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kleermaker
If all Stones would have stopped in 1974 they forever would have had the same status as the Beatles, Bach and Mozart in music. But now people use artistically rather weak arguments like "Their earnings show that they ARE in biggest leage there is, they don't have to pretend anything. Do you have a problem with commercial succesful enterprises?" Musically they exist in name only. People are interested in them because of their glorious past, because they're a living legend from the famous 60ties and early 70ties. As simple as that.
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paulywaulQuote
Bärs
I know that Rocco is very real, but his tricks with fruits on the silver screen don't reflect the ordinary sex life in a marriage.
Anyway, we must never forget that everything was not fantastic earlier. I'll take most from Licks tour instead of this - any day:
<<< Anyway, we must never forget that everything was not fantastic earlier. I'll take most from Licks tour instead of this - any day >>>
Bärs, I completely agree. I've seen this clip in various other threads on IORR where/when the discussion has invariably been about "Stones' eras" and the like. There is this belief held by some that nigh on everything before a certain date was unremittingly fantastic - with no exceptions; and by the same taken - everything after the date in question is worthy of nothing but complete dismissal. Rubbish, they've always swung between the sublime and the appalling ... they did it then and they still do it now.
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Doxa
You seem to trivialize the past by claiming it equal to the recent happenings. Like you cannot understand that here is substantive difference between "Street Fighting Man" and "You Got Me Rocking", or how Keith generally played in, say, 1981/82 tour compared to A BIGGER TOUR.
The same anachronism is with Bärs who seem to have a field day for seeing the totally greedy nature of the recent Stones doings and saying hat "it has been always all the same". Yeah, it could have been but what does it matter? What matters is the product (with which they try to maximise their profits). I don't care about their incomes or motivations, all I care is the product what they have to offer.
You glorify the past and think that they somehow "mattered" earlier. I don't believe that other than on a very individual level, as always. The average person 1968 cared probably zero about some wanna be revolutionaries in Paris digging SFM. And now you criticize them for playing SFM, a song many think "mattered". But when they play a new song like YGMR you don't like it, and say it's not even near SFM in greatness. What are they really supposed to do? Apologize to you for not being able to repeatedly come up with the likes of BS, JJF, S, GS, SFM in a career spanning 50 years? Die?
Their income depends on the product. Every tour from SW to present have been huge financial successes, which mean that their product is absolutely perfect. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Every single act out there is trying to maximize profit, and that's the reason why we have a band called The Rolling Stones in the first place. They didn't record BB, LIB, SF etc. for love of the art or charity. Their earnings show that they ARE in biggest leage there is, they don't have to pretend anything. Do you have a problem with commercial succesful enterprises?
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Bärs
1963-1983:
Authenticity
Cultural importance
Art matters
Constant progress
High musical level
Music more important than show
No side musicians
Fantastic songs
1989-2010:
Las Vegas
Only money matters
Hypocrisity
Musical senile
Only side musicians play
Only the show matters, not the music
Shit songs
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Rolling Hansie
Thanks for your reply Stoneage.
I was just trying to get this thread back on track
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Bärs
Doxa,
the one who is pissed is you - that's quite clear. It's also quite clear right now that you subscribe on the misconception that "commercial" art is "bad" art. That's what I meant when I said you are like a believer who's starting to doubt the existence of God. When you finally see the commercial product "The Rolling Stones", which is what RS always was, your entire world is falling apart. Suddenly everything Keith does is about "greed", despite the fact that he bought his own country mansion when he was 22 years old and has lived in luxure completely distanced from ordinary people since then. (Actually he became an Elvis very quickly, living with his dope and hanger ons - isolated from the real world.)
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DoxaQuote
Bärs
Doxa,
the one who is pissed is you - that's quite clear. It's also quite clear right now that you subscribe on the misconception that "commercial" art is "bad" art. That's what I meant when I said you are like a believer who's starting to doubt the existence of God. When you finally see the commercial product "The Rolling Stones", which is what RS always was, your entire world is falling apart. Suddenly everything Keith does is about "greed", despite the fact that he bought his own country mansion when he was 22 years old and has lived in luxure completely distanced from ordinary people since then. (Actually he became an Elvis very quickly, living with his dope and hanger ons - isolated from the real world.)
You really think I am stupid, right? That I think that "commercial art" is "bad" art? Not even that I consider "Satisafction" to be the best single The Stones ever have done, and knowing that it is also their best sold single. That I consider SOME GIRLS to be one of their best albums, and what is their best sold studio album ever. But I also think that BEGGARS BANQUET is way better album than VOODOO lOUNGE even though it has sold much less. I can not understand why the commerciality an sich has to be such an issue for you - or how come it be such a big criteria for art to bad or good after-all. That seems to some kind obsession for you. Not for me. What I don't like Vegas tours and the albums made during it is the lack of inspiration and the artistic quality. That's my concern. They used to be succesfull both in commercial terms and artistic terms. But like I argumented before, they sacrified the latter to maintain the former. In many many posts and discussions here I have talked about and tried to figure out what really happened in the 80's (or from late 70's on). If you look my post history this is almost a constant theme there.
