingly lethargic and this "live" album seems to trade mostly on the novelty of The Rolling Stones singing Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone," which they might not do elsewhere.

Released in 1995, Stripped is a live album from performances The Rolling Stones did at The Paradiso Club in Amsterdam and the set list seems remarkably limited. In fact, the band seems to have chosen an odd mix of songs that even sound alike; when "I'm Free" begins, it actually sounds remarkably like Dylan's instrumentation for "Like A Rolling Stone." What fans of The Rolling Stones might actually enjoy about Stripped is what more casual listeners are less likely to like; this is not an anthology of "the best of The Rolling Stones" presented live. So, instead of having all the classic songs that appear on virtually every compilation, this has a few less remarkable songs - like "Angie" - presented in acoustic or live presentations. The Rolling Stones are decent about it, though, in that they do not include much in the way of crowd noises to sell the listener on the idea that this is a live album. But still, there is little recommend this outing, which is more average than anything else.

With only fourteen songs, clocking out at 59:28, Stripped is a mix of the works unique to The Rolling Stones and a couple of cover songs. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote eleven of the songs and the other three were not even co-written by members of the group. The quartet of Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Woods provide the principle vocals and instrumental accompaniment on this album, but none of the members of the group share in the production end of the album. So, how much of the album is the musical vision of The Rolling Stones is questionable, but it does generally seem like this is the album the quartet wanted to make.

Unfortunately, this recording of alternate versions of previously released songs is not terribly exciting. The entire album has a lack of energy to it that is overwhelming. In fact, were is not for the sounds of the crowds at the end of "Dead Flowers" the sense that The Rolling Stones were playing to an empty house might come through. While the group does cull from throughout their thirty year songbook, the late-60s and 70s works seem to dominate the album. But because some of the earlier works were lyrically and vocally driven, these alternate live takes - of songs like "The Spider And The Fly" - have very little variation from the original. Moreover, some of the song choices like "Angie" (another song which the band uses the live audience conceit on) merely serve to remind the listeners how listless some of the band's years were. "Angie" is lyrically repetitive and the live version lacks any sense of passion or anguish.

As far as the instrumental accompaniment goes, Stripped is very simple and the album sounds like what it is four guys on guitar, bass, and drums with the occasional presence of a keyboard player. In fact, one of the biggest surprises for me (after eight listens to the album) was looking at the liner notes and discovering there was a saxophone on some of these songs; the sax never dominates or even becomes recognizable! In addition to being fairly simple in the instrumentation, many of the songs chosen sound alike. "Angie" and "Wild Horses" have similar slow-tempo guitarwork with little zest and none of the songs have emotive force that comes through in the instrumentals. Instead, this is a homogeneously slow, ponderous, mellow rock collection.

Vocally, the songs are driven, as always, by Mick Jagger. Jagger does a decent drawl on "Dead Flowers," which he presents with a flavor similar to Southern rock (which is closer to Country/Bluegrass than rock and roll). He has a similar accent on "Let It Bleed," but otherwise he sounds like Mick Jagger, albeit a tired Jagger. On this album, he lacks zest or zeal, as if he is sleepsinging his way through the performances. Songs like "I'm Free" work best when Jagger sings with his trademark defiance and energy, but on "Stripped," he gets the lyrics out and if one were to attempt to envision the performance, one would be left imaging a static positioning of the lead singer throughout. Jagger even seems to have trouble wrapping his mouth around the lyrics to "Like A Rolling Stone" at the speed with which he needs to deliver them.

As for the lyrics, Stripped suffers the same way many albums by The Rolling Stones suffers in that the lyrics are tremendously repetitive. The adaptation of "Love In Vain" that was done for this album has the lines ". . .the train left the station, it had two lights on behind" ("Love In Vain") three times in a row and considering the song is only twelve lines long, this is dreadfully repetitive. Unfortunately, this is not the exception to the rule. Stripped has songs where the titles of the songs appear repeated throughout so many times that one would think that the setlist was chosen so if any member of the band lost their place, they could look at the title of the song and have a fair guess at getting the lyrics to the song right!

