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skipstone

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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.

For me, at least for me, Luxury is brilliant because it sounds so natural, like a fun live session in the studio. Its cleverly constructed with those high-pitched Keith backing vocals and other Keith vocal injections, no doubt, but it sounds like a loose jam with everybody having fun no end - and the groove is so infectous it makes you wanna move and groove along shortly after the song starts...as such, its brilliant, and it probably would have been sucessful as a single when caribbean sounds were much en vogue - like Claptons I Shot The Sheriff cover which is from the same time frame...

Thinking about it, thats what I dearly miss from a lot of later Stones stuff, ABB in particular, where songs often sound constructed and lifeless...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-02-08 20:42 by alimente.

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alimente
Thinking about it, thats what I dearly miss from a lot of later Stones stuff, ABB in particular, where songs often sound constructed and lifeless...

bingo.

when the muse is behind the creative process, it flows and it seems the songs have written themselves. always been that way. when the muse ain't "on," songs have that feeling of having been consciously, artificially, deliberately contrived or fabricated... unfortunately that's the mode the glimmers have been in the past 30 or so years....

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T&A

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alimente
Thinking about it, thats what I dearly miss from a lot of later Stones stuff, ABB in particular, where songs often sound constructed and lifeless...

bingo.

when the muse is behind the creative process, it flows and it seems the songs have written themselves. always been that way. when the muse ain't "on," songs have that feeling of having been consciously, artificially, deliberately contrived or fabricated... unfortunately that's the mode the glimmers have been in the past 30 or so years....

bingo bingo!

If you don't get the O and you die do you go out with a bing?

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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.

1.mick never said he was leaving the stones and signed a mult-record deal to work with them but to you it was "fairly obvious" he wasnt into being a rolling stone.why?it wasnt that keith -media blitz that made you think this was it?2.mick wasntup to par as he was concentrating on his own stuff"-yeah mick never multi-tasks right?you know-designing a stage,mapping out a tour with promoters,staying in shape,working with a vocal coach,rehearsing,etc.ever stop to think maybe his band was too much of a trainwreck to be around let alone work with?3.so you read in a book that mick is conceited?wow you mean rock stars have big egos?im shocked.4.and now for our final total bulsht,fantasy land keith richards made up story of the last quarter of a century-"keith never put out a solo album until he was sure mick wasnt commited to the band"-hes been selling this for a longg time-the guy said in an interview in 1979 he was "putting some songs together for his own record"read this slowly -NINETEEN SEVENTY NINE. stop reading crap from books by no-count hangers on and keith interviews and face reality and just look at the facts,its much different than the garbage we,ve all been fed for years.

not

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harlito1969
not

thank you for your well thought out,fact based response.if you're nice i'll send you an exclusive video of muddy waters painting a ceiling.

"Stalin and Roosevelt
Both took their chances
And George grasped the nettle
It's do or dare
From the banks of the Delaware"
incredibly lame lmao!!!

I had not listened to Hold Back in many years, I listened to it tonight actually I tried the song has no redeeming qualities it might be my least favorite Stones track ever.

Hold Back.....surely a wierd track; but if one were too look at the good sides of it; there's a couple of guitarlicks there that's cooking; if one is able to forget about the "beat", "melody" and Jagger's singing during those exact moments

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slew
I had not listened to Hold Back in many years, I listened to it tonight actually I tried the song has no redeeming qualities it might be my least favorite Stones track ever.

I did the same and came to the same conclusion. (Even though there songs in the same album to compete with that title...)

In fact, I listened the whole album. It sounded worse than I thought. "Harlem Shuffle" and "Dirty Work" are probably the only tracks I really like. The best moment is Stu's piano.

- Doxa

Guitar work is nice, very nice. The rest of musicians....................

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Slick
"Stalin and Roosevelt
Both took their chances
And George grasped the nettle
It's do or dare
From the banks of the Delaware"
incredibly lame lmao!!!

agreed, pretty lame. But many of the lines in "Sympathy" are not much better. It's the same history-book idea he's gone on to use for several songs.

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Winning Ugly VXII

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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.

To me, by far! "Let somebody do your dirty work ... find some greaseball find some jerk ... do it all for free" ... "it's beginning to make me angry etc.". Come on, how lame is that! As others pointed out, it seems to me like Mick was in a hurry and just thought of the quickest easiest topic that came to him on the top of his head. And Back To Zero, wow! As for a song about anti-nuclear weapons go, these lyrics are actually embarrassing.

>> But many of the lines in "Sympathy" are not much better. <<

er ... are you sure you really want to leave your mark on statements like that for archeologists to dig up 500 years from now?
the concept of Sympathy - even if some of the lines sound odd out of context - is timelessly stunning.
on this one Mick couldn't even decide whether the idea is "hold back" or "don't hold back"

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cc
agreed, pretty lame. But many of the lines in "Sympathy" are not much better. It's the same history-book idea he's gone on to use for several songs.

Well well well.... if it is the same history book, hmm... Jagger did read the damn book with quite different approach when he did "Sympathy" or "Hold Back" and "Blinded By Love"... At least he picked up more interesting pages...

- Doxa

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with sssoul
>> But many of the lines in "Sympathy" are not much better. <<

er ... are you sure you really want to leave your mark on statements like that for archeologists to dig up 500 years from now?
the concept of Sympathy - even if some of the lines sound odd out of context - is timelessly stunning.
on this one Mick couldn't even decide whether the idea is "hold back" or "don't hold back"

heh, I'm not concerned about my reputation in future eras--digital archives don't stand a chance of lasting that long, imo. Much information from just a few decades ago is already unreadable.

yeah, Christgau was I think the first reviewer to notice the contradiction--dare we elevate it and call it an unresolvable tension or ambiguity? literary criticism loves this sort of thing; ok, I won't go that far--in "Hold Back." as for the "Sympathy" (and, right Doxa, "Blinded by Love" and "Saint of Me") comparison--it's precisely with lines out of context that I suggested they can be compared, since that was the content of the prior post.

