Quote
TheBostonStrangler
Dont mess with The GHS.

My 1st post here.

I got into The Stones when I was like 10. All I had was my dads copy of 12 x 5.

I figured all The Stones were was a 60s type band with edgier stuff then The Beatles. I had no idea as a child that stuff like GHS or Exile existed.

I went to the record store and bought GHS. Upon the 1st track DWMRD I was likewtf is this??

I was blown away by the time I got to 100 years ago and Heartbreaker.

Still listening to it 30 years later!

Great LP.

Quote
NICOS
Your first and great post...............still 3 to go for the 15.000 poster on IORR.....

I was a bit disapointed back then when they released it ...........love it from start to finish although I skip "CYH The music"

Quote
GravityBoy
Gravityboy is an anagram of Beggars Banquet.

Quote
Munichhilton

Quote
NICOS
Your first and great post...............still 3 to go for the 15.000 poster on IORR.....

I was a bit disapointed back then when they released it ...........love it from start to finish although I skip "CYH The music"

Thats a crime against all things decent and envelope filtered.
Stop skipping CYH The music immediately

Quote
NICOS
Your first and great post...............still 3 to go for the 15.000 poster on IORR.....

I was a bit disapointed back then when they released it ...........love it from start to finish although I skip "CYH The music"

Quote
jamesfdouglas
Guys, stop taking the piss. Are you guys mis-reading? All I meant was the "Goats" part of "Powergoats" (my band's name) is in reference to the LP "Goats Head Soup" as a tribute.

Quote
stupidguy2

Quote
blueyestoo

Quote
71Tele
This angle isn't discussed much, but there was a nice "sub genre" in the Stones for a few years of Jagger/Taylor collaborations. Winter is one, along with Moonlight Mile and Til The Next Goodbye. I don't necessarily mean songwriting per se, but the two of them were definitely the main band members crafting these songs in the studio, with some interesting results. Time Waits For No One is another one.

This is true. Do you notice the ones you mention have a kind of dreamy melancholy? I really love that. Interesting that's where they tended to go in collaborations. (Except for Ventilator Blues).

The fact that Jagger loved "banging off" Taylor's playing is perhaps no more evident than in Hide Your Love on GHS. It's a great track, kind of call and response between them, really easy and joyous and -- I always think of Taylor surfing with the guitar, riding high on a great wave and then plunging down to to Jagger's refrain. And Jagger's groovin on it, "Alright boy! Yeah! C'mon!"

Winter and If You REally Want to Be My Friend are great examples of that. I always loved the Jagger/Taylor partnership in this very brief period. Jagger had a great feel for minor/minor 7 chords - pretty chords, whether he was playing on the piano or guitar - and Taylor was so great with creating beautiful lines off those chords. Whereas Keith would use more blues-based chords..A-7, D-7 etc...
I still wonder if that riff in Plundered My Soul is a Mick riff....those minor 7 chords have that meloncholy vibe.

Quote
kammpberg
My Review of GHS:

Goats Head Soup – 1973 (US #1; UK#1)
Dancing With Mr. D • 100 Years Ago • Coming Down Again • Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) • Angie •
Silver Train • Hide Your Love • Winter • Can You Hear The Music • Star Star (@#$%&)

Stones Fan – *****
Casual Listener - ****

Goats Head Soup is in many ways, the most interesting Stones album. Without a doubt, it is the most underrated album in their canon, even by The Stones themselves. Yet, it is a perfect distillation of Exile On Main Street. Take Exile’s sprawling landscapes and styles and make it more concise and you have Goats Head Soup. If Exile was a triple album, this would slide in perfectly without the slightest dip in quality. Plus this album has something that Exile didn’t, a blockbuster single that was also a tremendous piece of art. Goats Head Soup peaked at #1 on both sides of the pond topping the US chart for 4 weeks. It also included a very cool, yet creepy “Goats Head Soup” poster insert that characterized the music perfectly.