The exception to this is the song "Wild Horses." While the song does, in fact, have the title repeated several times throughout the song, it actually has a decent musical storysong that entertains listeners. Jagger is able to emote fairly well when he sings "I watched you suffer a dull aching pain, / Now you've decided to show me the same / No sweeping exits or offstage lines / Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind / Wild horses couldn't drag me away" ("Wild Horses"). The song is emotional and in touch in a way the rest of the songs never achieve. Indeed, Jagger presents "The Spider And The Fly" without a leer, instead sounding bored as he mulls his way through it.

Ultimately, that's the problem with Stripped, it's The Rolling Stones light on energy and the album uses too many tracks that sound like one another to make one feel like they are attending a concert. Or, if this were a concert, we are left feeling cheated that we paid for cheap tickets and received such cheap results.

The best song is "Like A Rolling Stone" and truthfully, any of the others outside "Wild Horses" would be a fair pick for low point.

For other works by The Rolling Stones, please check out my reviews of:
The Rolling Stones, Now!
Out Of Our Heads
Sticky Fingers
Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones: 1974 – 1993
Bridges To Babylon

4/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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My First Anthology By The Rolling Stones: Jump Back Is Not All The Best.

The Good: Some memorable songs by The Rolling Stones
The Bad: Not a lot of universally recognizable songs
The Basics: A very average compilation, Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones adequately compiles the band's music after their obvious peak.


When The Rolling Stones were my Artist Of The Month, I discovered something truly wonderful about The Rolling Stones: I am not a fan. As my wife groaned when I put in another album by The Rolling Stones, Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones, "They all sound the same!" It is hard for me to argue with her, especially when this compilation began playing and "Brown Sugar" followed "Start Me Up." Those two songs, along with "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" all sound remarkably alike! But as I contemplate this compilation, it occurs to me just how powerful a name can be.

The Rolling Stones were contemporaries of The Beatles. However, when The Beatles disbanded, The Rolling Stones generally did not. As a result, there are "Best Of" albums of works of The Rolling Stones that include more iconic hits by the band than "Jump Back." This compilation focuses on the years from 1971 - 1993 and in some ways, it is a remarkably stark collection. Eight of the songs on this "Best Of" did not make it onto their master anthology, Forty Licks. And from classic rock stations that I still hear The Rolling Stones on in my area, only "Brown Sugar," "Beast Of Burden," "Start Me Up" and "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" that are still played. My point here is that there are few truly timeless songs by The Rolling Stones on this album and the ones that are readily available elsewhere.

With eighteen songs, clocking out at 75:43, Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones is very much the musical vision of The Rolling Stones from 1971 - 1993, right before the band lost bassist Bill Wyman. The only song not written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is "Harlem Shuffle." The quintet plays all of their own instruments and Jagger and Richards do all of the band's primary vocals. But none of the members of the band are credited as co-producers on the album or any of the tracks, so one has to ask how much the band was setting trends and how much they were tools of their producers.

This becomes especially germane when one listens to the music of The Rolling Stones as it is presented on this compilation. While the band does occasionally add pianos or keyboards to their songs ("Beast Of Burden," "Fool To Cry"), they are mostly a guitar, bass and drums band with emphasis on the guitars. In fact, the only song with truly memorable percussion is "Undercover Of The Night," which closes the album with a wicked beat that is produced to be prominent. But, as mentioned, most of the songs do sound alike. The songs are pretty traditional, dancable rock and roll tracks with a decent beat and a guitar-driven sound. But when the group isn't doing that, they are making mellow rock ballads that sound like pretty much whatever others at the time were doing ("Fool To Cry" actually sounds a lot like the Bee Gees!). But more often than not, the songs are up-tempo rock and roll tracks, like "Rock And A Hard Place" and "Hot Stuff," that sound like exactly what one might expect from rock and roll and/or The Rolling Stones.

