I actually like GHS and think it's underrated but...damn...Exile and Beggars sold only about a million copies in the US, Let it Bleed 2 million, and Sticky Fingers 3x.

File under strange. Angie must have been a big hit.

If you have a great selling single on a record it will sell well...if you have two great singles it will even sell better ><

(Although I was disappointed back then) It's a Great record indeed......don't know if it's underrated who told you that

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Love it... Mr.D, Winter, Silver Train, Hide You Love and Star Star. All really great tunes.

I can never answer the 'favorite Stones LP' with any conviction unless inebriated, but I can say that this is my MOST PLAYED Stones piece on a regular basis. (Not the saying it, the playing it).

great album!

Yeah, it's great, but not in same level of the stratosphere as "the big four"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-10-27 01:09 by Send It To me.

I wonder which sold more, the actual vinyl album or the CD?

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Send It To me
Yeah, it's great, but not in same level of the stratosphere as "the big four" - we need a better way of referencing those four records. Nominations for IORR shorthand????

Well we got Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Sink and Iron...and even Cast Iron

Lets' call the big four Diamonds........

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The album has always been put down a bit as the start of a 'fall', and the 'low' they hit with IORR or Black and Blue. But I like all 3 records. As a teenager, something about Goat's Head Soup turned me off. Maybe it was Mick and his makeup at the time. It wan't the writing. The production is a bit more slick than the 'big 4'. Maybe Jimmy Miller's influence was waning. But 30+ years later most of the songs still sound great.

My 2 least favorites are Angie and Mr D, and I think both suffer from production. In their live incarnations in Brussels, both are superb.

I put the album ahead of anything the Stones have done since it (with the exception of Tattoo You..though some of that came of of the Goats Head sessions).

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Sam Spade
I wonder which sold more, the actual vinyl album or the CD?

Vinyl. Stones album reissues on CD have never sold close to their original album issues on vinyl.

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DragonSky

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Sam Spade
I wonder which sold more, the actual vinyl album or the CD?

Vinyl. Stones album reissues on CD have never sold close to their original album issues on vinyl.

Thanks for the info

Well, it's not scientific. It's logical that none of their vinyl only releases before CDs came along have outsold CD reissues by the original sales on vinyl period.

If you were to take all the people that bought the original issues on vinyl and had them buy them on CD, well, then the unit numbers would have doubled.

That hasn't happened.

I love GHS i think it is a great album but the reason it out sold the big four was probably based on reputation because it is clearly a weaker album

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DragonSky
Well, it's not scientific. It's logical that none of their vinyl only releases before CDs came along have outsold CD reissues by the original sales on vinyl period.

If you were to take all the people that bought the original issues on vinyl and had them buy them on CD, well, then the unit numbers would have doubled.

That hasn't happened.

I was thinking double platinum on vinyl and platinum on cd. I have Sticky Fingers and Exile (not the reissue) on both vinyl and cd.

A lot of people who bought GHS when it first came out bought it just because the previous four albums had been so good.

Exile is under certified, it sold about 1.2 million copies since 1991 and well over 1 million copies between 1972-1991, it should be between 4-6x Platinum in the U.S (double album).

About GHS, it sold a lot thanks to Angie, a #1 hit helps.

They were so hot at the time GHS came out, at the absolute crest of their fame. Everybody was expecting a lot from this album. That it finally didn't measure up took some time to realize. Angie was such a huge world wide smash. I think people were willing to forgive a slight step downward until IORR came out and then it was apparent that the Stones had peaked, and sort of lost their way. Although Some Girls was a good, cohesive album with a lot of hits, I think it took Tattoo You and Start Me Up to bring them back all the way.

It's interesting to note that of their nine U.S. #1 albums, six of them are post-Exile. Most of us would agree that they did not do the majority of their best work after Exile, so the success of those past-the-peak albums has got to be down to afterglow. They sold an awful lot of records in the 70s and early 80s based on their previous accomplishments, their reputation, their brand name, and a great corporate logo.

kind of like Austin Powers being the best of the 3 movies, but the sequels raking in more dough at the box office.

after glow.

And don't forget the general explosion of album sales in general that took off through the mid 70s and 80s. More places to buy albums, better marketing.

