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71Tele
A bigger point is whether one still accepts the post-89 band as even the same artist as the pre-89. I generally stay out of discussions of any songs/albums after Steel Wheels (meaning after Wyman left) because I (and I know this will be controversial) do not even consider the two the same artist. What changed that makes me say such a seemingly preposterous thing? Two things: First, Wyman left, and the rhythm section was forever altered. Instead of the Rolling Stones, it was the Ling Stones (as someone pointed out above). The "roll" was gone.
Second: Albums became gimmicks or necessary components for promoting tours (remember, groups used to tour "behind" a record). The Stones had basically stopped competing on the charts (which made their brief forays into rap, Chemical Bros., Babyface, etc. all the more painful). The songs became fairly random affairs. The producers crafted the songs rather than the songs dictating the production.

Being a fan of the music of the post-89 band, or rather the post-87 band, I feel sorry already for penning the term "Ling Stones". I have to disagree with you that the "roll" left with Bill. It didn't. In fact, there is more "roll" in some post-Bill-era tracks than there is on "Steel Wheels" on which Mr Perks did play, such as "Jump On Top Of Me", "Too Tight", "I'm Gonna Drive", "Stealing My Heart" and "Saint Of Me" even. And on ABB, about half of the songs clearly dictated the production as I have pointed out in my previous posting, a kind of production that is raw heavy rock. Too bad that the other half of the songs dictated a very different, pop-ish production. The two approaches do not mix well on the album, but they have done their best to try and make them gel. Unfortunately that meant getting rid of two of the best of the "raw rock" tracks, "Under the Radar" and "We Don't Wanna Go Home", of which the album would have benefitted greatly. I can't wait till they finally make it onto CD.

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I don't mean to begrudge the many here who came to Stones fandom from this period their enjoyment. I just think these are two different artists, who happen to share the same key personnel and history, but who lost that special alchemy that made them, well - special.

Well, they have certainly moved on from where they were before their reunification in 89, but since my perferred era is the current one, I tend to bemoan that they always play the old stuff in concerts and obviously care less about the new fans than about the old ones. I feel the big time-consuming promo campaign for the expanded Exile has stripped them of an opportunity to be creative again, writing and recording new songs without trying to disguise them as old. It's been already 6 years again since the last album and before that one, the gap was even longer. For now, I'm looking forward to Ronnie's album very much - and I feel he deserves a lead vocal on the next Stones album.

Somebody said that the ability to click through the tracks on an album has something to do with the CD era albums comparing less favorably. That's certainly not the case for me, having grown up musically in the CD era. From my perspective, the older recordings suffer from the fact that the recording equipment used back in the 60s and 70s was just not as good as in the current era (not regarding the loudness wars which are a counteracting development). They have tried to fix this with remasters, but you cannot bring back what never went onto the tape in the first place.

quote=NedKelly]
Ok, let's turn the whole thing around a bit. I guess we all agree that there are some songs on the albums since Steel wheels that are not that good (mind you, there are quite a choice of them on the ones befre as well, but that's not really a part of this experiment).

For the most part of the 70s and 80s albums had 10 songs. What if we stripped down SW, VL, B2B and ABB down to 10 songs. Wouldn't that have changed a lot of the impression?

The irony of this choice would be that everbody in this board would scream for the guys to open the vaults and release deluxe packages including all the leftovers.... Strange things these mechanisms.[/quote]

I'm actually happy of the fact that they put out more songs because I'm sure I otherwise would have missed some gems. The length of the CD makes it possible. Yet, putting filler onto the album and releasing killer B-sides instead can hurt a musician's career.

Releasing every song they have worked on is definitely the way to go for their next album because people have now accustomed to the iPod, to being their own A&R guys, to picking the tunes they like.