Vocally, there is little diversity on "Jump Back" to surprise those who like The Rolling Stones. While "Hot Stuff" has a slightly funkier flavor and includes greater use of backing vocalists as does "Harlem Shuffle," most of the songs are vocally driven by Mick Jagger. As far as he goes, he has a pretty solid baritone range and he articulates generally well. When he is not blending his voice in with the accompanying vocalists, he manages to sound defiant and like a rock and roll legend who has something to say. "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" stands out as one of the album's best tracks for the vocals because Mick Jagger actually has a passion and a force behind them, making it seem like he has something to say and the energy and will to say what it is he wants to say.

But the real failure of "Jump Back" is that too frequently, The Rolling Stones do not seem to have anything unique or interesting to say. Instead, this is an album where they either focus in a remarkably tired way on love or on what making music still means to them. In this regard, the only lyrically superlative song is "Beast Of Burden." Amid passe songs about breakups or being aimlessly in love, "Beast Of Burden" does what few rock and roll songs do; it questions the relationship and the musical antagonist without just moping. Indeed, Jagger has the defiance of "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" when he more plaintively sings, "I'll never be your beast of burden / I've walked for miles / My feet are hurtin' / All I want is for you to make love to me . . . I'm not too blind to see" ("Beast Of Burden") and despite the fact that the song is instrumentally derivative of other songs on the album, it works because the song poetically explores the emotions and desires of the musical protagonist.

But outside that, the songs do tend to be very traditional rock and roll songs, even if they dabble some in instrumentation that might even seem like disco at times. Lyrically, "Angie" is very much a typical rock ballad with its lines "Angie, Angie, when will those rain clouds disappear . . . You can't say we never tried" ("Angie"). The song is so unmemorable that my mother, who lived through the years this was on the radio and she was an active listener had never heard this song. It is, truth be told, not an extraordinarily-written song and it is not the only one on the album like that.

The fundamental problem with the songs in this era of The Rolling Stones is that their music has become far more formulaic and stylistically dull.. There are no sweeping, epic musical storysongs like "Ruby Tuesday." In the place of songs like that, there are short, radio-friendly songs that repeat the title of the song so many times that there is no imagination or finesse to the writing. Songs like the popular "Start Me Up" and "It's Only Rock 'N Roll," along with the less well-played "Angie" and "Waiting For A Friend" repeat their refrains so many times that the album is a tough sell as a result. This is definitely an album featuring the band after their best works were already behind them.

Even so, I ultimately opted to recommend this album because the songs are not terrible and some of the less well-known tracks that did not make it onto Forty Licks (most notably "Harlem Shuffle") do sound different from other songs by The Rolling Stones and this might make some appreciate the band more, without having to buy all of the albums these tracks were compiled by. But largely, this album is only for those who want some pretty generic rock and roll music.

The best track is "Beast Of Burden," the low point is the less memorable "Tumbling Dice."

For other works by The Rolling Stones, please check out my reviews of:
The Rolling Stones, Now!
Out Of Our Heads
Sticky Fingers
Bridges To Babylon

5.5/10

For other singles and albums, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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Indistinct The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Is A One-Hit Failure!

The Good: Good guitarwork, I suppose
The Bad: Uninspired lyrics, Blasé vocals, Instrumentals are unsurprising and bland, SHORT!
The Basics: Generic rock and roll on a very short album makes Sticky Fingers a passionless endeavor from The Rolling Stones which may easily be avoided without losing anything significant.


As I listened to more of the music of The Rolling Stones, I found myself far less impressed, even by the earlier works that most people seem to like. Listening to Sticky Fingers on pretty heavy replay, is so unmemorable an experience that it did not surprise me at all that the Wikipedia entry for the album actually was more preoccupied with the photographs on the album and liner notes than the music on the disc! Released in 1971, Sticky Fingers is only marginally memorable as the album that released the single “Brown Sugar” to the world. While some might, when I think of the pantheon of great The Rolling Stones singles, “Brown Sugar” is never at the top of that list. Even if it were, it frontloads the album and there is nothing truly memorable after that song.

