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NedKelly
The contradiction is not that the album is bad or not, but the fact that a lot of people on this board hazzles Jagger for his contributions on several albums, like "a shitty song - typical Jagger pop stuff", og "this just a Jagger outtake" and so on.... And Keith gets all the credit if there's a good song somewhere. But when finally Keith's in charge, it gets the worst reviews ever. I find that a bit strange. To me, it's always best to have the two of them involved, but there are still lots of great songs where one of them are clearly in charge.

I agree, it seems like people think anything rocking and good must be Keith, anything pop or mediocre must be Jagger. Mick carried that band while his partner was a stone junkie and look at all the great music that was made in the 70's

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stupidguy2
Wandering Spirit, to this day, is the best Stones album since TYou.

This is becoming a bit cliche here.

I agree that WS is the best of MJ's solo albums....but I would not say it sounds like a Stones album.


IORR............but I like it!

There is no good Mick Jagger solo single.
'Take It So Hard' is good, but really a Stones sound.
'Je Suis Un Rockstar' is, quirkily enough, the most interesting solo Stones record.

Harlem Shuffle showed the Stones could still own a cover. One Hit is pretty damn good with rusty bed spring guitars. Winning Ugly really needed some work to finish it. The rest sucks.

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Come On
Dirty work is not much worser than Undercover, just slightly...

Good! I'm glad to hear some negativity about Undercover. I think it's about their worst record. I like She Was Hot, The Pain of Love, and...All The Way Down is okay. Terrible production. I always liked the music on Dirty Work. Well just the guitars and some of the bass. The drum sound is really 80s, and the keyboards are unbearable. But, I think, some great rock songs that just needed everyone involved. Sing a different melody and lyrics over 'Hold Back' and it's fantastic.

[www.non-filters.com]

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24FPS
There is no good Mick Jagger solo single.
'Take It So Hard' is good, but really a Stones sound.
'Je Suis Un Rockstar' is, quirkily enough, the most interesting solo Stones record.

Harlem Shuffle showed the Stones could still own a cover. One Hit is pretty damn good with rusty bed spring guitars. Winning Ugly really needed some work to finish it. The rest sucks.

Ill agree that Jagger seems misguided on his choice of solo singles....but the meat of those solo albums are always in tracks like "Out of Focus", "Too Far Gone" etc.....he always seems to pick the worst songs for singles.

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stupidguy2
Ill agree that Jagger seems misguided on his choice of solo singles....but the meat of those solo albums are always in tracks like "Out of Focus", "Too Far Gone" etc.....he always seems to pick the worst songs for singles.

i believe Out of Focus was released as a cd single...i bought it.



IORR............but I like it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-01-04 04:33 by sweet neo con.

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sweet neo con

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stupidguy2
Ill agree that Jagger seems misguided on his choice of solo singles....but the meat of those solo albums are always in tracks like "Out of Focus", "Too Far Gone" etc.....he always seems to pick the worst songs for singles.

i believe Out of Focus was released as a cd single...i bought it.

I didn't know that. That is a fantastic song, with Billy Preston, Flea......one of my favorite Jagger songs of all time. I wish it had been on a Stones album so that it would have gotten more attention.

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NedKelly
The contradiction is not that the album is bad or not, but the fact that a lot of people on this board hazzles Jagger for his contributions...Keith gets all the credit if there's a good song somewhere. But when finally Keith's in charge, it gets the worst reviews ever.

Was Keith really in charge? Because the production sound of the album does not reflect Keith being in charge. Keith in charge of getting the album together? OK, I can that being a yes. Keith in charge of getting songs done? Yes again. But it seemingly ends there. I don't know for any fact but something tells me Keith probably was not thrilled with Lillywhite producing yet alone the sounds on most of the album...

Indeed "Out Of Focus" was a great single and of particular interest in that it featured a sample of Keith's guitar intro from "Tumbling Dice" (I wonder if Keith even knows that).

Let's all remember the year and trends at the time the album was made.

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Carnaby
Let's all remember the year and trends at the time the album was made.

True, even the Stones got sucked into the Black Hole that was the 80s music scene. I have a hard time listening to even great stuff: U2, Replacements, Los Lobos, early REM - its all so dated.

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skipstone
Was Keith really in charge? Because the production sound of the album does not reflect Keith being in charge. Keith in charge of getting the album together? OK, I can that being a yes. Keith in charge of getting songs done? Yes again. But it seemingly ends there. I don't know for any fact but something tells me Keith probably was not thrilled with Lillywhite producing yet alone the sounds on most of the album...

being "not thrilled" is a very passive approach to what's supposed to be the main focus in one's Life.

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stupidguy2

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Carnaby
Let's all remember the year and trends at the time the album was made.

True, even the Stones got sucked into the Black Hole that was the 80s music scene. I have a hard time listening to even great stuff: U2, Replacements, Los Lobos, early REM - its all so dated.

Replacements: not dated at all. They were stubbornly contrary to pretty much every single trend in the 80s, which is why they did not sell very many records at the time. Their records sound like they could have been made in almost any decade. Maybe Don't Tell A Soul, their one half-attempt to be commercial, is a little dated sounded, I will admit.

