here's why: the political content, presented whole-heartedly without irony or clownish lyrics (Sweet Neocon), as in the title track, and also in 'It Must Be Hell', anticipating the violence and fearmongering we see today

great groove modern blues, classic Stones sneering (PAin Of Love, 'All The Way Down')
a raucous Ronnie romp (Pretty Beat Up) with wild sax playing

a great Keith track (Wanna Hold You)

a mature Jamaican dub treatment (Feel On Baby)

its a major release alongside SG, SF, EOMS, LIB

The last Stones album that mattered was Tattoo You, in 1983 everyone was into the Thriller-mania, MTV, heavy metal, etc.
Now, 26 years later, it's all the same but with hip hop and post Nirvana bands, and no Stones album since then mattered anymore.

Sadly i agree with georgelicks...But i do think that the Undercover lp was Jagger's best effort in writiing lyrics.. But Undercover was less like the Stones and too much having the sound of a punk band...While TY is truely a great Stones type album with the efforts of everyone in the band HELPING to make it GREAT...

I would say that it was the last album they really tried to make it matter, but it didn't quite get through. Something to do with the lack of true inspiration in the songcraft department; the songs belonging to the catogories Duke listed I think they were quite mediocre. For example, "Wanna Hold You" is quite weak effort compared to "Little T&A" or "Before They Make Me Run", not to mention "Happy".You know, the reference was still quite high at the time. But in today's standards there is some nice groove (still) going on in many of its rockers. The band was still in high spirits, a well-oiled machine, all cylinders on.

I think the title song "Undercover of The Night" is a good example of it. It tries very hard to "matter", but doesn't really hit home.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-26 22:17 by Doxa.

I agree with duke... but most fans didn't "get" that album, so it only mattered to those of us who appreciated it for what it was. As I said in a very recent post, it was the first Stones album that wasn't pure party. It was definitely a mature record, and fans definitely did not respond. I listen to the Undercover album these days more than I listen to Tattoo You. TY doesn't last long in my cd player, whereas UC gets replays when I have it out. I can't get tired of it. It's one of my favorites for sure.

agree with tate. undercover was (for me) the last album with a certain flavour and vibe. it ment something. it has an own sound and taste - is compact in a good way. maybe dirty work had that too, but in a negative way. since then, besides some fantastic songs, no stones album realy mattered. they were all just a collection of songs somehow without any direction. undercover is highly underrated. i like undercover in a way i like exile (0f course exile is miles away) but undercover is not shining with great songs, but it delivers a mood and feeling i like alot!

No, I dare disagree. The last Stones album that mattered was "Bridges To Babylon".

100% True

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georgelicks
The last Stones album that mattered was Tattoo You, in 1983 everyone was into the Thriller-mania, MTV, heavy metal, etc.
Now, 26 years later, it's all the same but with hip hop and post Nirvana bands, and no Stones album since then mattered anymore.

I quite agree. I can't listen to Undercover, whereas TY I can slap on any old time.

bridges? really? i always think its great when people like those things,i can usually only find about 3 listenable songs on each one since tattoo.as for undercover i kinda like it but its the beginning of the end.mick writing about all these "world issues"that you can tell he's so far removed from he might as well be reading the paper to us.in fact that may be when he began to recite the lyrics instead of sing them.keiths no better,in "it must be hell" he just starts playing htw. dude was out of ideas. "some kids are hungry,some overeat"ouch,really in a rock song?its not "sharks will cry" or "if you're really astute invest in brown and root" but you could see the cracks forming.

Undercover. Definitely the last album that mattered from the Stones. Last album to capture the sleazy groove and edge that the Stones always had. That was it. Everything after that pure filler.

out of ideas? that intro to Undercover is pretty fresh. yeah its not literary but it can be astute, and rock at the same time...
and, 'She Was Hot' is a rocker unlike others, imo

you make a good point about Jagger being removed from world issues. he can sound knowledgeable yet he is definitely removed..

.......Georgelicks is right...Tatto You is the answer.

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billwebster
No, I dare disagree. The last Stones album that mattered was "Bridges To Babylon".

it's not about personal taste. you can prefer bridges to undercover. but bridges is just not an album that had any impact. it's a collection of ok songs, but its not an album that mattered in any way...

Don't agree at all, although I like some tracks, SWH, and I like Undercover live, and the remix versions, there is not that much else I'm that bothered about...

Disagree!

The last album that mattered was Some Girls. After that...uhmmm... nothing!

For me it was 'Let it Bleed'...Today I'm happy for every each of Stones released songs on records...

2 1 2 0

I'm with Soldati: as much as I like much Of Undercover, Tattoo You waqs the last outstanding release.

Not sure I get his 'post-Nirvana' comment though - what are you saying? that there have been no excellent - and better - guitar-based acts since those depressing grungers?

Tattoo You was the last Stones album that really mattered. Undercover has some good ideas throughout, but the results are very sketchy and underdeveloped, although i do fully agree that it sounds more authentically Stones than many of their more later polished efforts, especially post Dirty Work. Very forgettable generally, although Undercover Of The Night is a pretty good single release although nowhere near classic status. The song is still in a different league to practically everything they've recorded since, mind.

I think every Stones album - unitil 1997 - had it´s own vibe, esp. Voodoo Lounge.

The only album without any vibe is ABB. It´s just a MJ solo record, KR and CW helped him as session musicians, RW was the hired hand. The result is a collection of dull and half-baked songs.

But, including Bridges, each album has it´s own vibe and MATTERS!