Listening to Sticky Fingers on heavy replay, the listener is overcome with a strong sense of ambivalence; nothing truly sticks out on this album. As a result, playing it over and over again, one is numbed by a rather short disc which does not have the hook of some of The Rolling Stones’ other works. There is a distinct lack of musical drama in this album and the overall sound is so generically rock and roll and so obviously The Rolling Stones that it offers no challenge to the listener’s ears. Instead, even after only two listens, the listener is likely to be bored and exhausted by the monotony of the album.

With only ten tracks, clocking out at a pretty sparse 46:25, Sticky Fingers is mostly the work of The Rolling Stones. The quintet, at the time, of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, plays all of the primary instruments on the album. Richards and Jagger wrote eight of the songs, co-wrote another and “You Gotta Move” is a cover. While Mick Jagger and Keith Richards take the main vocals and most of the backing vocals, there are a few supporting vocalists and a few additional instrumentalists on the album. As well, no member of the band was involved in the production of the album, so it is up for debate how much of the ultimate sound of the album is actually the intended sound.

The instrumental accompaniment on Sticky Fingers is exactly what one might expect from The Rolling Stones. This is a very traditional rock and roll band with a guitar, bass and drums. For sure, the intent is to rock and there are sometimes three different styles of guitar in play (plus a bass) but the music is generally limited in its sound to be that of a very traditional guitar rock band. On “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” there is an extended guitar solo that goes on for several minutes and this is the place that the guitars are highlighted the most on the album (the rest of the time, they are sublimated to vocals and the drums are pretty pounding). The thing is, in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” the guitar plays for several minutes and after nine listens to this entire album, I still have no memory of the theme the guitar solo takes. Instead of having a coherent melody, the song has a generic guitar riff that keeps going on. With the current generation of Guitar Hero playing kids, it does not even sound complicated.

Outside the somewhat lackluster guitars, the memorable instrument is the drums. Despite the fact that some songs have pianos or even a saxophone, the only other instrument that truly stands out is the drumming of Charlie Watts. Watts bangs his heart out on songs like “Sister Morphine” and he keeps mellow time on “Sway.”

As for the vocals, Mick Jagger performs with his usual vocal swagger, but the album never seems to have the passion or defiance that other works by The Rolling Stones achieve. Instead, he remains in his very safe, average baritone range to sing out about problems with women, success with women and everything else he mumbles through. Yes, on Sticky Fingers, Jagger is less comprehensible than he usually is, which makes it more difficult to understand what he is singing in some places. Unlike most early albums by The Rolling Stones, the emphasis does not appear to be on making musical storysongs that are epic in scope, yet clearly understood. In fact, only “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar” have any lines I even remember from my many listens. Part of the reason for this is that Mick Jagger and producer Jimmy Miller do not emphasize the vocals the way they ought to in terms of production and performance.

The other reason is that many of the lyrics are not at all memorable or extraordinary. Singing about how down on their luck he feels, Mick Jagger drones out “Ain't flinging tears out on the dusty ground / For all my friends out on the burial ground / Can't stand the feeling getting so brought down / It's just that demon life has got me in its sway” (“Sway”). The song, like many on Sticky Fingers, is plagued by singsong rhymes that do not resonate with an emotional gravitas for such dark themes. Because the lines are simple and they are presented with little distinction in tune, it is hard to get the dark, oppressive feel the song seems to be striving for.

