I just recieved the Alternate Dirty Work discs. Some really great stuff on it.A lot of Keith singing.I don't know much about those sessions. I heard that another band or studio musicians actually recorded most of the tracks.......is this the case?
Mick and Keith were in the middle of their war and the band was pretty strung out. Can anyone shed light? Also, what are people's thoughts on it. I like it overall. One Hit, Fight, Harlem Shuffle, Get Some Sleep, are the strongest.

From previous experience of Dirty Work threads most people here think it's practically their worst album.

It's one of my favourites. Loads of original stuff. Great variety. Keith totally on form. Mature subject matter sung with great angst and conviction. Songs like Too Much Blood, Must Be Hell, She Was Hot are just immature/contrived and pastiche compared with the Raw Reality of DW. A Real Rock record. Thank you Keith (and Ronnie).

Do it again!

agreed. It's been one of my favorite's as well. I just joined this site a few months ago and it's weird how many people can't seem to get past the Jimmy Miller days.

Keith of course is completely straight

I also think Dirty Work is a strong, underrated album - if Mick was distracted, well his anger feels real, the lyrics/vocal on "Hold Back' are well written & uncompromised, & he doesn't let himself off the hook on that & "Winning Ugly" or the title track. It's often hard to seperate the record from what we as fans know about the circumstances (that goes double for the artists, i.e. Mick's downplaying of Exile - if the recording/creation was a difficult/miserable period it seems to skew their perception of the result - except maybe Keith, who doesnt seem to recall anything other than his one-liners from earlier interviews). Some of the production flourishes are a bit dated (I wish "Sleep" had more of a stripped down production, & I could do w/out some of the background vocals on that & "One Hit") but the guitars are great, & most of the songs are too. I wish I still had my cd of the outtakes. It captures the era well, & is almost completely the flip side of the forced-sounding (tho still sometimes decent dance/rock) Shes's the Boss. I do think its overall better than Undercover, but I like TMBlood, Pretty Beat Up, Undercover (esp the 6:22 version), & Feel On Baby. DW sounds better still w/age - & I recall reading Nick Kent's 'farewell' in Spin after it's release, disclosing Charlie's heroin/meth addiction, etc - had they broke up (glad they didn't) it would have been a strong farewell. I'd like to here "Harlem Shuffle" "One Hit" (& some of the others) live again.

Well, I like JM days, ofcourse and I like all albums from GHS to Undercover, (except IORR). But Exile and Dirty Work have an immediacy about them. An uncluttered, direct approach. (Yes, I know SG is spirited and lively but Keith's guitar is not so crisp and strong).

it was a keith/ronnie album.. mick had justed released SHE'S THE BOSS in 1985 and mick was out promoting it, when keith and the stones were working on the album.keef was not very happy..
plus there was that live aid concert, that the stones turned down but mick went with bowie and sang... anyway i think it hurt and the album should have never been released untill jagger was willing to spend more time on it.. chuck leavell was given credit for the song back to zero. ivan neville did some bass on hold back.tom waits is said to be on, sleep tonight. keef was friends with tom. the other thing is that keith was busy playing on a lot of other peoples albums that year..he was a busy man in 1985.the year of keith..
had it with you has jagger/richards/woodie. but this was a rolling stones album. you don't find too many other musicians on this album. not any more than you find on some of their other efforts, like black and blue album, etc.
i like the album..but i like all stones album... sadly i put this as the stones worst album ever recorded.....

i forgot..jimmy page plays on one hit, booby womack, guitar on hold back and h.s.
and ivan neville plays some bass again on back to z..
jagger always gives some light to keith tunes.. gives you a more up beat sound.
like the some girls album, (mostly a mick album)
keith's albums are a little darker.like exile, (great album).
anyway you don't feel very good after you listen to the dirty works, makes you feel a little down..no real soul to it....like they did it to make good on their record company contract.. let it rock!

Always loved "Had It With You". Sounds cynical, cool and has that tongue-in-cheek-tone that suites Jagger so well. Great song.

Edward

"I hope you spend longer listening to this record than we did making it."

I strongly recommend the Alternate Dirty Work outtakes disc. Bobby Womack sings 3-4 songs with Mick on it. There is also a killer blues track that Keith or roonie sings and Mick plays harp. The guitar playing on that song is very much like John Lee Hooker. I agree that this is a very raw album in terms of emotion. The guitars on Fight are just plain harsh. I agree with Hot Stuff that it's not a "happy" album. Neither is GHS.

Don't get me wrong....I love the Jimmy Miller era. It;s just that there is so much other good stuff to talk about and it really seems crazy to compare every Stones disc to the "BIG 4".

Would have been a stronger album with the song Strictly Memphis and perhaps a blues song rather than Back To Zero. There is a song from one of the Dirty Work sessions that is pretty long and its sort of duet with Mick and Bobby Womack, which is also a pretty solid song.

it's a dog...period. you can talk about this song or that song being not so bad or whatever...but, every band has a worst album, and this gets that distinction for the Stones.

hi mr. edward,
i love, had it with you and sleep tonight, i think they are some of the best tracks the stones have even done.. had it with you is a very cool song!
sadly the 6th stone, stu, dies after the album is recorded.

I've always liked the guitar break on the song "Dirty Work" and wished they would play it live. There are a couple of losers on the album, most notably "Back To Zero", but there some good stuff in there as well.

My opinion may not be worth much as my personal favorite is "Black And Blue". I listened to it a million times as my parents were going through a divorce and I was suffering my first real broken heart at the time!



