Anyone who did not like VL never owned or fell in love with the early stones and is newbie like the weirdos on shitpoopee

VL was good, take 4, maybe 5 songe OFF of it and it wouldve been a freakin classic. pLEASE STOP PUTTING 16, 17 , 18 SONGS ON AN ALBUM, RUINS IT.

How to answer a post like this? "Hitmakers" is one of my faves. December, Now, Buttons are all up there too. But I really do not like VL. Mainly because of Don Was. Brew and Stew if edited properly would IMO make a much better album.

Hard core Stones fans who don't like VL or BTB are just living in the past. Many of these people will NEVER be satisfied. Just like the Star Wars fans...nothing will ever satisfy them unless it is the same old thing as yesterday.

VL was a prtty good album IMO, although there was a fair amount of filler on there. However, it did contain one of the best songs Mick & Keith ever wrote - LOVE IS STRONG.

i thought it was shit. did then, do now. ditto bridges to babylon

apologies if that doesn't fit in with your 'real fan' view

I like VL. Bridges to Babylon stinks.

That song "Sweethearts Together" f*cking sucks....

sladog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hard core Stones fans who don't like VL or BTB are
> just living in the past. Many of these people
> will NEVER be satisfied. Just like the Star Wars
> fans...nothing will ever satisfy them unless it is
> the same old thing as yesterday.

Hi folks,
i am afraid sladog is absolutely right...
I am tired off all these "The Stones haven`t done anything great since the 70`s" postings..
I am sure that TODAY even the biggest Stones hits and classics from the
60`s & 70`s would be judged just as average by those "yesterday hard core" fans.

By the way..it is not possible to compare songs from, lets say 1971 to songs from 2005.
It is not the same time anymore...people are not the same anymore...the Stones are not the same any moore...otherwise it would be boring nostalgica.
People grow and develope..so do the Stones ( please forgive my poor English)
The Stones are such a huge band..they have to offer 4 decades of great and different music.
Some fans like all of it...like myself.
I love songs from the Brian Jones periode as well as from the MT years as well as the 30 years with Ronny.
Others just love the Stones from the 60`s or the 70`s and so on.
Who cares ?
There is enough place and space for all of us fans I think.

What i do not like is that some of you quote themselfes as "better" fans, by saying: if you love the 80`s and 90`s Stones you don`t know much of there music....cause they used to be better by then .

Come on, it`s the Stones man...they were good, they are good and they will be good...but: they are not the same anymoore.That`s all.
...
and to me they are still a pure, raw, asskicking Rock`bn Roll maschine.
and yes, the last studio work Bridges2Babylon IS a classic,
and it does not need to be hidden behind any early classic stuff at all.
Let`s just be more tolerant to each others taste..

see u on the tour
regards
salar

Good points Salar. I think Voodoo Lounge is a great album. B2B is very good too. Like stated above I didn't expect these to sound like Exile or anything else, every Stones album is different and that is what keeps interesting for me. I actually prefer Voodoo over IORR, Undercover or ER.

You can dislike Voodoo Lounge for various reasons, and my reason is that I don't like the SOUND. I just don't like the production: the drums -especially the snare- sounds like a carton box instead of the high pitched atack and crack of say Some Girls. I don't like the sound of the guitars: not upfront, out of focus and lame. I don't like the bass sound: I guess it's all Fender Jazz Bass'es you hear, and to me these sound to straight and funcky for a Stones album (give me a fat Travis Bean or Ampeg 350 any day). The production is totally organic, and I hate that. I like the hard-edges sound of Some Girls, the drive of Undercover, the murkiness of Exile. ON top of this, Jagger sings completely over the top, bending his voice into false emotions with all these weird vibrato's.

Apperently the Stones feel like this too, as B2B sounds completely different. The hard edged snare is back, the guitars sound raw again and they used acoustic basses all over the album. Half of B2B (Flip, Low Down, Allready OM, Too Tight, How Can I Stop, Might As WGJ) ranks up right there with the classic albums of the Stones.

I say: let Chuck Leavell and Don Was team up for another 80's revival band, and bring back Chris Kimsey and Ian McLagan.