In fact, the only song that truly seems to have a powerful emotional resonance that matches the lyrics is “Wild Horses.” “Wild Horses” is a pretty typical love song where the musical protagonist clings to the woman he loves. The song has a decent sense of poetry and imagery with its lines “I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie / I have my freedom, but I don't have much time / Faith has been broken, tears must be cried / Let's do some living after love dies / Wild horses couldn't drag me away / Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them someday” (“Wild Horses”). It is also the exception to the rule on the album in that it is fairly well presented. In other words, it holds up because it is unlike the rest of the album in terms of lyrics.

Outside that, the songs do fall flat. The assumedly fiery “Bitch” is lyrically unmemorable and nothing on the second half of the album stands out in any way. This is an album not only without hooks, but without statement. Instead, the theme is “this is rock and roll, this is what we sing about,” and the presentation is so unremarkable as to be entirely forgettable.

The best song is “Wild Horses,” the rest of the songs pretty well blend together as musical mush.

For other works by The Rolling Stones, please check out my reviews of:
The Rolling Stones, Now!
Out Of Our Heads
Bridges To Babylon

3/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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It Rocks, But Not In Any Memorable Way: Bridges To Babylon Is More Average Than Extraordinary.

The Good: Well-produced, Some decent tunes that rock
The Bad: Very average vocals and lyrics
The Basics: A very average and unsurprisingly generic album, Bridges To Babylon is well-produced, but a fairly unmemorable outing from The Rolling Stones.


There was a joke on The Drew Carey Show some years back when one of the albums from The Rolling Stones came out that I truly liked, even though I didn't know much about the band at that point. The friends are hanging around and one of them becomes obsessed with going to a concert The Rolling Stones are throwing in Cleveland. Another challenges the excited one with the question, "Can you even name a song the band has made in the last twenty years?" in response to the idea that the band has a new album out. Having just started to get into The Rolling Stones (The Rolling Stones, Now! is reviewed here and Out Of Our Heads is reviewed here!), I'm finding this to be true, nowhere more so than on Bridges To Babylon.

Bridges To Babylon was the last studio album The Rolling Stones released in the 1990s and despite all of the hype for it, I don't hear the single. Listening to it (I've heard it a dozen times now), I can admire the production and how the album actually does rock, but there's no hook, there are no songs that actually stick out for me. In fact, before I listened to the album on such heavy rotation, the only song I think I had ever heard was "Saint Of Me," possibly from a television commercial for the album. Regardless, nothing sticks out on the album as remotely remarkable, even though the album is eminently listenable.

With thirteen songs, clocking out at 62:23, Bridges To Babylon is mostly the work of The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote all but two of the songs: "Anybody Seen My Baby?" I've learned what my ear suspected all along, that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger avoided getting sued by k.d. lang and Ben Mink for a tune so close to "Constant Craving" by paying them. The other song, "Thief In The Night" was co-written by the pair and Pierre de Beauport. Outside that, though, the band maintains a lot of creative control on the album. Mick Jagger leads all of the vocals and Keith Richards and Charlie Watts provide backing vocals. The quartet (guitarist Ronnie Wood rounds out the band) plays all of their own instruments for the primary sounds on the album.

But Bridges To Babylon, more than the early works I've been listening to more from the band, is a collaborative work in terms of instrumentation and production. A trumpet section is more prominent than the guitars on "You Don't Have To Mean It" which is an atypical sound for The Rolling Stones, but adds a musical flavor that is nice to the otherwise straightforward rock and roll sound. The album was not produced or co-produced by any members of the band; in fact, it has several different producers, track to track, which explains the somewhat fragmented overall sound of the album.

While no two tracks sound alike, the album is remarkably straightforward rock and roll. Outside "You Don't Have To Mean It" has the slight instrumental variance to it, the rest of the songs are very typical rock and roll songs with guitars, bass and drums . . . and little flavor. "Out Of Control" is pretty much the archetypal rock and roll track complete with guitar solo and pounding drums. As well, more than any other album by The Rolling Stones that I have heard, Bridges To Babylon produces the instrumental accompaniment ahead of the vocals, so the lyrics and vocals are a bit more obscured than the classic songs by The Rolling Stones. For example, the opening to "Saint Of Me" is almost indecipherable as Mick Jagger opens it with lines that I had to look up to understand, even after a dozen listens!

