I'm sure you've heard it before, that TSMR is The Stones 'answer' to The Beatles SGT. Peppers. So, I was thinking about that period in time. These two bands where mates of sorts, they were hanging out in the same bars, sitting in on each others recording sessions, smokeing the same dope, wearing the same clothes to some extent, Brian Jones even made the original trip to India with them to see Sexy Sadie. So, weren't they actually experiencing the world through the SAME eyes to a large degree? Living the same Psychedelic life style? And thus The Stones TSMR was just their take on that period of time in the same way that Sgt. Peppers was for the Beatles? The latter just happened to be released first. I can't believe that Mick and the boys heard the Peppers sessions and said, "man we've got to sound like that! Because in fact I don't think the albums sound ANYTHING alike.

Maybe I'm wrong here and it's true, any thoughts?

I believe the concept is based on Sgt Pepper - even the cover design but although both album have psychedelic overtones musically they are quite different. The Beatles sound is crisp, clean and quite unreal while the Stones seem a little more menacing . Although TSMR has a bad reputation if taken track by track Sgt Pepper also is one of the Beatles less impressive efforts.There's a real lack of spontaneity in the Beatles sound - at least the Stones sound murky even if the album is uneven.

Well I dont think Majesties´s more uneven than Buttons. Major prob seems to be the pressure of recording so many albums in those days.
Cut out Sing This Song... (longer version) and throw in We Love You or Dandelion - and its one of the greatest all-time.

A bit OT but: Did you recognize the referenz to Sgt. Pepper on A Bigger Bang? I don't have it at hands right now so I can't tell which track it is that refers to it. Anybody has the cover at hands right now?

Look What The Cat Dragged In

You look like you're totally spaced
Your breath's got a horrible taste
You look like a leper
Dressed as Sergent Pepper
Are you gonna throw up in my face

ROCKMAN

The Beatles want to hold your hand, but the Stones want to burn your town.

Screw the Beatles.

The Beatles had Geogre Martin

Yeah, but the Stones had ANDREW.

For some reason Their SM Request gets discussed a lot here. It has some real bad songs on it, but if you include We Love You and Dandelion, you have a core of pretty good psych-pop:

We Love You
Dandelion
2000 Man
She's a Rainbow
2000 Light Years from Home

I think that due to the distractions of the time (drug busts, court dates) the Stones just never got focused enough to finish the album. To my ears, nothing here sounds much like Sgt Pepper. And, agree much with Edward Twining that Sgt Pepper's is greatly over-rated.

Karl

The STONES were without Andrew that time!

1962 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The STONES were without Andrew that time!

- Oh, maybe, yeah; too long time has passed since
I read the Stones and 2Stoned-books. Maybe they got rid
of him those days. Anyway; quite some time passed while
noone really knew - least of all Andrew himself - wheter
he was in or not.
But they had a sh*tload of drugs in 67, thats for sure.
And they wanted (want?) to burn your town...

It was the first album without Andrew and it shows. I'm not sure that's bad though, because it paved the way for Jimmy Miller.

I ain't stupid, I'm just guitarded.

Didn't kind of kicked Andrew out during recording Between the Buttons? Playing fool to Andrew or something like that.

Never mind. I'm in too good a mood now, (listening to AB to bitch any more

I ain't stupid, I'm just guitarded.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-08 15:41 by RankOutsider.

For me, SgtP (am referring to the stereo version, which is the only one I am familiar with) is almost a masterpiece, but it's cold and calculated. While I actually think TSMR is a better, more moving Stones album than what SgtP is to the Beatles catalogue. Ringo and Lennon both have always pretended that this was not their favourite Beatles LP. Although John said that to really dig SgtP, you had to listen to the MONO version. (Prior to the White Album, they mixed their stuff for mono mastering. The stereo masters were not done with the boys' input.)
To be fair to the Beatles output of the era though, one has to ponder that the single Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields is pulled straight from the Pepper sessions, and the same goes for that sublime and weird little psychedelic ditty which is George Harrison's "Only a Northen Song", that landed later on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.

"Although John said that to really dig SgtP, you had to listen to the MONO version."

Shit, I have always listened to the MONO version because that's the only one I have (well, actually, an old vinyl and it is nowadays in a very bad condition). Didn't know that I was doing the right thing

But what did the sign of "Welcome The Rolling Stones" mean in that cover? I always thought it was a sort of signal to The Stones to follow their steps (of course, John & Paul & co knew that the Stones were also doing a psychodelic album at the time). And with Satanic Majesties they did that, like The Beatles were hinting. Somehow they succeed in making The Stones to look like copying them - and that's been the general view ever since. (The covers of White Album and Beggars make the same effect. Bloody Decca for not letting the toilet cover to be released).


- Doxa

I read that the 't-shirt' on the doll you speak of Doxa was actually being worn by the son, (small boy) of the photgrapher for the Peppers cover shoot at the time of the shooting. They just stuck it on the doll as a 'goodwill' jesture to The Stones who they were close friends with.

Was Satanic Majesties being recording at this time?

I ain't stupid, I'm just guitarded.

I LOVE TSMR! It may not be a great album but it has some good tunes on it. Aside from She's A Rainbow and 2000 Light Years From Home, Citadel and The Lantern are pretty decent songs. Personally, I'd love to hear them do Citadel live.