I don't like the crappy sound quality of mp3 so I will always go for the CD version of an album. Some bands these days create exclusive bonus tracks for online sellers of mp3s. I kind of hate that because this way, you can never listen to these songs in all their lossless glory. That's also why I refuse to buy them. I guess my stance on this could be seen as a bit radical, but I prefer to have the songs included on the CD itself. They could always call them bonus tracks and stick them on at the end. On "Voodoo Lounge", they even have done so with the song "Mean Disposition", which is a winner from that album.

Here's hoping they will record a great new album next - with lots of "roll".

I gave it a thought.

The A Bigger Bang album: generic, boring, repetitive, lame.

The users on this forum: witty and funny individuals as far as I am aware.

So the answer would be: no one like the A Bigger Bang album :-)

Well, it was worth getting for me for "Rough Justice", "Let Me Down Slow", "Back Of My Hand", "She Saw Me Coming", "Biggest Mistake", "Dangerous Beauty", "Driving Too Fast", "Infamy" - and if they were on it, "Under the Radar" and "We Don't Wanna Go Home", too. That's 10 out of 18, but I would not have liked it clocking in at only 10 tracks, because you never know ... it could have been 2 of these and the other 8 instead. Then, I would not have liked the album. I guess they did mess up "Dirty Work" that way.

Here's my generic, boring, repetitive and lame answer to the question:
I like the A Bigger Bang album.
There are a couple of songs that do not move me too much, but maybe they groove someone else?

Still, I would not mind if next time they would make an album, they would approach it more
as a band. Not just Mick and Keith working together and the others filling in whatever
they felt was necessary.
I think the Stones need a full band approach to making an album. Get together in a studio,
start with some half baked ideas, let everyone have some input, play the songs a couple
of times in a live jamming session and make sure the technicians have their tapes rolling
all the time.

Damn good albumn!

Go Dawgs!

Like it a lot.

I like it



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-09-15 14:29 by proudmary.

Lucky for (all of) us, History will decide on this one.

["I can hear the Bullfrog calling me..."]

It will be a classic one in 20 years like Exile; one of the best albums the Stones ever did ...

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Ket

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DandelionPowderman
There were many, many great songs where Wyman was missing in action in the "golden" period as well. Did they lose the roll? Definitely not, imo.

Exactly right, JJF,Tumbling Dice,IORR just to name a few

My thoughts exactly. But I do miss Bill anyway.

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Edith Grove

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skipstone
I listened to A Bigger Bang while doing A LOT of driving after Katrina since everything was in doubt and I had no idea what I had to return to. The album came out right after the storm hit after I had done a lot of travelling just to get somewhere to be for a little while and find a new vehicle. I didn't get it for another month when I wound up in Alabama. I listened to it in my truck, exclusively, and played it A LOT when I was going between Louisiana and Alabama through all kinds of destruction and seeing boats in places they shouldn't be to get what I could of my life back together.

So it became a good driving record. So it's one of those albums for me. It has an unfortunate history within my life but it was one of the few things or moments or whatever one wants to call 'it' that cheered me up. That and finding Abita Amber in Fairhope, AL was about it. So maybe I have some kind of strange attachment to the album. I dunno. It helped me through it all.

And I still like it.

Here's another Katrina / ABB story, copied from another thread I posted on:


Here's a story I'd like to tell.

Some people here already know I live in New Orleans, and most everyone knows about the blow job our city got from a bitch called Katrina. This was right at the time that ABB was coming out. I pre-ordered it, and the CD was delivered to me in Atlanta. Since my car does not have a CD player, I had to wait until returning home to hear the new Stones CD.

My neighborhood was one of the first to have it's electricity restored, and I returned on the first day residents were allowed back.

Before I even bothered to clean up the mess in my flat, I opened all the doors and windows and set my CD player on very high volume. I then listened to ABB for the very first time, about a month after it was released.

Only the military police and die-hard residents were around during those days after the storm, but I received many shouts of approval from people on the street who heard ABB blasting from my flat.

HA HA! YEAH YOU RIGHT!