Mathijs

The drum sound on BTB is fantastic. Right from the very first roll of "Flip the switch"

best 'sound' on any Stones album IMO since the high watermark period of "Some Girls" through to "Tattoo You"

Agree with some of your points Mathijs, however to me Undercover has some of the worst 80's sounds ever. Undercover (the song), Feel On Baby and Too Much Blood all sound like She's The Boss songs. The drum sound is just horrible but the guitars sound much better on many songs. I can get over better written songs that maybe not as great production wise rather than bad songs with good production. There are some bad songs on Undercover, which is often portrayed as the worse Stones album, which I don't completely agree with.

I am also all for bringing back Chris Kimsey and Ian McLagan.

VL is a great album and far better than SW was.. Thru and Thru and The Worst are some of Richards best tracks and Out of Tears and Love is Strong are classics so.. Blinded by Rainbows shows they can write about things other than girls and cars as well.. sure it's got some filler on it but it's still a excellent album.. not heard voodoo brew or voodoo stew yet though which i've heard people rave about in the past

hey, it's all just opinions. they are no "right" answers here.

I think VL was a noble effort gone astray due to production problems and lack of album focus (too many songs). B2B - again not focused. Neither of these strike me as "albums" in the sense that the songs hang together in the Some Girls (for instance) style.

Based on our sample of Oh No Not You Again I am cautiously (very cautiously) optimistic about their new album.

Sweethearts Together? My mother likes it, and she was a Stones fan in the 60s.

This all goes back to my thread earlier about the Stones
and modern (mid-90's to present) recording technology.
This is an crossroads for most bands now.
All they need is a 24-track (even 16) analog board
and some old Nuemann and Telefunken mics (which maybe they still use), Kimsey, Mac, maybe Preston and Bobby k, maybe Bob Clearmountain.
With an abundunt nuber of tracks at your disposal, there's a great temptation
to see how far you can go. Trust me, I've been there.
Sorry, but do it like the old days (there's that term again).
Of course that doens't mean you're gonna make a great record.
Look at Lenny Kravitz. He bought all that equipment.

Just to add to my last post,
the loss of Pathe-MArcoini in Paris was a BIG deal in the sound department,
IMHO. The right room means a lot. IE: Chess, RCA, Olympic,
and to a lesser extent Musicland.

I really enjoyed Voodoo Lounge when it came out. Its pretty good, although I never listen to it now. Although Sweethearts Together was my wedding song (June 2004). Bridges sucked. I love Steel Wheels. I think its one of their best albums. And best tours for that matter. More Steel Wheels on this tour!
Sad, Sad, Sad
Rock and a Hard Place
Almost Here You Sigh

"You'll be studying history and you'll be down the gym. And I'll be down the pub, probably playing pool and drinking."

Mickjagger1009: Great that Sweethearts Together was your wedding song.
That's wonderful. My wife and I walked down the aisle to Happy at the end
of our ceremony. You should have seen our parents' face.

surely you guys don't rate albums on sound?????!!!!!!!

A good album, which I would think most would agree on, is an album with a collection of excellent songs on it....
Do you really care if the drums sound a bit crappy, or if the guitars are mixed low?? Does that actually take alot away from a song?

If the tune is there, and the lyrics are clever then little things like mixing don't affect good songs.

Let's not forget the "sound" on Exile (which has been critised by Jagger) didn't take much away from those classic songs!

Esky

Esky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> surely you guys don't rate albums on
> sound?????!!!!!!!


> Let's not forget the "sound" on Exile (which has
> been critised by Jagger) didn't take much away
> from those classic songs!

Absolutely. The sound is one of the greatest forces on drive, energy mood and atmosphere. A great album is where the song matches the sound done by the producer. I would say that the sound of the album is one of the major key factors (and that's why producers and mixing engineers earn millions). For example Miss You is a great song, but it could't have been part of the soundscape of say Sticky Fingers. The crack of the snare and the thump of the kick makes this song come to live. Also, most songs on Some Girls are really basic (not a many lot of guitar overdubs for example), and then the clear upfront mixing really pushed the drive and energy of the album. This in contrary to Exile, which features layers and layers of overdubs, and the murky mix really comes together with the music. But still this record is recorded terrific: listen to the sound of the drums, especially on Tumbling Dice and Loving Cup.

