Revisiting
the Rolling Stones
For reference, I’m going to use the U.S. releases as these
were the prevalent CD’s until 2002. Note that the U.K. versions of 1965’s Out
Of Our Heads and 1966’s Aftermath vary greatly [1967’s Between
the Buttons less so] from what the U.S. market was given – like the
Beatles, the Stones’ singles in the U.K. were not put on the album. And like
the Beatles the two countries releases were synched up in 1967, in this case
starting with Their Satanic Majesties.
1. Sticky Fingers
– starting with Brown Sugar [did you know Mick wrote that while in
Australia filming Ned Kelly?] and ending with the dreamy Moonlight
Mile, this is just an amazing album. Wild Horses is just one of the
most beautiful songs the band has ever done, the outro jam on Can’t You Hear
Me Knocking, the hard driving riff and horns on Bitch, the Memphis
inspired soul of I Got the Blues and Ry Cooder’s stinging slide work on Sister
Morphine are all just jaw dropping even almost 50 years later. If you listen
closely to the lyrics of Moonlight Mile, that’s about as personal as
you’re gonna get from Mick.
2. Let It Bleed
– from the opening notes of Gimme Shelter to the last strains of the
London Bach Choir, this is perhaps the quintessential Stones album. It was my
favorite and perhaps sits more of a 1-A [depending on the day] to Sticky
Fingers. At times You Can’t Always Get What You Want seems bloated
but you can’t argue with Gimme Shelter, Love In Vain, the under-rated Live
With Me and Monkey Man.
3. Exile On Main Street
– while it was not well received in 1972, this double album has risen to become
many people’s “best” Stones album. I am not one of those people. Still, hitting
on 15-16 of 18 tracks is pretty damn good! This album runs the gamut of basic
Stones rockers [All Down the Line, Soul Survivor] to country tinged [Sweet
Virginia and one of my favorites, Torn And Frayed] to blues [Slim
Harpo’s Shake Your Hips, Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down] to
gospel [Let It Loose, Shine A Light]. Also has two of the best songs the
Stones ever laid to tape: Tumbling Dice and Keith’s lead spotlight song Happy.
4. Some Girls
– Ron Wood’s official debut as a full member of the band [though he was not
made a full partner until 1990]. Some Girls is a great recovery from a
band that had seemed in free fall for a couple of years. The songs are short
and intensely focused thanks to Woody’s guitar style meshing with Keith’s into
what Keith calls “the fine art of weaving.” And the Stones finally redeem
themselves for two previous bad covers of Tempations songs with Just My
Imagination [Running Away With Me]. While one can argue whether certain
songs are now played to death [Miss You] and how Jagger’s syrupy faux
country voice on Far Away Eyes [And Dear Doctor. And Dead
Flowers] gets old after a few hundred plays, it’s hard to argue with these
10 songs as one of the strongest Stones albums ever. ***
5. Beggar’s Banquet
– a similarly critical turning point for the Stones as Rubber Soul was
for the Beatles this album marks the beginning of a classic period of the
Stones history. The Stones left pop and psychedelics completely behind and dug
back into their roots in blues and country. It was the last album on which
Brian Jones played a major contribution [notably sitar and tanpura on Street
Fighting Man and the wonderful slide guitar part on No Expectations]
and the first of a run of five with producer Jimmy Miller. While I could go a
long, long time without hearing Sympathy For the Devil again, there’s a
great pile of tracks I can enjoy: No Expectations, Parachute Woman, the
extremely fun Jigsaw Puzzle, Street Fighting Man and the low down Stray
Cat Blues.
6. Tattoo You
– while this is a compilation of vault tracks from as far back as 1972 [Waiting
On A Friend and Tops, with Mick Taylor on guitar, not Ron Wood] side
1 is a lineup of killer rockers, even if I could go a long time without hearing
Start Me Up again. The 2002 CD version even restore about a minute and a
half of the great groove tune Slave. Side 2 starters Worried About
You and Tops are just okay, I always liked the sweeping tone on Heaven.