As for Mick Jagger's vocals, his voice on the songs on Bridges To Babylon fit into his same comfortable baritone range that he has been performing in for years. On this album, though, his voice is a little scratchier than on other works. Ironically, final track, a slow ballad called "How Can I Stop" sounds more like Jagger is exhausted from singing the prior, more active songs than actually conveys the emotions of the lyrics. Jagger is competent in his vocals, but they are produced on many of the tracks to not have the same weight as the instrumental accompaniment and that is disappointing. . .

. . . Or it would be if the group had something important to say that they had not said already. The band goes almost psychedelic with the vocals and guitars on "Might As Well Get Juiced," but who cares about another rock song about getting wasted? The idea is almost as cliche as the aging rock stars. So, when Mick Jagger sings "If you really want to tear up your mind / If you really want to get yourself blind / Might as well get juiced" ("Might As Well Get Juiced") the listener hears the lines and says, "well, okay . . . what if we DON'T want that? What do you have for us?" In some ways, The Rolling Stones are more obsessed with celebrity and the consequences of being rock stars on this album than they are with anything their listeners can actually empathize with.

That said, amid songs about getting high and getting laid easily, there are songs with real emotional resonance. On "Already Over Me," they sing about something pretty universal; losing love. While the lines might have pretty predictable rhymes like ". . . when you laugh / I just cry / When you left / I just died / Are you already over me" ("Already Over Me") the only the most sheltered or insensitive listener will not have an idea what the band is singing about. And in this way, the band manages to keep from having a complete disconnect with their listeners.

But even when the band is singing about things that can be easily understood or empathized with, some of the songs are just annoying. "Always Suffering," for example, continues a long trend on the album of having songs with the most obvious possible titles to them. The two word title is repeated so many times in the song that the listener feels they are suffering more than the musical protagonist!

Ultimately, Bridges To Babylon is a good, but not in any way great or even notable rock and roll album and it makes it very easy to skip unless one is a fan of The Rolling Stones or rock and roll in general. Considering that even the fairly generic rock is still better than what I've heard on the radio, I opted to recommend this one.

The best song is "Already Over Me," the low point is the unmemorable and somewhat ridiculous "Too Tight."

For other groups that rock or former Artist Of The Month selections, please check out my reviews of:
@#%&*! Smilers – Aimee Mann
Whoever’s In New England – Reba McEntire
Minutes To Midnight – Linkin Park

6/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Entirely Repetitive: Out Of Our Heads Is An Early Disappointment From The Rolling Stones!

The Good: Well-produced
The Bad: VERY short, Lyrically repetitive, Vocally unimpressive, Instrumentally underdeveloped
The Basics: Very simply tunes, vocals and insanely repetitive lyrics make Out Of Our Heads a short album by The Rolling Stones that is very easy to pass by!


In my quest to broaden my horizons, I have took on The Rolling Stones as my November Artist Of The Month (my first review for them was The Rolling Stones, Now! available here!). Out Of Our Heads was the fourth studio recording by The Rolling Stones and it was released as completely different albums in the U.S. and in Britain. The U.S. version is one of the most repetitive, disappointing and blasé albums I have listened to in recent memory. With only a dozen tracks, occupying less than half an hour, Out Of Our Heads is a terrible use of the compact disc medium and makes for the argument that classic albums ought to be combined when put on c.d. This album is most notable for being the album that “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was on. That is the only song of note and the bottomline for this is that because the best song is available on virtually every other compilation, it is very easy to pass this one by. Only four of the songs were actually written by members of the band.