Unlike Sticky Fingers and Exile, which opened with blistering rock tracks, the mysterious vibe of this album starts off with the opening guitar notes. Jagger starts singing about being down at the graveyard and one can picture oneself with him in some Louisiana swamp. Dancing With Mr. D picks up a nice steady groove, with Charlie slightly behind the beat as only had can. The song absolutely oozes with a loose and muddy feel, slightly speeding up as it moves along – something fairly unique with the Stones. Jagger’s vocals are buried in the mix (like Exile), and it works perfectly along with the occasional background howls. One has to struggle to understand the lyrics, and that makes it even more effective. I wish the Stones mixed the vocals like this nowadays. I’ve heard people compare this song to Sympathy For The Devil, but that’s just plain silly. If you want to hear some true Stones’ Jamaican “Voodoo Lounge”, jump right in here. Dancing With Mr. D was only played live on their 1973 tour, but they did use it to promote the album on Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert on US TV.

100 Years Ago opens with a tasteful Billy Preston clavinet introduction and Mick takes us on a journey through the woods the other day. Again the vocals are down and the mix is muddy but it creates a warm encompassing mood. After the intro, the band kicks in with a buoyant upbeat feel. After two versus, Taylor comes in with a wah wah solo but again its buried in the background. Then the song comes to a stop and Jagger starts singing about “lazy bones ain’t got no time to waste away”. This is a downright strange interlude – almost tagged on from another song. It’s brief and the band kicks back in with a truly vicious jam led by keyboards and the wah wah guitar wailing in the background till it fades out.

Coming Down Again is a magnificent ballad led by Keith on vocals and supported by Nicky Hopkins’ beautiful piano and heavy wah wah guitar. Keith’s voice is clear and upfront and absolutely magnificent, with Jagger helping on background vocals perfectly. Keith confesses about slipping his tongue in someone else’s pie, but being hungry it ain’t no crime. After a couple of versus, the song reaches even higher when Hopkin’s piano leads into a phenomenal solo break shared by organ and saxophone. It’s relatively short and segues back into the Coming Down Again verse, but it’s so effective. The Stones have an amazing amount of these phenomenal tracks that should be played, but are long lost, just waiting to be re-discovered.
Another exciting keyboard intro, Charlie’s drums kick in and Jagger sings about a tale of police mistaken identity and the death of a lone junkie in an alleyway. Heady stuff but backed by intoxicating upbeat music highlighted with horn accents, wah wah guitar and an infectious “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo” chorus. This is hit material and a classic in my book. Heartbreaker is still performed in concert on occasion, it’s always a highlight for me. This was the 2nd US single (none for the UK) and it peaked at #15.

Angie comes next. It’s simply amongst the most well crafted ballads the bands ever done. It’s simply perfect. Jagger’s vocals have never been better (even when he tastefully whispers “Angie”), the lyrics are beautiful and the music is magnificent. The strings tastefully weave in and out along with the beautiful guitar fills and licks. Charlie’s high hat accents throughout are also a trademark of the song. The song is shorter and tighter than Wild Horses and consequently became a well deserved #1 US single (only #5 in the UK). Angie is a classic in every way.

Silver Train starts off side two. Compared to the rest of the album, it comes off a bit pedestrian and the muddy mix takes away from what could have been a truly powerful rocker. This time Jagger uses harmonica to highlight the verses to nice effect and slide guitar running throughout. When it’s time to solo, we get a nice slide guitar solo with Charlie fully riding the cymbal. Jagger raises his voice now, howling about the Silver Train and the song picks up considerable speed. But again the muddy mix distracts from its power. I still prefer the Stones version over the better-known Johnny Winter cover and surprisingly the Stones used this on Kirschner’s to promote the album as well.

Mick Jagger starts bopping on piano singing about sometimes being up and sometimes being down. Again the vocals are down in the mix and one gets the feeling of being in a room with The Stones doing a spontaneous jam on this song. A nice guitar solo starts to kick in and Hide Your Love builds in its power. What at first seems like a loose jam starts to coalesce into a fun loose song. Exile has a few of these type of jam songs, and Hide Your Love is just as good as them.