7. Through the Past, Darkly [Big Hits, Vol. 2] – You’re going to need some Rolling Stones compilation to
get the two great singles Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women [and
the good Dandelion]. If you’re just a casual fan of the band, this
record or Hot Rocks 1964 – 1971] will fit the bill. *
8. December’s Children [And Everybody’s] – this collection of tracks released just in time for
Christmas in 1965 compiles the single Get Off My Cloud and the rest of
the UK version of Out Of Our Heads. It’s actually one of my favorites of
the early period Rolling Stones. **
9. Between the Buttons
– London peeling off two tracks to add Let’s Spend the Night Together
and Ruby Tuesday actually works to make this a better record than the UK
version. A lot of tracks I dig like Yesterday’s Papers, Connection, My
Obsession and Miss Amanda Jones. [The Rolling Stones In Mono
version is better – fixes some of the weird stereo separation that dogged the
Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which I also prefer in mono.]
10. The Rolling Stones
[aka England’s Newest Hit Makers] – the debut by the Stones is more memorable
that the Beatles [Please Please Me]. Powered along by Muddy Waters’ I
Just Want To Make Love To You and I’m A King Bee, Buddy Holly’s Not
Fade Away, Nat King Cole’s Route 66 and Chuck Berry’s Carol.
11. Black And Blue
– While it holds a special place in my heart, being the first Stones record I
was exposed to, this mishmash is what it is. I like Hot Stuff, Fool To Cry
and Crazy Mama is a great little gem. But it’s the semi-autobiographical
Memory Motel that’s the standout track on this album.
12. Goats Head Soup
- while I have come to like this a little more over the last couple of
years, coming off of the four albums before this, the Stones were due for a bit
of a “coming down.” Angie is another song I’m tired of. It does have Doo
Doo Doo Doo Doo (yes that’s the official title) [Heartbreaker],
another great track for Mick Taylor in Winter, the fun Silver Train
and the evil Dancing With Mr. D. Again, a good record, just not one I
reach for a lot.
13. Emotional Rescue
– the Stones second album with Woody is an okay album. Despite how cringeworthy
it is now, the title track was a top 5 US hit. But with songs like Down
In the Hole, Let Me Go and She’s So Cold, it’s not terrible like say
It’s Only Rock And Roll.
14. Steel Wheels
– A return to form for the Stones – it’s amazing what a Mick and Keith can
accomplish when they work together instead of against each other. Yes, it’s
about two songs too long I’d cut Blinded By Love [although Willy Deville
could do a great cover of it] and Continental Drift. [Break the Spell
can stay on as that one song you always forget to program out when playing the
CD]. Contains two of my favorite Stones ballads in Almost Hear You Sigh
and Keith’s Slipping Away.
15. Blue And Lonesome
– 2016 saw the surprise release of new Stones – sort of. An album of blues
covers it’s mercifully short but surprisingly tight. The band is in really good
form. Jagger concentrating on playing harp makes him think about where he’s
fitting in with the music and don’t kid yourself, the man can blow a pretty
mean harp. Eric Clapton guests on the very satisfying Everybody Knows About My
Good Thing and [a very un-Zeppelin take of] I Can’t Quit You Baby. Other
highlights: Just Your Fool, All Of Your Love and Hate To See You Go.
16. It’s Only Rock And Roll – with Keith deep into addiction, the Micks [Jagger and
Taylor] try to soldier on with decidedly mixed results. If You Can’t Rock Me, Fingerprint
File and the funky Dance Little
Sister are pretty good. The title track I’m tired of but it’s a good song.
And Time Waits For No One is absolutely stunning, a great showpiece for
Taylor’s guitar playing. The cover of the Temptation’s Ain’t Too Proud To
Beg is a cringeworthy as Emotional Rescue.
17. Out Of Our Heads–
While the US version adds [I Can’t Get No] Satisfaction and The Last
Time and also contains the hilarious Under Assistant West Coast
Promotion Man, the under rated Spider And the Fly and Play With
Fire, the covers again slow this collection down.