I wouldn't call "Sympathy"'s concept timeless, more like venerable and fairly ambitious for a rock song; the execution in mick's writing is mostly not bad, like a very good high-school student's (I'm not a fan of the novel that inspired it, either, at least on purely literary grounds); the group's performance is stunning, as was their reinvention of the song for live playing.

>> dare we elevate it and call it an unresolvable tension or ambiguity? <<

nope! the farthest i can elevate it is to call it a rough draft that Jagger had good reasons for abandoning -
how's that? :E

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with sssoul
nope! the farthest i can elevate it is to call it a rough draft that Jagger had good reasons for abandoning -
how's that? :E

yeah, that sounds right... and if he had sung it more than once, he might have thought twice about trying to enunciate "George grasped" at ~120 beats per minute...

I'm sorry, but really laughable you Stones fans - "the DW lyrics are bad".

bWWWWWHAHHHH~

Folks, this is rock n roll. Is your life really so insignificant that you look to RNR for some insight? Get out of your houses, folks, go to your nearest library! Read some Dostoyevsky, some Twain, some Faulkner, some Wolfe, something. Expecting to get some meaning (or whatever) from Rolling Stones' lyrics is a little pathetic, to say the least.

This is rock music. The expected end product is--- your booty shakes. I put "Hold Back" on my turntable because I want my anal-area to shake vigorously from left to right. See! But-wiggle, that's what we rock fans are after. Remember?

You folks reading lyrics, repeat after me, "my baby does the Hanky Panky, my baby does the Hanky Panky"

And, I'm really getting a big giggle reading how you "what kind of music could a Hold Back fan really like?"fans are over on the Emotional Rescue thread expressing what a great rock song that is. It's the lyrics, I suppose....

LoFL, KSIE: it's not our fault! tell it to the lyric-writer :E
right you are: a great lyric is one that works with the music, not against it
and sure, if this lyric were about shakin one's booty it would no doubt be a major improvement

Jagger's best "political" statements come when he is done trying.
The conscious ones all result in some of the Stones' more embarrassing moents: "Blinded by Love/Rainbows" , "Neocon", "War Babies","Back To Zero".

You cant really beat a line like "You can't always get what you want" or "Sweet Black Angel".

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KSIE
I'm sorry, but really laughable you Stones fans - "the DW lyrics are bad".

bWWWWWHAHHHH~

Folks, this is rock n roll. Is your life really so insignificant that you look to RNR for some insight? Get out of your houses, folks, go to your nearest library! Read some Dostoyevsky, some Twain, some Faulkner, some Wolfe, something. Expecting to get some meaning (or whatever) from Rolling Stones' lyrics is a little pathetic, to say the least.

This is rock music. The expected end product is--- your booty shakes. I put "Hold Back" on my turntable because I want my anal-area to shake vigorously from left to right. See! But-wiggle, that's what we rock fans are after. Remember?

You folks reading lyrics, repeat after me, "my baby does the Hanky Panky, my baby does the Hanky Panky"

And, I'm really getting a big giggle reading how you "what kind of music could a Hold Back fan really like?"fans are over on the Emotional Rescue thread expressing what a great rock song that is. It's the lyrics, I suppose....

C

i thin k the opening riff is fantastic. so are the guitars: messsi but hard rockin!
production sucks, mick sucks...but the openig riff is just killer!

It's crap. This one is a Not.

It's funny to note that this much hated "hold back" was not sheduled on
the original "dirty work" ....it took place at the last moment of the excellent
"deep love" by Keith.!!..(From the great fanzine of Bill German of this time...)

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

"...you better stop and put on a kind face?"

Along with "I Go Wild" "Highwire" and basically the second half of A Bigger Bang, "Rock" is at the very bottom of the barrel. So embarrassing.

"Hold Back" has some dynamite guitar and anticipates Talk Is Cheap. Whatever the band's many problems at the time of the recording, they still sound raw and hungry and they're still searching for that next Stones sound. There's excellent later stuff out there, but the ones I listed above suggest that the Stones are lame, cynical old geezers.

PS: "Had It With You" is a minor classic.

Steve Lillywhite isn´t exactly proud of Dirty Work, this is from a recent interview:

AVC: Speaking of working with artists in the latter part of the career, you worked with The Rolling Stones on Dirty Work.

SL: Yes, I produced the worst-ever Rolling Stones album. Until the one after, that is. [Laughs.] But basically, I couldn’t turn down The Rolling Stones. A real man would never turn down the chance of working with legends like them. But that doesn’t mean I knew it was going to be any good whatsoever. You need a good tailwind to make a great record, and there wasn’t a great tailwind with the Stones at that point. There was too much bitterness. It was the bad end of the drug-taking. It was just messy, but I had to do it. I learned a lot more from them than they learned from me, that’s all I can say about that experience. Maybe “Harlem Shuffle” was okay. That was sort of a hit. They didn’t tour the album or anything. I enjoyed working with them and it was great fun hanging out with Keith Richards.

Great weaving. Aparantly by Keith and Bobby Womack (Ronnie did the solo only).

i like how the song kicks in! awfull singing. but i dont hate it. BTZ or WU are alot worse!