The Stones’ Some Girls Super Deluxe Box Set is a Disappointment – a comment to Mr. Jagger
Date: November 21, 2011 16:53
Apologies for the length of this elaborate post but I feel that this has to be said – and said in detail...please just skip to the end if it is too long.
The Rolling Stones may have made better, more essential and significant albums than Some Girls in their history, but never a more important one. Sure, 1968’s brilliant Beggar’s Banquet pulled them out of the psychedelic cul-de-sac they had painted themselves into with Their Satanic Majesties Request and thrust them back into the forefront of rock’s most vital era, but by 1978 the Stones had been in a perceptible 5 year decline in cultural and artistic relevance. As much as true-blue fans love and champion Goat’s Head Soup, It’s Only Rock And Roll, and Black And Blue (and to a lesser extent 1977’s Love You Live) the Rolling Stones in the mid-1970’s were perceived as slipping slowly away from the upper echelon of commercially, artistically, and culturally relevant rock and roll bands. Their massive tours were spectacular celebrations but their cultural currency was perceptibly diminished from only a few years past. Their albums were getting very mixed reviews and the band seemed artistically adrift – especially after Mick Taylor left in late 1974. For a fan like me, arguing with peers that the Stones were still the best band in the world (as essentially meaningless as that argument was) during those years was seemingly an exercise in faith over reason. They were being outsold by bands like Aerosmith, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, Boston, and Bad Company – not to mention elites like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd – and had not created a really great album since Exile. 1976’s Black and Blue was eclectic and funky and totally irrelevant, with different guitar lineups on nearly every track. When the punks appeared late in that era and kicked the Stones to the curb as another creaky relic from a self-indulgent, bloated rock music scene the casual fan could be forgiven for thinking that the Stones’ moment had passed. By late 1977 / early 1978 – with punk and disco at their cultural apotheosis – the Stones seemed a bit passé.
And then in the summer of 1978 The Rolling Stones changed the entire narrative arc of their career. To be young and alive in that summer meant you had one soundtrack to your days and nights: the Stones’ Some Girls. A pithy, exhilarating montage of disco, garage slop, punk, R&B, Blues and New Wave, Some Girls was the Stones’ detonation back into cultural, artistic, and commercial relevance. The album seemingly took everything that was in the air at the time and blasted it onto vinyl. Some Girls perfectly captured the Zeitgeist...it defined the moment. Every die-hard fan who stuck with them through their mid-70’s wane was thrilled and felt justified in their faith, and everybody who had written them off as yesterday’s papers was back on the bandwagon with two feet in. The Stones had recaptured their magic and proper place in the rock pantheon.
The back-story is fascinating: In late 1977 and early 1978 the Stones – pushed to proving their relevancy to the rock audience by the younger generation of peers and punkers – re-grouped in Paris and conjured one of their most artistically fertile periods of studio creativity. Track after new track burned with renewed energy, ferocity and resolve. One can hear in famous bootlegs of those Pathe Marconi Studio sessions – like the definitive 5CD Girls Pills & Powders – how inspired, fierce and focused the Stones were in that period leading up to Some Girls. The Stones had something to prove.
Therefore one would imagine that over 3 decades after the original release a Deluxe Box Set of this most crucial of albums from one of the most productive (and well-documented) periods in the history of the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band would be worthy of a definitive statement of purpose. One would think that fans who wanted to relive and dive deeper into the music of that era – and new fans who want to find out what the excitement was all about – would be given a worthy retrospective. I don’t think this is what we have been presented...in fact, I look at the new Some Girls Deluxe box set as an ungenerous missed opportunity.
Comparing the spectacular, comprehensive Deluxe sets for defining albums by the Beach Boys (SMiLE) and U2 (Achtung Baby) that were recently released with the new Some Girls Deluxe set leaves me feeling let down. The Stones’ offering is clearly inferior.
U2’s Box Set is a 10-disc box, which includes six CDs (with remixes and alternate versions), four DVDs, a hardback book and 16 art prints. It includes the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, b-sides and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions. It also has 4 (!) documentary and concert DVDs including "From The Sky Down", Zoo TV, all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material. My remastered version of the album has 26 songs (including a cover of the Stones’ Paint It Black) – and it costs less than the Stones’ Some Girls Deluxe set!!
The Beach Boys SMiLE Box Set has 5 CD’s and 2 LP’s and 2 singles, including a 60 page hardcover book, a beautiful poster and drawings and different stereo mixes...about 140 songs in total. It is spectacularly completist – and it also costs less than the Stones’ Some Girls Deluxe set!!
The Stones Some Girls Box Set is niggardly in comparison. The original album, plus a CD with 12 new tracks...some remixed and overdubbed with (at times unnecessary) new vocals. There is a DVD with some videos (2 from an old ABC-TV special) and concert performances of 3 songs, one single (BoB/Whip), a book, some postcards a print by Helmut Newton and a poster. What the f*ck? I know this will not be 'politically correct' and I will be slammed for writing this, but I am at a loss as to why the fanbase is not outraged at the stingy presentation from the Glimmer Twins.