The crux of my problem with Out Of Our Heads is that it is exceptionally boring, both lyrically and musically. First, the album is ridiculously repetitive and not in an intelligent way. Take, for example, “Hitch Hike.” This song is an almost atonal wailing of two men singing the title word (or words, apparently) back and forth to one another. The actual tune that accompanies it is a sing-song progression that sounds like two doorbells playing back and forth. This is pathetically unsophisticated. And unfortunately, “Hitch Hike” is not the exception, it is the rule on this album. “Mercy, Mercy” opens with Mick Jagger repeating “Have mercy” so many times that it makes my stomach tightened up.

Even “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” repeats the title a ridiculous amount in the actual song and that track has the most lyrical diversity to it. Instrumentally, Out Of Our Heads is exactly what it seems on the surface: a guitar-driven band with bass and percussion backing it up. To the credit of The Rolling Stones, the album sounds good, though they were not involved in the production. This album has more of a funky rock sound with the guitars doing fairly repetitive guitar riffs as opposed to random blues plucking. The songs are almost entirely upbeat in their sound with the songs being easily danceable and having decent, if often simple and repetitive, tunes.

Thematically, The Rolling Stones stick with their apparent niche, singing mostly about angst in relationships and random things they encounter. The song that is most clever – and less obvious – than most of the songs on the album is “The Spider And The Fly,” which tells a little musical storysong about temptation. When Mick Jagger sings “Sit up, fed up, low down go round / Down to the bar at the place I'm at / Sitting, drinking, superficially thinking / About the rinsed-out blonde on my left / Then I said, "hi" like a spider to a fly / Remembering what my little girl said” (“The Spider And The Fly”) it resonates well and is different from the monotony found on much of the rest of the album.

Mick Jagger’s vocals show no sign of growth and while he sings his lyrics clearly, he stays very safe in his baritone range. The best track is “I(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and the rest of the album is almost entirely forgettable.

For other former Artist Of The Month artists I looked into, please check out my reviews of:
Break Every Rule – Tina Turner
Any Day Now – Joan Baez
Just A Little Love – Reba McEntire

3/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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The Rolling Stones, Now! Was My First Album Experience With The Band!

The Good: Good overall sound, A few decent lyrics
The Bad: SHORT, Musical accompaniment is derivative and repetitive, Limited vocal range
The Basics: A rather indistinct album by The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones, Now! is r&b and bland.


With the recent attention on The Beatles I decided to take a different turn. For sure, I’ve done a review or two of albums by The Beatles. But rather than follow the herd, I’ve decided that while others are reviewing works by The Beatles or Michael Jackson, I decided to use November 2009 to delve into the works of a group I know nothing about. As embarrassing or improbable as it may seem, the band I chose for my November 2009 Artist Of The Month was . . .The Rolling Stones.

Sadly, though, it is true that I have had almost no experience with the music of The Rolling Stones. I mean, I love the use of “Ruby Tuesday” in The Royal Tenenbaums and I am aware of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but beyond that, I’ve grown up in a world where The Rolling Stones are played on the rock and oldies stations and it’s seldom the song you want from them when you want. So, I went back as far as I could and I picked up The Rolling Stones, Now! which was the band’s third studio album. And right off the bat, I can see why The Rolling Stones rock, but objectively speaking, The Rolling Stones, Now! is a pretty boring, very short disc.

With only a dozen songs, occupying a paltry 35:58 on compact disc, The Rolling Stones, Now! is a mix of the talents of the group as artists and their strength as performers. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote four of the songs on the album, but the rest of the work is made up of coversongs from the likes of Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon and Jerry Wexler. The members of the Rolling Stones perform all of the vocals and the quintet plays their own instruments. The level of creative control the band had, though, is somewhat questionable as none of the members were involved in the production end of the work.

The Rolling Stones, Now! is a blues-based rock album and my immediate impression of it was that it was remarkably simple (that and David Bowie ripped the tune for “Jean Genie” off from "What A Shame"). Songs like “You Can’t Catch Me” sound like American Blues from the deep south (appropriate because Chuck Berry wrote it) and it seems like all it is – instrumentally – is plucking somewhat randomly on the guitar. For sure, there is some speed involved, but this album does not contain any of the instantly-recognizable songs by The Rolling Stones. And the songs are almost all rock-blues tracks heavy in guitar and bass.