GHS is a fantastic album. The recording is a little muddled but the songs are great! Winter, Coming Down Again, Starfuc*er, Silver Train. Great stuff!

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24FPS
They were so hot at the time GHS came out, at the absolute crest of their fame. Everybody was expecting a lot from this album. That it finally didn't measure up took some time to realize. Angie was such a huge world wide smash. I think people were willing to forgive a slight step downward until IORR came out and then it was apparent that the Stones had peaked, and sort of lost their way. Although Some Girls was a good, cohesive album with a lot of hits, I think it took Tattoo You and Start Me Up to bring them back all the way.

I agree. R.E.M. for example had a very similar phase with the "Monster" album. Coming off of a "big 4" of their own w/Document, Green, and the massive Out of Time and Automatic for the People, expectations were VERY high for Monster. And it sold like gangbusters, but subsequently has been considered by both hardcore and casual fans alike as a disappointment compared to the previous records - much like GHS. And it's not as good, much like GHS isn't as good. But both albums have their "big hit" (Angie for the Stones, What's the Frequency Kenneth for REM), and they both contain their own hidden treats that only die-hard fans know about.

One of the biggest perils of being a major-selling act - you can only climb so high until you begin to fall, in one way or another.

Anyway, this is a Stones thread and not an REM one - I just saw a good parallel worth commenting on.

The thing about these "Post-'Exile'" records is that the Stones were still having hit singles. "Goat's Head Soup" had the smash "Angie" of course and also "Heartbreaker". "It's Only Rock and Roll", "Hot Stuff", "Miss You", "Beast of Burden" "Emotional Rescue", and so on got tons of airplay, as well as other tracks off these albums on the FM side. They were also (no surprise) a huge live draw. This all translated into high record sales, regardless of how the LPs rate in our collective conscensus pantheon. At the time of "Goats Head Soup" I don't recall my gang of Stones fans being disappointed -- we played the hell out of it!

A good point. It is more generally a question that their minor artistic failure didn't really effect to their commercial success (it was a constrast in some cases actually) - which was regular through the 70's. I quickly make few random points. (Not much reflection used).

(1) I guess it has also something to do that during the 70's they started really to enjoy the fruits of the success and reputation they had gathered by then. THAT would gain them quite a strong foundation no matter what they did. They were THE band of the 60's that survived, and they weren't so controversial or challenging musically as before but more like a 'neutral', even conservative mainstream act 'anybody' could like (they were able to update a bit their safe and sure basic stuff to the trends of the day). As the years go by, their potential fanbase seemed to have kind of snowball effect (of course, they 'lost' some old fans in the process but seemingly gathered more new ones).

(2) With their extra curricular activities as celebreties, they, especially Mick (with Bianca) gathered so much public attention (on one way, and Keith on the other way, too: any publicity is good publicity), which I believe, especially in America, means dollars. And thanks to their unique status/reputation in rock, their musical doings - tours, albums, singles - gathered so much hype (free marketing) any other band could only dream of. The media worshipped them. This was something, for example, Plant and Page complained (Zep could outsold the Stones in any field but didn't get so much attention from the media).

(3) Of course, new singles, the leading singles of their albums, from "Angie" on, were quite radio-friendly songs. Think of "It's only Rock'n'Roll", basically a harmless nostalgic rock&roll number (which didn't do actually very well), "Fool To Cry", "Miss You", "Emotional Rescue". (I have just recently started to realize how much significance a radio-friendly hit song has in America. Much more than in Europe). Besides, after the constant quality of their stuff - great albums one after one, a hit one after one, any new Stones album, especially when companied with a radio-friendly hit song, was an easy bet. It took few albums until people started to realize that there is a serious artistic downhill going on. But then, in the last minute, we got SOME GIRLS...

(4) There is one more thing to point out. The whole album selling record business just got bigger year by year all the way from the 60's to the 80's. At the same time, The Stones fan base got a bit older year by year, wealthier that is, to buy stuff. This can be also reflected in their record sales. It would took until the 80's when The Stones seemed to showing serious downhill in their (relative) sales.

- Doxa



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2011-10-27 10:08 by Doxa.