18. Undercover – In reviewing this album in 2021, I have to admit, it’s not as terrible as its reputation. One of the problems is timing – it follows one of the Stones most accessible albums in Tattoo You. The second problem it has too many weird moments. Undercover of the Night is a great song – not a single though. It’s got too much going on with the reverb and trickery on the vocals. The dub feel of Feel On Baby. Too Much Blood is just something Let’s Dance era Bowie [OMG the horns!] but the spoken parts? What the hell are you talking about Mick? There was nothing else you could have put in that 6 minutes? Keith’s song Wanna Hold You is just too happy, too upbeat. The rest of the album is just as vintage Stones as anything else of this era. Too Tough is good and It Must Be Hell recycles the Soul Survivor riff pretty well.
19. Their Satanic Majesties Request – ah yes, the band’s acid tinged album. She’s A Rainbow,
2000 Light Years From Home and Citadel are great tracks. The
Lantern is pretty good. But overall, yeah it’s pretty mediocre. Unless you
like a lot of Mellotron.
20. Aftermath
– While this does contain three of my favorite tracks from this period, Stupid
Girl, Lady Jane and Under My Thumb, the rest of this album just
really does nothing for me.
21. Voodoo Lounge
– At 15 songs, it’s definitely too long. Great songs: Love Is Strong, You
Got Me Rocking, Out Of Tears, Blinded By Rainbows, Baby Break It Down and Thru
And Thru. I Go Wild is a rewrite on the opener Love Is Strong.
Suck On the Jugular is passable. Keith’s The Worst may be the worst
song in the Stones catalog – it’s definitely fighting for it with the two tracks
that end Bridges. Sparks Will Fly just tries too hard.
22. Bridges To Babylon
– Where Bridges To Babylon is good, it’s very enjoyable: Flip the
Switch, Anybody Seen My Baby, Low Down, Out Of Control, Saint Of Me. But
there’s 8 other songs on here and maybe only one worth revisiting. Three of
them move slower than frozen molasses. Two of those are Keith’s numbers and
they end the album.
23. A Bigger Bang
– At 16 songs, again it’s just too long. Geez guys put out the top 10 or 11 and
save some for Tattoo You II! But the boys still know how to kick off a
record: Rough Justice, Let Me Down Slow and It Won’t Take Long. The
blues of Back Of My Hand is a nice slab of Mississippi Fred’s You Got
To Move. But not too much else is memorable. This one doesn’t even have a
nice mid-tempo or ballad to balance things out a bit.
24. Dirty Work
– reviewing again, this holds its reputation as the worst of the Stones records
in the post Tattoo You period. But it’s really close. The production is
a little odd – very midrangey, not a lot of bottom. [Had It With You may
not even have a bass on it if it is it’s buried in the mix and unheard and
unfelt.] One Hit [To the Body], Fight and the title track are the best
things here. Even Keith’s two tracks don’t move the needle. Keith wanted to
take this album on the road?!?
25. The Rolling Stones, Now! – again a lot of covers here. Stand outs include the 1940
boogie woogie number Down the Road Apiece and Willie Dixon’s Little
Red Rooster [a long time favorite of mine]. Mick and Keith add Heart Of
Stone and What A Shame but still a thin record.
26. 12x5– unlike the
Beatles, who were writing their own songs from the get go, Jagger and Richards
didn’t start writing their own songs until 1964. So the early, early Stones
records are mainly covers. While this can be good if you’re picking good
material, some of the covers here leave something to be desired. Not so of
their takes of Chuck Berry’s Around and Around and Bobby and Shirley
Womack’s It’s All Over Now. [The version of Time Is On My Side
here starts with the organ – and I hate that version.] Jagger and Richards come
through here with the very under rated Good Times, Bad Times [not to be
confused with the Led Zeppelin song with the same title]. The band jam
[credited to Nanker Phelge and names in honor of the location of Chess Records
studio] 2120 South Michigan Avenue is surprisingly funky for English
white boys. Bill Wyman smokes on this track!