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71Tele

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stewedandkeefed
The generally negative view of ABB on this board has always mystified me. Of the records that the Stones made since 1989, it is the only one I truly enjoy. For me, it is a good record because it's actually about something. It's a break-up album and probably reflects Mick's break-up with Jerry Hall. Generally I can't think of songs more meaningless than Flip The Switch or You Got Me Rocking. At least ABB has a theme.

It shouldn't be mystifying that people who grew up with Brown Sugar, Tumblin' Dice, and Coming Down Again would not want to settle for Sweet Neocon, Laugh I Nearly Died and Infamy.

Nobody as far as I can see is suggesting that we should settle for ABB instead of the classic 68-72 albums. It's not either/or, it's "not only../but also..."

I think I sort of agree with your idea that the Stones now are a different band - but then they have been half a dozen different bands in their career, some better than others and one or two of them outstandingly brilliant. The present incarnation are probably never going to produce anything as good as their younger selves, but that doesn't mean they can't do something that's merely pretty good in its own right, and there's no point in throwing away a five-pound-note because it isn't a twenty...

ABB has got its faults. Nearly all the songs sound as if they could have done with a bit more work and it's sometimes too obvious that they were put together from separate bits rather than by a band working together as a unit - but there's some enjoyable stuff on there (even if none of us can agree on exactly which tracks are the enjoyable stuff!). For the record, I'd personally lose at least Let Me Down Slow, Biggest Mistake, Driving Too Fast and Infamy, and add Under The Radar. Still too many tracks, I suppose, and yes, I must admit that even Sweet Neo Con is growing on me.

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71Tele
A bigger point is whether one still accepts the post-89 band as even the same artist as the pre-89. I generally stay out of discussions of any songs/albums after Steel Wheels (meaning after Wyman left) because I (and I know this will be controversial) do not even consider the two the same artist. What changed that makes me say such a seemingly preposterous thing? Two things: First, Wyman left, and the rhythm section was forever altered. Instead of the Rolling Stones, it was the Ling Stones (as someone pointed out above). The "roll" was gone.
Second: Albums became gimmicks or necessary components for promoting tours (remember, groups used to tour "behind" a record). The Stones had basically stopped competing on the charts (which made their brief forays into rap, Chemical Bros., Babyface, etc. all the more painful). The songs became fairly random affairs. The producers crafted the songs rather than the songs dictating the production. There was very little inspiration from which these middle-aged millionaires could draw upon to bring about compelling music. I am not saying that despite this there weren't some perfectly listenable, well-executed songs - there were - but the magic was gone. Professionalism - of the suffocating show-biz variety, became the norm, as far as their recording and stage career went.

I don't mean to begrudge the many here who came to Stones fandom from this period their enjoyment. I just think these are two different artists, who happen to share the same key personnel and history, but who lost that special alchemy that made them, well - special. Just like when The Who lost Keith Moon and made the mistake (they themselves later said) of trying to replace him with Kenney Jones. Sure, you were still looking at and hearing something very Who-like, it just wasn't THEM.

So...it's not just a matter of comparing everything newer against the glory days of before and finding the new stuff wanting (as some of us here are constantly being accused of doing). It's recognizing that the magic of the band had something to do with a particular combination of people (I would say at least four, others would say five, but certainly just the three aren't enough).

While the Stones were certainly capable of clunkers before 1989, they were the exceptions. Later on, a great new track that exceeded formula and mediocrity became the exception. And yet, this year we got "Plundered My Soul" which thankfully reminded a lot of us of that other Rolling Stones. The one that made us fans in the first place. My only hope for the future (as far as records go) is to be able to experience a few more of those moments.

71Tele,

Great post! Very insightful. It's posts like this that keep me coming back for more.

I am looking forward to a great new album. There is no doubt they can do it if they set their minds to it.

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stonescrow
I am looking forward to a great new album. There is no doubt they can do it if they set their minds to it.

it takes something beyond setting one's mind to it to make great music. i have little doubt that mick and keith have worked at their craft at times the past 2-3 decades. that doesn't itself guarantee anything, as has been proven over and over again.