I agree, the Replacements don't sound very dated to me either (nor R.E.M.). Most of my favorite bands of the era don't; it seems to have been mainly the 60s holdovers (Stones, Dylan, Bowie, even Neil & Joni) that were most concerned w/sounding contemporary.

What I meant, was that even my favorite artists have that aura of the 80s to me, but its more a personal thing.
True, the Replacements were like a blast of raw energy and soul in the 80s...(Skyway and Aching to Be are two of my favorite songs of all time)...but that period for me was so steeped in ....a malaise....that everything connected to that time still retains a sort of (resignated sigh) the 80s...
but again, that's more personal than anything.

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Glam Descendant
I agree, the Replacements don't sound very dated to me either (nor R.E.M.). Most of my favorite bands of the era don't; it seems to have been mainly the 60s holdovers (Stones, Dylan, Bowie, even Neil & Joni) that were most concerned w/sounding contemporary.

I am sorry to say that even one of my favorite artists - and one with a great deal of integrity, Elvis Costello - got caught up in the 80s sound. The "Goodbye Cruel World" album was produced by the team who had hits for Madness and others (Langer and Winstanley, I believe). There is all kinds of sequencing and Yamaha DX7 synth on that record, and it was unlistenable about two months after it came out. To his credit, Elvis started off his liner notes to the reissue of "Goodbye Cruel World" by saying "Congratulations! You have bought our worst record!" Elvis and The Attractions were desperate for commercial success after having released a flurry of critically acclaimed records that didn't do well commercially, and they thought this was the answer.

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stupidguy2
What I meant, was that even my favorite artists have that aura of the 80s to me, but its more a personal thing.
True, the Replacements were like a blast of raw energy and soul in the 80s...(Skyway and Aching to Be are two of my favorite songs of all time)...but that period for me was so steeped in ....a malaise....that everything connected to that time still retains a sort of (resignated sigh) the 80s...
but again, that's more personal than anything.

Agree. It was a sorry, sorry time period.

One thing about The Replacements that I love. When they were pressured by the record company to do videos, they responded with a video of someone putting the record on the turntable, and just a shot of the speaker and a guy's leg for the entire length of the song. They did this, I think, for three songs on the Pleased To Meet Me album.

You reminded me: Blood and Chocolate was one of my favorite albums from the mid-80s....when I start to think, there was some good stuff going on musically, but i just can't get nostalgic for the time

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stupidguy2
You reminded me: Blood and Chocolate was one of my favorite albums from the mid-80s....when I start to think, there was some good stuff going on musically, but i just can't get nostalgic for the time

Blood & Chocolate is (sorry) a bloody fantastic record, much overlooked. Recorded live in the studio with The Attractions playing great and Nick Lowe back in the producer's chair. It's got some real anger ("Hope You're Happy Now", "I Want You") and some very Beatle-y stuff too ("Battered Old Bird"). It was overshadowed a bit by "King of America" which came out only a few months before, but I think it's much better than that album, though maybe not as accessible.

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stupidguy2
Got a point. Dirty Work is awash in mediocre, repetitive riffs, cheesy lyrics and Mick's input was marginal. I'll also say that while I liked Talk is Cheap, Wandering Spirit, to this day, is the best Stones album since TYou. As Tele said, great guitar sounds are not songs. Talk is Cheap and Main Offender are nice because they sounded like the Stones, it was familiar. Also, Steve Jordan was a very prominant collaborator on these albums, so it wasn't all Keith. I'll be the first to slag Mick's 80s output, but fair is fair....Keith wasn't exactly charting new territory on his solo albums.

Interesting! Where are the riffs repetitive?

I actually thought Keith was charting new territory. Of course we could debate endlessly what "charting new territory" really means; but within these pretty small Stones/Keith music confines, where there isn't really that much space to develop, I thought Keith did great, no really great, on his solo albums.
IMO "Thief in the Night" and "How Can I Stop", "Thru and Thru" are the next step after "Hate it When You Leave", "Make No Mistake",999". "Dirty Work"and "Steel Wheels" as a necessary step while Keith was understanding the new recording studio; and then got good at it on solo albums and his part of Bridges to Babylon. The production values, like the drums, the use of back-up vocals ( a major part of Keith's solo albums), those two opening cuts (Big Enough and 999), the reaggae sounds got better. What I really was able to see was how the lessons from his solo albums showed up on Stones albums afterwards. Like again those BU vocals sounds.
What KR does is not tht huge; he himself has drawn his boundaries, but I saw "Hate it when you leave" as taken his ideas pretty far.