27. Flowers
– As noted, [and much as Capitol had done with the Beatles], the Stones
US/Canada label London felt free to cut and paste the Rolling Stones catalog as
it was received. In most cases this was to add whatever singles were out or had
just finished their run. Flowers is the second collection of a couple of
singles plus songs pulled from the UK versions of Aftermath and Between
the Buttons. [I actually would recommend seeking out the UK versions of
those two CDs for your collection.] While it does contain Ruby
Tuesday, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby and Let’s Spend the Night
Together, you will be getting those on other releases. The only real
necessity here is the folky Sittin’ On A Fence.
28. Metamorphosis –
As a result of splitting from Allen Klein at the end of the 60s, Klein’s
company ABKCO won control of the Stones masters from 1962-1969*. This dump of
14 outtakes plus a decidedly morbid Heart Of Stone with an organ as the
lead instrument and Out Of Time with strings is mostly bottom of the
barrel dreck. Even the Stones take on Memo From Turner is pretty bad.
[The London / ABKCO Singles Collection uses Jagger’s first solo single
version with Ry Cooder on guitar.] Save your ears and just get Don’t Lie To
Me, I Don’t Know Why, Jiving Sister Fanny and I’m Going Down off of
Amazon and don’t look back.
** With the Stones, there are two major catalogs: the Pre-1971 ABKCO [originally on London Records in the U.S.] catalog which fell into the hands of former manager Allen Klein [as noted in the Metamorphosis review] and the Rolling Stones records catalog.
Atlantic allowed the Stones their own label / company as the Beatles had done with Apple [and Led Zeppelin would do (also with Atlantic) with their very successful Swan Song imprint]. Although the Stones never developed other artists [they did release a few albums by reggae artists Peter Tosh ] their own catalog remained / remains a huge cash cow even to this day. So when CDs first came out, the Stones then current label CBS paid the Stones some cash and rushed everything from Sticky Fingers up to the then current Dirty Work out on CD. And of course people rushed out to add their favorite songs back into their lives on this new “forever” format.
What we later learned was that these 1986 / 1987 versions were compressed and had flaws in the logic behind them – certain frequencies were chopped off because they are beyond the range of hearing. As a result, when listened to very closely by a fan who is really paying attention, they sound ‘clipped.’
In the one thing they may have ever gotten right with the Stones catalog, ABKCO brought in former producer Andrew Loog Oldham to oversee the mastering of the Stones catalog that they controlled for CD [Oldham ended up remixing some things as well] and in 1986 released them, including the favorites Hot Rocks collection. [ABKCO re-remastered their Stones catalog in 2002 and these are the versions still available.]
When the Stones moved to Virgin records in 1994, they took that back catalog with them. Virgin then was able to issue Rolling Stones Records back catalog from Sticky Fingers up the Steel Wheels under their imprint [Voodoo Lounge was the first new release on the Virgin deal]. Virgin went back to the source tapes, the masters, and basically created a new “digital” master using much improved technology. The new masters usually allowed more range especially in the lower / bass registers that was missing in early CDs making them feel “thin” or “tinny.” They were also remastered when the Stones moved on to the Universal Music Group [UMG] in 2009 and yet again in 2015 for vinyl.
For my money, I
prefer the Virgin remasters or the 2009 UMG remasters. Later remasters [like 2021's Tattoo You or 2020's Goats Head Soup] sound incredibly “bright” or excessively treble-y. [An issue I also had with Elektra’s HDCD
versions of the Cars 1st 3 albums.]
*** My Uncle J. Michael Leone, God rest his soul, used to
tell me that Ron Wood was “absolutely the worst choice” the Stones could have
made to replace Mick Taylor. In a way, I get that – Ron Wood as a lead guitar
player is not in the same class as Mick Taylor. However, Mick Taylor was not
the kind of guitar player who really “meshed” with Keith Richards. Coming from
being the lead and rhythm guitarist for the Faces, Ronnie would just switch
between the two as the song needed. I think that this wall of guitars where you
don’t know who played what [and Keith says sometimes they don’t either] allowed
him to move around the rhythm as well instead of being forced to anchor it at
all times. SOME people have called Ron Wood a “Keith Clone.” My take on it is
that Ron Wood can play like Keith but Keith can’t play like
Ronnie.