I would say to Messr. Jagger and Richards...do you not realize that a lot of your long-time fans have bought this album now 4 freaking times? First as an LP. Then a cassette or CD. Then the 1994 Virgin remasters by Bob Ludwig (not to mention the over-compressed and brittle 2009 version which some got duped into buying) and now...this? Oh, we are indeed thankful for the 12 “new” extra tracks. But was it too much to ask to give your fans market value and be a bit more comprehensive and creative in your offering? Why release only the same original material in the same form and sequence (plus the aforementioned 12 extra tracks) when you have so many incredible alternate takes in the can? Like what you ask, Mr. Jagger? Well, for a start what about the magnificent alternate/longer versions of some of the best songs on the original album?
What about the 12” long-single DJ version of Miss You – one of the best dance-floor tracks in history – and the defining song of Summer ’78. There exists an 8:37 version and a nearly 12 minute version in the vaults...where is it on this set? What about the extended version of When the Whip Comes Down? There is a pulverizing 6:14 extended version and the apocalyptic (original?) 10 minute version which is arguably the greatest pure garage-rock track of the 1970’s. You know...the one with the 2 extra verses:
Mr. Rockafeller he won’t give me no load
...and Mr. Brown He don’t want me back home,
Well I love my momma and she loves her son
But it’s so goddamn hard to go back where I started from...
(repeating and altering an earlier stanza)
Mamma and Papa told me I was just crazy to stay
I was just lost in New York I was just lost in L.A.
But I got some money now so I took the plane
Wherever I go they all treat me the same...
How could you not include those amazing versions in the box set? Furthermore, where is the vicious 6:35 long version of the title track? That’s a really nasty cooker. And the fantastic longer version of Just My Imagination? Or the super-duper raw (original) alternate take of Faraway Eyes? And where is the propulsive 45 seconds-longer version of Respectable with the extra choruses? And Keith’s long-version take of Before They Make Me Run? A lot of these alternate/original takes are far superior (at least more interesting) to the originals that everyone has in their collections since 33 years...and you couldn’t throw them into the mix? Why?
And where are the following essential missing tracks: Everlasting Is My Love, Fiji Gin, It's All Wrong, The Way She Held Me Tight, Some People Tell Me, Never Let Her Go, Never Make Me Cry, Disco Music...the easy-reggae version of Start Me Up...the 7:30 minute rockier version of Claudine...shit...where is Everything is Turning to Gold...Think I'm Going Mad...Munich Hilton...??!!! What the hell were you thinking?
I can (kind of) understand you not including Jah Is Not Dead (not truly finished til ’79) or alternate versions of Black Limousine, Indian Girl, Hang Fire (amazingly tough and pummeling and twice as long as the Tattoo You album version), and Start Me Up – even though they belonged to these sessions – because you might be saving them for the box sets of the two subsequent albums...but if you are not planning those box sets why didn’t you throw them in also?? Do you not realize that widely distributed bootleg albums like Girls Pills & Powders and Place Pigalle have already exposed a lot of hard-core fans to myriad versions of all these missing tracks from your Paris sessions...and in excellent fidelity?
All of the track I have mentioned have finished or nearly finished vocal and instrumental tracks. Sure it might have taken a bit more work to finish up Munich Hilton and Disco Music and some others...but all in all most of these tracks are – with a bit of clean-up – ready to go.
You retort, Mr. Jagger, that only the hard-core fans are aware of the existence of these tracks...well who the hell do you think is going to shell out between $150 and $179 for the Some Girls Deluxe box set...casual fans? As a businessman you should know that your only market for this product is exclusively the hard-core fan. Yes...the fan who already owns Girls Pills & Powder, Place Pigalle, and myriad bootlegged versions of all these songs. And these fans would have loved a definitive overview coming from your hand.
If the Beach Boys can give their fans 140 songs of alternate takes and versions – even if some are merely unfinished snippets – why couldn’t you? If U2 can give their fans a completist version of their Berlin sessions, as well as 4 DVD documentaries and concert films why can’t you? These bands have given fan of SMiLE and Achtung Baby magnitudes in value compared to what you have given Some Girls fans...and you still charge more than them.
Do you not think, Mr. Jagger, that perhaps a re-mastered live album (or two) of the 1978 tour would also have been an appropriate addition to the box set...a real honest-to-goodness double-CD live album of say...the Passaic, New Jersey Capitol Theater concert...and an entire DVD or two of a live filmed concert...like the Texas concert you will now release as a stand-alone DVD (and of course at extra charge)!? Or perhaps something like the famous Handsome Girls set where you could have offered several live concert CD’s from that tour...hell...even as direct downloads with a code one gets by buying the box set. Or 2 or 3 more Pro-Shot concert DVD’s...something...anything to give fans a more extensive and inclusive insight into this period. Why so scrimpy with extra material from this era?
What I am saying here is that the Paris sessions for Some Girls were historic, as they fundamentally provided material for the 3 subsequent albums (give or take) – a trilogy considered the last moment of true greatness for The Rolling Stones – and the concert tour following the album's release was your rawest and most vital in years, and as such this material is essential and deserves the in-depth, comprehensive treatment that is sorely missing in the new box set.
Lastly, Mr. Jagger, as glad as your fans are for the Some Girls box set with the newly released songs and the new DVD and postcards and book and such, and as much as we love the original Some Girls album and its subsequent tour, by neglecting some of the most vital and interesting material from that period you essentially left the possibility of a truly extraordinary and complete retrospective of this exciting and creative period for the Rolling Stones standing in the shadows.
Apologies for the rant. I'll make myself an herbal tea and go back to listening to We Had It All.