"No Anchovies, Please"

Do we know what songs Stu played on?

Can someone PLEASE explain what is wrong with Back To Zero? (A Rhetorical question: the answer is "No").

Beat is great. Groove is great.
Slurry, funky bass is great.
Subtle, talkative guitars are great.
Percussion ditto.
Vocals ditto.
Lyrics superb ("There's a monkey living on my back, I can feel my spine begin to crack"!)
Real tension.

The sax break.
The whole live, spontaneous, fresh feel.

What's "not to like?". (Same rhetorical question but translated into yank-speak).


Also don't understand this depressive take on the album. Rockers are exhiliarating. Liberating. Harlem Shuffle is a glorious celebration.

Too Rude, light and playful.
Sleep Tonight, soulful.

Darkest and most negative is Fight. But it triumphs on the strength of Keith's rhythm alone. He lets go. (Compare the more stylised and restrained Too Tough).

An afterthought: This came out when vinyl was still dominant.

It had two sides. You'd finish listening to one side before putting on the other. Or you could make a choice between sides. Or play same the same side twice!

The effect of listening top all ten tracks in a row might be quite different.
Too Rude was a definite end to the first side, with its repeated guitar loop.

Punctuation. Pause. Cup of tea, or whatever.

Then an upbeat start to the next side. And what an amazingly creative bass line. Then a complete tonal shift into the next groove. Thae into a couple of full-on rockers. Then the night-cap.

It's very well sequenced.

So shove it, Darling. Or preferably........

Shake a Tail-feather Baby!

If you like those tunes, more power to you. Back to Zero, IMO, is just a complete joke of a song. it purports to be a serious political statement - but like most/many attempts by the latter-day Stones it comes off as misguided drivel. Musically - it gives me the hives, it's so bad....but, hey, that's just me (and millions of others :-)

Couldn't agree with you more Deirdre!

Back to Zero isnt the strongest but it works in the context of an overall very strong album - & Winning Ugly is a great 'political' (sort of) song for the 80s. It's a fairly dark album but it also rocks out - & btw I think the only cut w/ stu is the solo finale/tribute 'Key to the Highway' - I need to get the outtakes again!!

John R - you call DW a very strong album. Just as a point of reference - give me your idea of a weak album. I'd just be curious....

Yep I'm with T&A - it is a dog of an album.

I think alot of us fans get bored listening to their better albums, so when we put on an album like DW we suddenly think it's quite good because we haven't listened to it for a while.

Listen to the album as many times as Beggars or LIB and you'll find out it's crap!

Esky

I think that the weakest point of Dirty Work are the drums: apart of the horryfing '80's sound, Charlie doesn't swing at all; he plays everything straight, and there is no interplay at all. The drums are a very important part of the Stones' sound, and the bad conditions of Charlie during those sessions definitely affect the whole record. I therefore agree with who rates Dirty Work among their worst efforts; to me, Undercover is a much better album.

"got to be worked on
don't have no bark nor bite..."

Many things are wrong with DW. But songs like One Hit, Harlem Shuffle, Had It With You, Fight, Sleep Tonight and the title track are all great. That makes 5 great songs - how can it be so bad then?

because most of the others are shite

(ps thats 6 songs you mentioned as being 'great', not 5. IMO there's only two - Sleep Tonight and One Hit. Fight is pretty good and a few others are reasonable. However, Winning Ugly and Back To Zero are turgid and Hold Back is probably the one song in their entire back catalogue to be completely unlistenable)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-01-21 14:53 by Gazza.

Actually, I like the instrumental part in Hold Back, despite the awful drum sound and production. Winning Ugly and Back to Zero are pure crap.

And of course you're right Gazza - I mentioned 6 songs

I like the attempt without bass (Had It With You). Tight guitar (Keith) and great vocals and harp. Harlem Shuffle is recorded great. I think many would have appreciated the song more if it wasn't a cover.

Back to Zero is the WORST stones song ever........easily!

hi,
stu isn't on this album.. i don't know why? i know he had his own band..a lot of times stu isn't playing for the stones..i don't know why, it could be jagger richards wanted a new sound?

Because Chuck took over............Stu is on the Album: Key to the Highway is Stu on piano (tribute).

Not opinion (now) of Dirty Work, but Deidre's remark of the "good ol' vinyl times" was interesting. It seems that the concept of album consisting of two equal, coherent sides has faden away.. I might sound like an old fart but I think something is lost in the process.

Maybe because of that I have never really grasped Voodoo Lounge or Bridges To Babylon, or couldn't figure out certain places for singular songs in the whole package; both of them sound a bit formless or shapeless - not those ending of one side and the beginning of other -moments at all (like Keith has sad musician's best friend is a silence - and he is the master of using the dramatics of empty spaces). Now there are only a big line of successive songs. There are not anymore B-side of Tattoo You, "El Mocambo side", four different sides of Exile, if you know what I mean - now in these CD times it is difficult to understand the composition and dynamics of, for example, the mighty Exile; how the songs "Rocks Off", "Sweet Virginia", "Happy" and "All Down The Line" start their own sides of the album, how "Let It Loose" fades away and ends the side three, etc. It seems like in that old vinyl format every song had a more distinctive role and place in the wholeness. Well, maybe this is just nostalgy..

- Doxa

Rorty Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> It seems like in that old vinyl format every song
> had a more distinctive role and place in the
> wholeness. Well, maybe this is just nostalgy..

No, you are right!

Can't agree more!