The last album that mattered was the come back-album Steel Wheels. It wasn't brilliant, but it sure put the Stones back in the spotlight where they belong.

undercover is a great album, very underrated but i don't think it was the last album that mattered. voodoo lounge is great album, it's the last album where mick's voice is powerful

The problem with every Stones album since Tattoo You is that there are too many turkeys on them to warrant repeated listening. Arguably it gets worse from Undercover onwards - with the exception of the diabolical and half-hearted Dirty Work which is their all time nadir. Steel Wheels sees the beginning of the four to the floor stadium rock sound and from Voodoo Lounge onwards quality control just slips away and we get sometimes six or more poor, soulless songs. The problem is an over clattering of sound - too much going on and not enough space for the music to breathe. God, please let Jack White produce the next album.

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ghostryder13
undercover is a great album, very underrated but i don't think it was the last album that mattered. voodoo lounge is great album, it's the last album where mick's voice is powerful

vodoo has its moments and was followed by the last tour that somehow mattered. but as an album it is never as compact as undercover and it's just too much of the stones cpying the stones.

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DandelionPowderman
The last album that mattered was the come back-album Steel Wheels. It wasn't brilliant, but it sure put the Stones back in the spotlight where they belong.

your right if we talk about what it ment for the band. with SW the whole pr-machinery started again and it was a huge comeback!
but musicaly (and that's how i understand the threads topic) SW had nothing to offer that was relevant in any way...no certain vibe or mood that was captured like on undercover...

<your right if we talk about what it ment for the band.>

And the band's followers.

How funny, everybody has their own opinions and favorites. I happen to really like Undercover, I hold it up there with Some Girls and Goats Head. I even like Goats Head more than Exile! Blasphemy, I know!! I really do not like DW, SW or Bridges but I really love ABB, not very song but most of them. Wait can't forget how much I like Emotional Rescue, I love that album, listen to it all the time while I hardly ever listen to Tattoo You.

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coffeepotman
How funny, everybody has their own opinions and favorites. I happen to really like Undercover, I hold it up there with Some Girls and Goats Head. I even like Goats Head more than Exile! Blasphemy, I know!! I really do not like DW, SW or Bridges but I really love ABB, not very song but most of them. Wait can't forget how much I like Emotional Rescue, I love that album, listen to it all the time while I hardly ever listen to Tattoo You.

just imagine if everybody would like exactly the same...we would only have threads like "what does keith like on his pizza" ;-)
but once again: i think this topic is not about wether you like an album more then another one, but the question was if undercover was the last stones album that had "something to say", that people payed attention because of its musical content and not only because it was a rolling stones album...i still think that undercover was the last album that had a certain mood and was a musical statement. after then, as i said, it was mainly the rolling stones acting like the rolling stones...

Bridges was full of weird, great, creative moments and when the tour started up that Fall of '97, the Stones absolutely electrified audiences with "Out Of Control." Despite--or more likely, because of--the album's fragmented recording process, it gets across a lot of the spirit and chaos and certainly the hardened worldliness of the "wealth and taste" Stones.

But, as the time-honored question goes: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? No matter the very respectable sales of the album, it was still lost as a popular touchstone. No "Gimme Shelter" or "Tumbling Dice" blasting constantly over FM airwaves to a rabid, unified audience. And that makes Bridges or any of their post-Tattoo albums difficult to compare with the ones that were canonized by the rock 'n' roll culture in its heyday. There are great tracks all over the place, but they only reached us, the faithful, in our private lairs.

Given their sporadic album/tour work schedule, the Stones still come up with a surprising amount of superb material to go with the cynical filler ["I Go Wild?!" Ughhhhh]. It takes a willing and able audience to create "warhorses," though, and as Gazza often points out, most of the audience that could do that has been priced out of the latter-day Stones experience.

Picks For The Day: "Feel On Baby," "Had It With You," "Fancyman Blues," "Moon Is Up," "Lowdown," and "Back Of My Hand"

As stated in some other thread about Undercover, I claimed that Undercover was the proper follow up to Emotional Rescue, not Tattoo You, since ER is less leftovers than TY. Basically. Undercover is full of new songs (at least all but one) and, although it has some Eighties production values that possibly devalue some of it (the drum things, basically) I don't think they're 'over the top'. What happens in Undercover Of The Night and Too Much Blood is obviously whatever technology was out at the time being utilised but it doesn't seem to ruin anything. Dates it, yeah. But nothing The Rolling Stones do will ever sound as bad and dated as anything Michael Jackson did yet alone a plethora of other bands that had big moments with shitty produced songs (Genesis, for one). Mick Jagger, on the other hand...

And what was going on in 1983? Other than Undercover being out and with a peak at who topped the (US) charts that year there were Men At Work, The Police, Duran Duran, Def Leppard was the only thing rock happening that made a dent in the charts (as I can recall anyway), Phil Collins, Culture Club, Lionel Richie, Prince, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Journey, Hall & Oates, Elton John and David Bowie.

So basically a very bad year for rock music with the charts dominated by wuss music (Elton John, Journey, Culture Club, Hall & Oates, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Duran Duran).

It's just stupid that they bothered with Undercover Of The Night and didn't push She Was Hot or Tie You Up or All The Way Down more. With an album full of some great rockin' tunes they chose to promote the dancey rock number (UOTN), the dancey dance number (Too Much Blood - great video, sure, but great single? No) and lastly went for the rock'n'roll with the underpromoted She Was Hot.