Next comes one of the all-time lost classic Stones tracks, Winter. I can listen to this song anytime, anywhere. It’s one of the all time great Stones ballads and it should be a regular on classic radio. The song starts with un-accompanied strummed electric guitar and Jagger this time sings clear and up in the mix about a cold hard Winter. At the end of the 2nd verse, one can quickly hear someone yell “yeah” deep in the background, and you feel it too. Jagger wishes he were out in California but instead he’ll wrap his coat around you. Nicky Hopkins piano comes in, as do the strings to bring you ever higher, but the electric guitar and slide licks really bring it home. As you think the songs ending, in comes a tasteful electric guitar solo, string highlights come in and you’re truly lifting higher and higher. At 5:30 it’s too long and not crafted enough for a single, but album ballads don’t come any better.

Suddenly we hear some odd middle-eastern sounds, joined by an infectious heavy wah wah guitar lick. Jagger sings over this tribal beat “Can You Hear The Music / Magic” and at the minute mark the song transforms with Jagger singing about “love is a mystery” with a beautiful melody. Throughout we have wonderful backdrops of sound: wah wahs, drums, eastern drones and strange horn sounds. It’s very effective and haunting. The song stops and in starts the great wah wah guitar lick that started it. By now we can feel the music and magic as Jagger goes back into the “love is a mystery” verse. The song does not feel forced at all, it’s very organic and natural – as if were in a great tribal jam with The Stones and some Arabian musicians. Open up and this music will really grab you.

Next up is Star Star (@#$%&), the only “classic sounding Chuck Berryish” Stones tune on the album. It’s a great way to end the album. We all know the controversy regarding the various lyrics (giving head to Steve McQueen etc), and because of that the vocal lyrics are seriously buried in the mix and in some points nearly impossible to decipher. When Virgin remastered the album, they cleaned it up in the mix and you were able to more clearly hear about “keeping pussy’s clean and getting John Wayne before he dies”. The new Universal mix seems to be closer to the original muddy mix. The song is a classic Stones rocker regardless and is still a highlight when they play it (especially with the blow-up penis on the ’75 / ’76 tour).

So there you have Goats Head Soup, the Stones all-time underrated album, even though it was a US #1 for 4 weeks and has Angie, a perfect #1 single. This album literally takes you on a musical journey, ala Exile On Main Street, but in a more concise way. This album has as many highs as Exile and no real lows and is just ripe for discovery for any Stones fan or casual listener who’s willing to let music envelop their senses. This album is in no way a let down from what came before. The Stones have only regularly played Angie, Heartbreaker and @#$%& live. Dancing With Mr. D, 100 Years Ago and Silver Train made in some cases rare live debuts only on the 1973 tour and the others have never been played live. But it’s not because of the quality, they just aren’t really live type songs.

Quote
stupidguy2
Jagger had a great feel for minor/minor 7 chords - pretty chords, whether he was playing on the piano or guitar

Quote
EddieByword

Quote
NICOS
Your first and great post...............still 3 to go for the 15.000 poster on IORR.....

I was a bit disapointed back then when they released it ...........love it from start to finish although I skip "CYH The music"

I was listening to this about 5 days ago when a flock of a couple of thousand Jackdaws started appearing in front of my house from the woods across the valley around dusk.........as I watched them do their 'Jackdaw' party spread out in the sky opposite another couple of thousand flew low over my house from behind and flew out to join up with the others, then for the rest of the song they did their thing, I swear to the music, but they weren't of course...........magic

Quote
jamesfdouglas
My band wouldn't be called The Powergoats were it not for this album.

Quote
GravityBoy

Quote
jamesfdouglas
Guys, stop taking the piss. Are you guys mis-reading? All I meant was the "Goats" part of "Powergoats" (my band's name) is in reference to the LP "Goats Head Soup" as a tribute.

I wanted to call my band "The Motherfrackers" but couldn't think of any Stones songs as inspiration.

Quote
Munichhilton

Quote
jamesfdouglas
My band wouldn't be called The Powergoats were it not for this album.

Are you sure it wasn't Elvis' "Power Of My Goat" ?

Direct quote:

Break it, burn it, drag it all around
Twist it, turn it, you can't tear it down
Cos' every minute, every hour you'll be shaken
By the strength and mighty power of my goat


Big hit in '69

Quote
Erik_Snow
THe first ever Rolling Stones album I really got into was also Goats Head Soup....borrowed the vinyl at the library