The way you are describing myself as a "believer who lost his faith on God" or that I "finally see the Stones as a commercial product" and due that my "entire world is falling apart" that is as pejoritive offending-intended psychological bullshit as it can be. Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. I don't think my view of The Stones hasn't really changed for many, many years. I have never - or as far as I now remember - had any illusions of the nature of their game. The only thing that LIFE affected me was seeing what a small person as a human Keith actually is, and how horribly he is a prisoner of his own role and myth. Seemingly you are making too many wrong implications of my criticism of that book. But what does it really matter? In my books, that very book is just one more Vegas Era artifact, and nothing more. It didn't change at all the way I see the Stones. Before or after 1983. Beprhaps best it did was to be more empathic to Jagger and others after seeing how self-centric and phony Keith actually is. But "Gimme Shelter" sounds as majestic to my ears as it has always had. And Vegas era DVDs still bores me to hell.
- Doxa
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Rolling Hansie
Hey Doxa and Bärs, may I suggest the two of you get a room
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DoxaQuote
Bärs
Doxa,
the one who is pissed is you - that's quite clear. It's also quite clear right now that you subscribe on the misconception that "commercial" art is "bad" art. That's what I meant when I said you are like a believer who's starting to doubt the existence of God. When you finally see the commercial product "The Rolling Stones", which is what RS always was, your entire world is falling apart. Suddenly everything Keith does is about "greed", despite the fact that he bought his own country mansion when he was 22 years old and has lived in luxure completely distanced from ordinary people since then. (Actually he became an Elvis very quickly, living with his dope and hanger ons - isolated from the real world.)
You really think I am stupid, right? That I think that "commercial art" is "bad" art? Not even that I consider "Satisafction" to be the best single The Stones ever have done, and knowing that it is also their best sold single. That I consider SOME GIRLS to be one of their best albums, and what is their best sold studio album ever. But I also think that BEGGARS BANQUET is way better album than VOODOO lOUNGE even though it has sold much less. I can not understand why the commerciality an sich has to be such an issue for you - or how come it be such a big criteria for art to bad or good after-all. That seems to some kind obsession for you. Not for me. What I don't like Vegas tours and the albums made during it is the lack of inspiration and the artistic quality. That's my concern. They used to be succesfull both in commercial terms and artistic terms. But like I argumented before, they sacrified the latter to maintain the former. In many many posts and discussions here I have talked about and tried to figure out what really happened in the 80's (or from late 70's on). If you look my post history this is almost a constant theme there.
The way you are describing myself as a "believer who lost his faith on God" or that I "finally see the Stones as a commercial product" and due that my "entire world is falling apart" that is as pejoritive offending-intended psychological bullshit as it can be. Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. I don't think my view of The Stones hasn't really changed for many, many years. I have never - or as far as I now remember - had any illusions of the nature of their game. The only thing that LIFE affected me was seeing what a small person as a human Keith actually is, and how horribly he is a prisoner of his own role and myth. Seemingly you are making too many wrong implications of my criticism of that book. But what does it really matter? In my books, that very book is just one more Vegas Era artifact, and nothing more. It didn't change at all the way I see the Stones. Before or after 1983. Beprhaps best it did was to be more empathic to Jagger and others after seeing how self-centric and phony Keith actually is. But "Gimme Shelter" sounds as majestic to my ears as it has always had. And Vegas era DVDs still bores me to hell.
- Doxa
You are a victim for your own propaganda. You keep repeating Las Vegas (which seems to be a name for Hell in your world) in post after post for everything after 1989. The description itself is a negative statement but is put forward like it was a fact, which is propagandistic. I think you should abandon the term and use a neutral description instead. It's almost an elitist attitude which blends well with your dislike of The Stones playing their older classics for the masses.
Las Vegas actually started on the front cover of their first album where they tried to have an attitude, while at the same time writing That Girl Belongs to Yesterday without have the courage ro release it themselves since it would distract from their image. Then they finally became pop stars, then devils, then decandent, then punks. It's been an easygoing show for the masses all the time. Just like on organism in evolution, The Stones have changed when they have had to change in order to survive. There is no selection pressure at the moment and that's why they don't change. An organism that doesn't change is living in harmony with the environment, and that is what The Stones do. Now they can really do what they were created to do: make money through music.
It's very safe to have a romantic view of the past because there is no possibility to be disappointed. You were not there in the arenas and stadiums in the 70s or 81-82, right? It's very likely that you would have been hugely disappointed even then and actually repeated the same criticism as you put forward today: only show, just money, poor new songs, stage gimmicks, weak guitar sound, Keith is lost, an army of side musicians etc.
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Bärs
If you with "music that matters" mean "music that I think is good" then I completely follow you. The problem with that is that taste is personal. If their recent output doesn't matter to you, it can matter to someone else. If you are angry that they can't write classics today as they once did, I suggest that you share some of your own masterpieces with them to help restore the balance.
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paulywaulQuote
Rolling Hansie
Hey Doxa and Bärs, may I suggest the two of you get a room
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Bärs
The problem is Doxa that you are praising eras you never experienced in person while you're slagging eras you have witnessed. That's a bit suspicous.
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Bärs
What happened in the 80s was simply that they adapted to how things were done in the 80s in the same way they had done before. New technology, new sound preferences, new fashion, new ideals of how songs should be performed and interpreted, new stages etc. Later they adapted to the "unplugged" movement, they went for minimalism with No Security, they explored a great amount of their songs on Licks (which they never did during their "golden age" ). They have done a lot of small exeriments whilde sticking to a main stadium act that works in order to be accesible to a big audience. I don't find anything wrong with that.