Good post, Palace

in keithland its still jaggers fault.you see in keithland those who live there believe that jagger was on an ill fated mission to become a solo star and leave the stones but it failed and poor old mick was forced to crawl back to their hero and savior and rejoin the stones,ashamed and humbled-

the fairy tale falls apart a bit when you check the facts-SHES THE BOSS WAS A PLATINUM ALBUM.and of course mick continued to record solo records for the next 20 years.

dirty work was jagger saying"you wanna run the show?,its yours" dont expect keith to admit it but he got schooled.why do you think he's so bitter about that era? the "betrayal"-a bit melodramatic,no? mick made a friggin record without you,so what?,grow up.

how some people can listen to his cliche' ridden response of 2nd rate stones outtakes called talk is cheap and hear beggars banquet part 2,i dont know.it sold about half the copies shes the boss did by the way.so now,who came crawling back?

Whatever could be said about all these solo efforts - charting new territory or not etc. etc. etc.: They were signs that the Stones were not functioning as a group anymore. Keeping the best songs for solo projects relegates the band to a side project, whereas in theory solo adventures should be those "side projects".

While this was understandable throughout the 80s, after their 1989 "reunion" I had mixed emotions when Main Offender and Wandering Spirit appeared. I first thought "wow, if they have such great song material for solo projects, how great the next Stones album must be!".

But after listening to Voodoo Lounge a couple of times, trying desperately to love it as a "new Stones masterpiece" I realized that they had saved their best songs for solo, not for the Stones. It gave me that the feeling that the Stones as a band were no more a matter of the heart for Mick and Keith, despite all this "reborn" hype.

The strange thing I've noticed about Dirty Work is that the more it gets bashed here, the more I like it!

Typically what happens is that all the shit I read here is so convincing that every time a DW thread comes up I am forced to give a spin to the old record so that I can finally open my eyes, see the light and understand at last why so many people think it stinks.

And every time the same old story. The needle gently goes down on the record, the ususal cracks and pops, volume pumped up, and there I am hooked for the next 30 minutes.

Yesterday I even enjoyed Mick's barking and (save the abominable keyboards) loved Back To Zero!

Of course the outtakes are a goldmine, of course DW could have been MUCH better, of course Mr. Lillywhite's production isn't the best for a stones work ... but what the @#$%&, I love that old record as it is. The two bitches bitching for half an hour, then sleep tonight in the name of Ian's boogie!

C

Patti said about DIRTY WORK and Keith, "I remember he had a lot of anger during that album."

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lem motlow
in keithland its still jaggers fault.you see in keithland those who live there believe that jagger was on an ill fated mission to become a solo star and leave the stones but it failed and poor old mick was forced to crawl back to their hero and savior and rejoin the stones,ashamed and humbled-

the fairy tale falls apart a bit when you check the facts-SHES THE BOSS WAS A PLATINUM ALBUM.and of course mick continued to record solo records for the next 20 years.

dirty work was jagger saying"you wanna run the show?,its yours" dont expect keith to admit it but he got schooled.why do you think he's so bitter about that era? the "betrayal"-a bit melodramatic,no? mick made a friggin record without you,so what?,grow up.

how some people can listen to his cliche' ridden response of 2nd rate stones outtakes called talk is cheap and hear beggars banquet part 2,i dont know.it sold about half the copies shes the boss did by the way.so now,who came crawling back?

Tough statements, but true I think...I also think there is an Emperor's New Clothes quality to some people's opinions of Talk Is Cheap and especially Main Offender. Frankly I thought both records were disappointments, knowing what Keith was capable of. Lots of riffs, lots of grooves, but only a few strong songs (kind of like DW). He needs Mick more than he likes to admit.

I like sooo much Dirty Work ¡¡¡
No other comment from me.

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71Tele
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Blood & Chocolate is (sorry) a bloody fantastic record, much overlooked. Recorded live in the studio with The Attractions playing great and Nick Lowe back in the producer's chair. It's got some real anger ("Hope You're Happy Now", "I Want You") and some very Beatle-y stuff too ("Battered Old Bird"). It was overshadowed a bit by "King of America" which came out only a few months before, but I think it's much better than that album, though maybe not as accessible.

Did not know it was recorded live in the studio....that's probably why i loved it so much. And ues, I loved the Beatley stuff, i remember thinking that at the time - those songs sounded like he had been listening to With the Beatles or Beatles 65....and songs like I want You had such an intense, almost scary desparate aura. Elvis must have going through some heavy heartbreak because the bitterness is so visceral. Its probably my favorite Costello album, even more than the earlier stuff.

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stupidguy2

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71Tele
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Blood & Chocolate is (sorry) a bloody fantastic record, much overlooked. Recorded live in the studio with The Attractions playing great and Nick Lowe back in the producer's chair. It's got some real anger ("Hope You're Happy Now", "I Want You") and some very Beatle-y stuff too ("Battered Old Bird"). It was overshadowed a bit by "King of America" which came out only a few months before, but I think it's much better than that album, though maybe not as accessible.

Did not know it was recorded live in the studio....that's probably why i loved it so much. And ues, I loved the Beatley stuff, i remember thinking that at the time - those songs sounded like he had been listening to With the Beatles or Beatles 65....and songs like I want You had such an intense, almost scary desparate aura. Elvis must have going through some heavy heartbreak because the bitterness is so visceral. Its probably my favorite Costello album, even more than the earlier stuff.

Yep!