Re: Sgt. Peppers and TSMR
Posted by: KSIE (IP Logged)
Date: September 8, 2005 14:39


For some reason Their SM Request gets discussed a lot here. It has some real bad songs on it, but if you include We Love You and Dandelion, you have a core of pretty good psych-pop:

We Love You
Dandelion
2000 Man
She's a Rainbow
2000 Light Years from Home

---------------------------------------------------


I wish they would play these (at least We Love You)

Baboon Bro Wrote:
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> Yeah, but the Stones had ANDREW.


...SO???

You want to compare the amateur recording techniques of Andrew Loog Oldham to the masterful production of George Martin? Andrew didn't do ANYTHING to further the Stones sonically on record, I'm sorry. George Martin is one of the most important figures in the history of recorded music. The Stones needed to SHED themselves of Andrew before they could take any kind of major leap forward.

absolutely correct

To compare Oldham's ability as a record producer to George Martin is laughable (aside from the fact he had nothing to do with Satanic Mejesties anyway)

Oldham was a manager and PR genius par excellence but the Stones made great records from 1963 to 1966 despite him rather than because of him.

Hey, hey, boys...
Scroll (or click) back.
I did for certain not compare Andrews recording abilities ( = 0 ) with
Martin´s. Jesuz.
But his impact... Beatles had Andrew too; but he chose the Stones.
He supervised their image.

Rankoutsider,

If I boil your original question down it's something like: were the Stones influenced by SP in making TSMR, I think the short answer is yes. The album art and themes of the album are clearly related, even if these things were part of the era's larger zeitgeist. SP did get realeased first, and the Stones could not help but be aware of it and could have changed any part of TSMR to avoid or downplay any suggestion that they were responding to or influenced by SP. They didn't, at least not as far as I'm aware. So, yeah they were influenced by one of the biggest pop albums of that period. But that's okay, in fact I think that's great and typical of the Stones: they're great assimilators of culture, they're the best cover band in the world, they can play almost any style of popular music that they care to, from Country to folk to blues to disco to . . . etc. And they manage to pull it off almost everytime (Emotional Rescue doesn't work for me). For me, the Stones' ability to reinterpret (or respond to, in simpler terms) cultural events in meaningful ways is what makes them artists. By the way Let it Bleed is also a "response" to a Beatles album, at least at a titular level, but no one cares too much about that because the albums are so different and the play on words just points up how different the Stones and the Beatles were at that time, rather than how much alike they were.

"By the way Let it Bleed is also a "response" to a Beatles album, at least at a titular level, but no one cares too much about that because the albums are so different and the play on words just points up how different the Stones and the Beatles were at that time, rather than how much alike they were"

Let it Blled came before Let it Be

Beatles & Stones were socially so mixed together those days
you hardly could sort one out from the other. Theres too much talk
about 'copying' and 'answer'. Majesties stands for itself.

camper88:

>>themes of the album are clearly related<< (to Sgt. Pepper's)

Can you give a couple of examples? There is the old fashioned show theme all right (OWtS vs. opening theme of Pepper), but besides that I have a hard time bringing the two together on that account.
OTTOMH, TSMR has a major Sci-Fi/psychedelia overtone, while I'd say Pepper is more nostalgia and surrealism...

But the variety & circus romantique is clearly the same.
And a scent of rock n´roll tobacco and that lyserg-stuff...

I think RankOutsider hit both points correctly.

Now I used to go to those basement and a spoon parties, more typicalicaly basement and some LSD, and 'groove' to the the albums mentioned. I marvelled at black light posters and those gimmicy album covers, TSMR won that contest I recall, spent many an hour moving the cover around to watch it change (relativly new technology in it's day)

First the whole phycidelic thing was a phase and many bands got on board, take a slice of album covers and posters of the day. Around 67 and up I used to make those multi band flower power posters for local events and knew how to get all those blob light shows set up and create the special effects like the moving Green Hornet special effect. The Beatles came out of the LSD closet in a big fashion, older fans may remember when the media pinned them down and asked if the did LSD the reply was "hell....we're manufacturing the stuff", this sent a ripple through the US. Now the RS LSD exposure I have not heard much about so who got into the game when I'm not sure. I relate this to LSD because where do you think all that art work came from...it was'nt straight folks.

Musicaly.....every band of the day was one step behind the Beatles when it came to new album concepts and several bands histories talk about their frustration with keeping up (Brian Wilson probably the most outspoken, the Beach Boys had to trash an entire album they recorded on LSD).

country honk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "By the way Let it Bleed is also a "response" to a
> Beatles album, at least at a titular level, but no
> one cares too much about that because the albums
> are so different and the play on words just points
> up how different the Stones and the Beatles were
> at that time, rather than how much alike they
> were"
>
> Let it Blled came before Let it Be


Nah, Let it be was well known in the music industry from the begninng of 1969 even if the first title was Get back. Mick wrote Let it bleed in June 1969 almost six months later.

>>Nah, Let it be was well known in the music industry from the begninng of 1969 even if the first title was Get back. Mick wrote Let it bleed in June 1969 almost six months later.<<

You sure?? I thought it was Get Back (a "come back project", à la Elvis) all along in '69. The Let it Be single was released only in March of '70, then the album, as we know it, a month or two later. As early in '69 the Stones ought to have been damn sure the Beatles were to release such an album with that title, for the reference to be obvious enough...