Awful! MEZ

Well, all opinions respected, it's just the level of dislike that is suprising to me. I'm sure there are devotees of some of my most-hated stinkers like Gunface or Fingerprint File. To each his own, I'll keep rockin with DW....

i like how the first riff kicks in. then jagger destroys it all....

I love this song. It would have been great for the Jagger solo tour.

A fourth tier type of song at best, no where near as good as Start Me Up or whatever was suggested.

Better than Rock And A Hard Place?

You bet. It kicks, yes. Mick howls throughout the song. But there's nothing spectacular about it - just like Luxury - it's just another album song.

Nice Keith riff, but that's about it. The song really goes nowhere - Jagger's non-stop barking is almost like some stream-of-consciousness rambling, while Charlie's drums are a little too much. Not even really a track that could have had potential, just a bunch of disparate bits that never really equal the sum of its parts.

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slew
... Fight and Hold On are two of his worst vocal performances ever in my book...

Agreed! And in the same album, two songs with the worst set of lyrics of all time: Back To Zero & Dirty Work

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skipstone
A fourth tier type of song at best, no where near as good as Start Me Up or whatever was suggested.

Better than Rock And A Hard Place?

You bet. It kicks, yes. Mick howls throughout the song. But there's nothing spectacular about it - just like Luxury - it's just another album song.

Luxury kicks ass, has a great groove, a great melody, a unique and instantly recognizable sound - in other words, everything that tracks like Hold Back dont have.

If Luxury is a filler, it only shows how good even fillers were 10 years or more before Dirty Works came out.

whoa - Fight and Dirty Work are both great tracks with brilliant guitars and hilarious lyrics:
the Glimmer Twins singing love songs to one another :E

"Fight" I kinda like for the reasons you've stated, although the drum sound drags it down a bit.

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Gazza
"Fight" I kinda like for the reasons you've stated, although the drum sound drags it down a bit.

Same here, although I must say that the whole "Jagger-Richards fight" shining through in certain lyrics on the albums sounds extremely staged for me.

Rock and a Hard Place is better than anything on Dirty Work except One hit!

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alimente

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Gazza
"Fight" I kinda like for the reasons you've stated, although the drum sound drags it down a bit.

Same here, although I must say that the whole "Jagger-Richards fight" shining through in certain lyrics on the albums sounds extremely staged for me.

Well, maybe only if one choses to interpret the songs as solely about that subject, which they probably weren't. The Stones were hardly averse to writing songs with aggressive lyrics. There's violence aplenty on 'Undercover', for example.

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LeonidP

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slew
... Fight and Hold On are two of his worst vocal performances ever in my book...

Agreed! And in the same album, two songs with the worst set of lyrics of all time: Back To Zero & Dirty Work

Dirty Work has the worst lyrics of all time???? I don't know about that. It seems to have a political message that some won't / don't agree with,though.

Hold Back has some good lyrics : " .... don't take chances,won't make advances .... " . Overall,it's not horrible,just below average.

to me its one of the only tracks on dirty work i enjoy listening to. i find the melody does something right for me.

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StonesTod

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slew
The Dirty Work album had the ingredients to be a decent album the problem is Jagger wanted to end the Stones and was not into the album at all. Fight and Hold On are two of his worst vocal performances ever in my book. If someone likes them fine but the album does not work for me. I never listen to it except One Hit which I love.

life's too short and there's way too much great music out there to waste on crap like this album...and for those who like "hold back" it really makes one wonder what rock'n'roll they DON'T like....

Queen comes to mind immediately. ( Save 2 or 3 songs. ) Especially,"I Need Somebody to Love" or whatever the "song" is called is awful.

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slew
The Dirty Work album had the ingredients to be a decent album the problem is Jagger wanted to end the Stones and was not into the album at all. Fight and Hold On are two of his worst vocal performances ever in my book. If someone likes them fine but the album does not work for me. I never listen to it except One Hit which I love.

when and where did jagger ever state that he wanted to end the stones? this kind of crap comes from keiths endless BS and spin doctoring.micks solo was part of a multi-record STONES DEAL.keith was the one who put the entire future of the band at risk by carrying drugs over an international border,he had planned a solo album of his own as far back as 79 and he toured without the stones years before mick ever did.jagger was and still is all about the stones.he probably needed a break from working with that drunken junkie ingrate.

lem - Jagger never actually stated he wanted to end the Stones but it was fairly obvious in 1985-1986 that he was not into being a Rolling Stone at all I firmly believe that has She's the Boss been a huge hit Mick would not have gone back to the Stones. Mick was not up to par on Dirty Work he was concentrating on his own stuff. He clearly did not want the Stones to do live Aid and his vocals on DW just plain suck. Did he need a break from Keitth yes I can see that and after reading Bill German's book and a couple of others I can see why the other 4 neeeded a break from a very very conceited Mick Jagger. I can see how both of them could be a real pain in the ass to work with. There is some truth in that Keith is somewhat of what you sated above but he is all about the Stones he never put a solo album out until he was sure the Mick was not committed to the band.