Bill Webster
<< For now, I'm looking forward to Ronnie's album very much - and I feel he deserves a lead vocal on the next Stones album. >>

Why does he "deserve" a lead vocal on a Stones album? Frankly, not something I would anticipate with the same relish as you. I think Ronnie's vocals are best reserved for his solo albums, where they can do very little harm.

If anyone "deserves" a lead vocal on the next stones album it must be Charlie,but
I doubt he´s interested in...maybe he could do a little rap...could be funny !

Seems to be a tie as far as who like the album and who don't. I like that, and I think it proves that The Stones should continue to make new records, and I'm looking forward to the next one. That just means that I get another one to chose from when I want to play some good music.

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billwebster
I feel [Ronnie] deserves a lead vocal on the next Stones album.

Certainly not! Only Mick deserves a lead vocal. Keith's songs have been okay once or twice in the past, but on recent albums he's just an annoyance. The last thing we need is another band member who thinks he can sing.

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billwebster
From my perspective, the older recordings suffer from the fact that the recording equipment used back in the 60s and 70s was just not as good as in the current era (not regarding the loudness wars which are a counteracting development). They have tried to fix this with remasters, but you cannot bring back what never went onto the tape in the first place.

This is an oversimplification. Much of the old material (their debut album, for instance) sounds horrible, but Five by Five sounds great, as do Beggars and Bleed. I can't think of an example of poor sound quality from the digital era, but I'm not sure there is none to find (some people say they dislike the sound of Steel Wheels, but I'm not one of them). And the fact that you disregard the loudness war is a bit puzzling to me. It is one of the reasons I dislike ABB. It also seems to contradict your anti-MP3 rant (which I happen to agree with) later on.

But frankly, sound quality is far less important than the music itself. It shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the music all that much. In my case it usually doesn't, except (as I said) in ABB's case. This willful carpet bombing of the sound is extremely offensive to my ears.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-09-16 01:46 by FreeBird.

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mr edward
Laugh I Nealry Died and Dangerous Beauty are the only two great songs on ABB, the only two that earn their places in the cataloque.

Agree 100%!!!><

I have not liked the production of any of their records from Steel Wheels on. It's too slick.

I have also thought, for the most part, the writing has gone downhill, especially lyrically.

I think both were very evident on ABB. I would rather hear them recording in a basement and sounding like The Stones than too polished.

The album was not without it's merits - there are a few decent songs (much like their last several records). There just aren't enough to get me to listen to it more than once. I was bored in big stretches by it.

What amazes me is how, when ABB was new, half the world was proclaiming this the best Stones album since Exile.

Yawn.

Drew

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drewmaster
What amazes me is how, when ABB was new, half the world was proclaiming this the best Stones album since Exile.

I wasn't.

<< Bill Webster
From my perspective, the older recordings suffer from the fact that the recording equipment used back in the 60s and 70s was just not as good as in the current era (not regarding the loudness wars which are a counteracting development). They have tried to fix this with remasters, but you cannot bring back what never went onto the tape in the first place. >>

All due respect, you completely miss the point of the digital remasters. It is not to try to put in "what never went into the tape". Rather, the challenge is to replicate the analog glory that did go onto tape in the much more sterile digital environment. So your supposition is completely wrong. The remasters of classic 60s albums have been attempts (with varying degrees of success) to capture the dynamics and nuances of the analog equipment you deem "inferior".

The idea that one should be bothered by the sounds of the Stones 60s records because of the recording quality is in my view, rather bizarre. Would you then dismiss "Revolver", "Blonde On Blonde", "Are You Experienced", "Abbey Road", etc because they were made on "inferior" equipment? I advise you to check out a book called "Recording The Beatles". Those microphones, tape machines, limiters, eq,etc. were all as good as anything available now. Why do you think people spend thousands of dollars for tube compressors, limiters, and other analog studio gear (to put into their ProTools set-ups)? The Stones at Olympic and other studios recorded with similar state-of-the-art analog equipment.