This is not to say they are bad, but the sense of monotony comes through by the fourth track. The songs are melodically simple guitar, bass, drum tracks and the album plods along for several songs with little differentiation in the tempo or selection of instruments used in the instrumental accompaniment. This gets changed up with “Pain In My Heart,” which puts Jagger’s singing at the forefront and slows the tempo down even more. That song sounds more like a traditional rock-blues ballad and the men of The Rolling Stones pull it off well.

As for the vocals, this is where the album truly failed to impress me. The Rolling Stones, Now! features the same type of direct, monolithic vocals on each song. As a result, regardless of the lyrics, the emotional resonance is the same from “Down Home Girl” to “Surprise, Surprise.” What is that mood? It’s a strangely folksy (blues and folk have close ties as far as the origins go) declarative sound where the singer acts as a musical storyteller. In this case, each song tells a little song about a person, a place or an emotion and because Mick Jagger sounds the same whether he is singing about a how easy a girl is or how broken his heart is, the overall sound of the songs on the album is . . . casually informative. The basic emotional resonance of the songs on this album is one of “This is what I heard or know, do with it as you see fit.” This is not a terribly complicated or even interesting tone and as a result – in combination with the album’s short duration – it plays poorly on heavy replay.

That said, what pleasantly surprised me about The Rolling Stones, Now! was that the vocals were very clear. Unlike in today’s music where bands comprised mostly of men with male lead singers, The Rolling Stones seem to place emphasis on making sure that listeners can actually understand what it is they are singing. As a result, even though the tunes may be somewhat monotonous, the vocals are all clear. Led by Mick Jagger and backed by Brian Jones and Keith Richards, there is not a single song on the album whose lyrics I did not catch on the very first pass. Instead, Jagger singles clearly and articulately, even if his range is limited to a baritone/tenor range.

As for the statements, on The Rolling Stones, Now! the messages are pretty simple, even in the musical storysongs. So, for example, one of the few original tracks on the album, “What A Shame” only has eighteen lines! Sadly, some of the lines are plagued by ridiculously simple rhymes, like “What a shame / They always wanna start a fight / Well it scares me so / I could sleep in the shelter all night” (“What A Shame”). Despite being classic rock and not having such a long history of lyrics to be compared with, the rhymes are pretty bland and singsong.

By contrast, some of the covers actually have decent lines. “Pain In My Heart” is actually universally emotive and anyone who has ever had a broken heart will be able to understand it. Yet, not just heavy, some of the songs are actually ironic and fairly fun. Take, for example, the lines “Lord I swear the perfume you wear / Was made out of turnip greens / And everytime I kiss you girl / It tastes like pork and beans / Even though you're wearin' them / Citified high heels / I can tell by your giant step / You been walkin' through the cotton fields / Oh, you're so down home girl” (“Down Home Girl”). The lyrics have imagery and a decent sense of poetry and also is wonderfully ironic. The implication throughout the song is that the woman masquerading as a society girl is actually a common woman (in more ways than one) and the song develops with a surprising level of class.

But ultimately, The Rolling Stones, Now! is an early album by a band that made it much bigger later on. While the work is not bad, nothing truly stands out on it. This is relatively indistinct Rolling Stones and whatever from the album ends up on “best of” compilations is probably no better or worse than any other track on the album. In other words, it is safe to pass this one by and get the highlights on compilations.

The best track is “Pain In My Heart,” the low point is the unmemorable “Mona (I Need You).”

For other former Artist Of The Month artists, please check out my reviews of:
It Ain’t Easy: The Essentials – Wilson Pickett
Actually – Pet Shop Boys
Optiate - Tool

5/10

For other music reviews, please click here to visit my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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