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canadian.sway
to me its one of the only tracks on dirty work i enjoy listening to. i find the melody does something right for me.

there's a melody?

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slew
lem - Jagger never actually stated he wanted to end the Stones but it was fairly obvious in 1985-1986 that he was not into being a Rolling Stone at all I firmly believe that has She's the Boss been a huge hit Mick would not have gone back to the Stones. Mick was not up to par on Dirty Work he was concentrating on his own stuff. He clearly did not want the Stones to do live Aid and his vocals on DW just plain suck. Did he need a break from Keitth yes I can see that and after reading Bill German's book and a couple of others I can see why the other 4 neeeded a break from a very very conceited Mick Jagger. I can see how both of them could be a real pain in the ass to work with. There is some truth in that Keith is somewhat of what you sated above but he is all about the Stones he never put a solo album out until he was sure the Mick was not committed to the band.

Jagger gets a bit of a bad rap, and he is usually more of a gentleman than Keith about airing dirty laundry in public, so we mostly get Keith's version, which of course paints Mick in a bad light. At that point, Jagger was basically dealing with three band members with serious substance abuse problems - Keith, Ronnie and Charlie - and it is hard to blame him for not wanting to spend a lot of time with (let alone tour with) this dysfunctional group of people. What we got from DW is kind of a Keith/Ronnie "solo" album with reluctant participation from Mick on vocals. While there are some good production values on the record, the songs for the most part are total stinkers.

I think it's time The Stones come up with something new............................

How on earth can we discuss(thing) a topic about Hold Back so long??????

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NICOS
I think it's time The Stones come up with something new............................

How on earth can we discuss(thing) a topic about Hold Back so long??????

Fair point...

here's the thing - it's one of the early examples of mick trying out this macho vocal persona - and i literally cannot listen to it - it's fake and it's damned annoying. if that was the first vocal styling i ever heard of his, i probably would never have bothered listening to the man try to sing again.

it's hard to even believe this is the same singer who graced us with such soulful and powerful vocals in the stones' glory years...

Ok Ok .....think your right.......Stones Tod.

Question to all IORRians (even to does who never posted) is there someone out there who became a fan because of Dirty Work/One Hit (To The Body)/Harlem Shuffle, etc?????

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Not exactly...I became a fan when I was 13 because of She's the Boss. I really liked Just Another Night. I didn't even know Mick was the singer of the Stones. It's embarrassing to admit, but it's the truth. Dirty Work was the first Stones album I bought right when it was released. I wasn't all that impressed with it at the time, but I did really like Harlem Shuffle back then, and the video. Really liked Fight too.

Anyone that thinks DW has the worst lyrics ever, has not read the voodoo lounge lryic book. VL is Dirty Work part 2. I really don't get why it is continually rated so high amoung fans. Even A bigger bang craps all over it.

My feeling on Dirty Work is 1 good song, 2 pretty good songs and the rest are either an ok song ruined by bad 80s production or poor performance or both. And a couple are just pure garbage.

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slew
Rock and a Hard Place is better than anything on Dirty Work except One hit!

Unlike One Hit, Rock and a Hard Place is utter crap that should have been dropped a few shows into the Steel Wheels tour, never to be played live again.

If you think Jagger's barking on Dirty Work is heinous, consider some of his recent more socially conscious lyrics: "The fields of Eden are full of trash." Yeah, and so is any vocal track that includes those words! Urgh!

Moreover, the lack of any rough edges in the mix of Steel Wheels isn't helping any. Steel Wheels is the Rolling Stones at their most neutered. Despite Dirty Work's obvious flaws, I'll take it over Steel Wheels any time.

i like gunface, i like fingerprint file, and i loved this song at the beginnig (one hit + fight + holdback were stronger than the whole undercover album.
Now i prefer Undercover album, because MJ did a very badd work, his worst ever, on DW (mainly in this song)

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alimente
Luxury kicks ass, has a great groove, a great melody, a unique and instantly recognizable sound - in other words, everything that tracks like Hold Back dont have.

True, but Luxury is still just a filler track. Nothing brilliant about it at all.

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alimente
If Luxury is a filler, it only shows how good even fillers were 10 years or more before Dirty Works came out.

Yes, exactly, that was sort of the point I was making without saying it like that. They had long ago abandoned the work ethic of approaching every song as a single like they did for Beggars and Bleed (if you want to believe Keith, that is). They started screwing around, which brings us tracks like If You Really Want To Be My Friend, Time Waits For No One, Fingerprint File, Melody, Memory Motel, Everything Is Turning To Gold, Faraway Eyes and Emotional Rescue. Meaning, they actually got more interesting by screwing off with songs because they weren't setting the world on fire anymore.

At least, that's my point of view on it.

And Rock And A Hard Place sucks no matter what. Terrible awful horrendous and heinous. A She's The Boss or Primitive Cool leftover at best.