"Cleaner" is not necessarily better, and (as any musician or engineer will tell you) digital is not necessarily better sounding than analog - just more convenient. In fact, my one criticism of "Let It Bleed" is that it is too clean. Songs like Midnight Rambler, Live With Me and Love In Vain were vastly better in the live context of Ya-Yas. LIB had great songs but lacked the grit of Sticky Fingers and Exile.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010-09-16 02:52 by 71Tele.

The only post-81 album that i did'nt like after first listenings was BTB.
As years have passed, UC has new values for me; DW is almost crap, outtakes are much better than the original album; SW has lost his charm because of it's typical 80s production; VL sounds great and classic to me; BTB has it's own gems, but i still do not like it as a whole album, very overproduced; and the simple ABB is one of my favourites. If you add the extra tracks (UR & TDWGH), it is a great work. Maybe is too much Jagger's, but no aditional musicians is wellcome , as it happened with some girls.

Regarding the chages in rythm section since Bill's departure, ther are a lot of classic Stones songs in which he does'nt play, and there are a lot of other no so known songs in which he does'nt play.

KR + RW + MT have played bass in a very large list of songs, most of them classics

Musical tastes of each person are really difficult to compare:

For me, "She saw me Coming" is the weakest track on ABB.

I like a lot "Biggest Mistake", "Streets of Love" (works very very well live), and "Rain Fall down"

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FreeBird

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drewmaster
What amazes me is how, when ABB was new, half the world was proclaiming this the best Stones album since Exile.

I wasn't.

Agree very much; I still remember the leaked tracks discussed on this board with terms as 'best in 25 years, 'a Roman orgasm', can't be any better than this', etc...now it's more or less the worst thing they ever came up with...(not for me anyway)

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marquess
Musical tastes of each person are really difficult to compare:

For me, "She saw me Coming" is the weakest track on ABB.

I like a lot "Biggest Mistake", "Streets of Love" (works very very well live), and "Rain Fall down"

That's true, but some people have better taste!

Okay, that's a joke. "Biggest Mistake" is my personal favourite from the album. I like how Jagger almost Dylan-like tells a story, and the song rolls nicely and naturally. Nothing earth-shaking but I enjoy. It is a kind of good album track. Unfortunately the rest are so formulatic, sketchy and forced that this little song is wasted. Much apprecieted "Laugh I Nearly Died" sound a bit too factured and forced to my taste. It's good that Jagger tries something different, and kicks his voice to bigger spheres, but unfortunately I think he does not quite hit the target. It is one of those many songs in the album that probably would had needed more time and energy to make it really work. That's the biggest problem in the whole album: they used minimal energy in order to get it finished for a tour (where their mind seemingly was). Good albums are an aim in itself, not a vehicle for some other use. I call them lazybones.

- Doxa

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Doxa
That's the biggest problem in the whole album: they used minimal energy in order to get it finished for a tour (where their mind seemingly was).

Please emphasize the word "seemingly", because it is your own interpretation. What do we
know, really, about the objectives and motivations of the Stones to put out a new album.
Being a romantic person myself, I just happen to believe for some part a musician makes
a record to make his/her ideas heard. I too noticed that some songs could have blossomed
more with more time and energy. But I don't believe they used minimal energy in order to
get it finished for a tour. I (naive as I am) believe that after the "overproduced"
Bridges to Babylon album, with all these guest musicians, they truely felt the urge to
let the world know they could also come up with an album all by themselves. I think it was
an artistic choice to get back to the basics of a 6 piece band.

That said, I also think it would not have done any harm if they truely recorded it as a
six piece band. But I don't want to be too repetative.

I like it very much.But its too long.There's couple of track that shouldnt be there.....Sweet neocon example..i hate it...and infamy...oh god

Of Course because it's a great album with 16 fine songs...