Mathijs

Excellent posts by Mathijs and Tomk. Agree very much with both of you guys.

Mathijs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Absolutely. The sound is one of the greatest
> forces on drive, energy mood and atmosphere. A
> great album is where the song matches the sound
> done by the producer. I would say that the sound
> of the album is one of the major key factors (and
> that's why producers and mixing engineers earn
> millions). For example Miss You is a great song,
> but it could't have been part of the soundscape of
> say Sticky Fingers. The crack of the snare and the
> thump of the kick makes this song come to live.
> Also, most songs on Some Girls are really basic
> (not a many lot of guitar overdubs for example),
> and then the clear upfront mixing really pushed
> the drive and energy of the album. This in
> contrary to Exile, which features layers and
> layers of overdubs, and the murky mix really comes
> together with the music. But still this record is
> recorded terrific: listen to the sound of the
> drums, especially on Tumbling Dice and Loving
> Cup.
>
> Mathijs
>
>
>
>

Agreed

I think it certainly helped that the producer of Exile happened to be a drummer himself!

The fact that Jimmy M. was a drummer was a big reason he came up with such a great sound picture. Might have been a reason Jagger sought him out. The way JM recorded drums, percussion and Grand Piano IMO is is trademark. "Gimme Some Lovin" is a perfect example. JM would create this powerful basic tracks always that consisted of relatively few instruments but were recorded withg very high gain. The almost overdrive of the piano so far upfront, and the hot drums, always coupled with percussion is a wonder.
Itwas with his arrival that the Stones discovered the power of percussion used well. Now they are masters of it.
I mean check out JM's CV in those first few years: Jumping Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Woman, Gimme Shelter, Sympathy, Street Fighting Man, Brown Sugar.
VERY sparse instrumentations. And EVERY one of those songs features ingenious use of percussion and excellent, clever drum sounds.
I was thinking about Sympathy the other day. Check out how sparse it is: Percussion, Grand piano, Bass and the rimclicking on the snare. all recorded very well and very hot. Then there is Jagger's redhot vocal, the ooh oohs and that guitar solo. What a Spartan orchestration! And to what effect. Nowadays the Stones would clutter a song like this up with unneccessary guitars I think.

While I agree the sound is very important I don't see what can be more important than the quality of the song writing. That should always be number one, then sound would be the next most important thing.

Here here Hound Dog! An album can only be great WITH GREAT SONGS!!!

Don't tell me that average songs with a great mix can make an album "great" !

Fair dinkum, unfortunately Mathijs (and others) have an exeptional ear to the music that 95% of Stones fans don't really care about. I mean, you ask the average (majority) Stones fan what they think of Voodoo Lounge. Do you think they'll come back with "The mix is terrible, the drums sound shit etc..."

I doubt it. They want to be able to play songs at parties or listen to them on the radio/stereo....

BTW - I think the murky mix on Exile had something to do with the amount of drugs taken at the time don't you think??

Esky

Voodoo Lounge would have been a better (or even great) album if Mick and Keith used some of the better solo songs with the Stones. Imagine this "Wandering Voodoo Offender" line-up. (Wandering Spirit may be the best "stones" material in the '90s. So it's hard to cut out some of Mick's songs.)

You Got Me Rocking
Sweet Thing
Love Is Strong
Don’t Tear Me Up
The Worst (maybe use as a b-side?)
Use Me
Out of Tears
I Go Wild
Eileen
Hate It When You Leave
Moon Is Up
Evening Gown
Blinded By Rainbows
Hang On To Me Tonight
Wicked As It Seems

If the Stones fired Don Was and Chuck Leavell, their sound would be greatly enhanced. I liked the mix better on VL than on Bridges. Was did Stripped didn't he? Leavell needs to be flat out turned down in the mix be it the studio or in particular when they play concerts. Can't stand that guy. Bring back Mac.

I have tried so hard to like VL but I just can't...too much drums, too many weak songs...and the songs are too obvious, forced even. B2B a bit better.