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Big Al
A terrific track. Bridges To Babylon is overly long and patchy in places, but Out Of Control and Saint Of Me are two genuine moments of shinning majesty.

I would add "How Can I Stop" to the list.

- Doxa

I like Flip The Switch as well, even though I think they could have worked a bit more on it.

Gunface is below everything on Dirty Work, including Back To Zero. Mick Jagger's ultimate low point in song writing, imo.

He must have been proud of it, though, since he kept talking about that song, and its "raw lyrics" in interviews after the release..

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DandelionPowderman

Gunface is below everything on Dirty Work, including Back To Zero. Mick Jagger's ultimate low point in song writing, imo.

He must have been proud of it, though, since he kept talking about that song, and its "raw lyrics" in interviews after the release..

Yeah, "Gunface" is one of those tunes that doesn't stand two listenings. But I still would reserve the 'worst Jagger Rolling Stones tune ever' to that "Juiced" song. I really can't understand why so many people seem to rate the song rather high - to me it is one of those very rare Stones tunes that I actually feel painful while listening to it. It doesn't work at all, and I don't get the joke either, if there is one.

Altogether BRIDGES TO BABYLON is so damn uneven album - probably their most ever - that not even the very highlights it has cannot rise its value very high, and it is rather odd listening experience as a whole. I think due to those low points - there are too many of them, including those two repitive "aaaaaaaaaaaaalwaaayyys/aaaaaalllreaaadyyy" ballads - and the odd choice to end the album with two slow Keith tunes, I skipped the album at the time and rated it even under VOODOO LOUNGE then (the latter does not have highlights, but not either so clear lowpoints either). It took me years to appreciate it, and see the value of its highlights.

The highlights are to me, like mentioned earlier, "Out of Control", "Saint of Me", and "How Can I Stop", which I rate about their strongest individual songs since TATTOO YOU days. I also like "Anybody Seen My Love" (people here don't like to like it, but I think it is one of the catchiest Stones tunes during modern times), and "Too Tight" (a rare fresh spark for a 'modern' Stones rocker). The other Richards ballad has a nice atmosphere, even though being a bit too long prelude for "How Can I Stop". I still don't know what to think of "Flip The Switch". They sound too old there...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-09-11 14:32 by Doxa.

It it mainly the production that svcks on "Juiced". Live it sounded fantastic, imo, a really nice blues track.

Many people really hate it, but I really like the B-side, "Anyway You Look At It". More precisely, I like the mood of it. It real and sincere - some nice acoustic guitars in there. Mick could have worked more on the melody lines, perhaps..

Love the song, love the album (especially Gunface and Might As Well Get Juiced)!

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DandelionPowderman
It it mainly the production that svcks on "Juiced". Live it sounded fantastic, imo, a really nice blues track.

I probably have made this analogy earlier, but listening it reminds me of listening to ELECTRIC MUDDY. Blues guys so totally lost in modern soundscape that it sounds embarrassing... Muddy probably was more or less forced to 'modernize' his sound, but Jagger is there at his own will and trying to be hip...

My hunch is that Jagger didn't write it as a blues song per se - in which catagory there is nothing to write home about either - but he had this sound monster scenario already in his mind. I usually respect the experimentalism, and trying to do something novel, but this time the result is just simply so awful that I can't see any value in it.... I think it is worse than "Let's Work", which at least works and is coherent in its own world. [You already used the "Back to Zero" card, so...><]

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-09-11 15:01 by Doxa.

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DandelionPowderman

1998 and also why do we have a picture from 2003

Juiced .... Mick had digested way too much Fat Possum



ROCKMAN

Good question! And where is the video that had been on YT for ages of the performance??

Yeah, "Juiced" is much more tolerable in live surroundings, since it is always a pleasure to listen the Stones playing simple blues pattern, and, in this case, being rather 'experimental'. But damn, Jagger sounds awful... not so lamb- or cow-like as in original, but still... I think the whole way Jagger sings is just too irrating to my ears, the song cannot be saved, no matter how 'bluesy' it gets...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-09-11 15:30 by Doxa.

I do like the only version I have heard of "Might As Well Be Juiced", to me it is an attraction the way it is arranged and produced. And I might like to add, I appreciate the sequence of songs "Saint of Me", "Might As Well Be Juiced" and "Always Suffering". I would not have liked "Saint of Me" to the same extent, I believe, without it belonging to this sequence of songs.

Whereas so far, apart from "Gunface", the only version I have heard, and against common judgement, "Out of Control" is a song that does not work for me. It is a weak point to me. It will be interesting when I come home to listen to a live version, which I have not heard up to now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-09-11 15:34 by Witness.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
The only Keith-quote I've seen on this song is this:

"Out of Control has that bass riff from Papa Was a Rolling Stone... (H)ey, if anybody can do that (joke), it's us (laughs). Mick played the harmonica solo on that one. He's getting better, man".

- Keith Richards, 1997

[timeisonourside.com]

A riff rip off from a soul tune? Obviously, it is a Keith song then...><

- Doxa

Out of Control is a Keith song. It started out as something called Vietnamese Object or something...

Why do people keep saying OOC is a Keith tune?
The quote of Mick that he wrote it was posted a couple of times...in this thread.
Just have a listen, it's all Mick.

Btw... it's Mick who is the soul fan.
He can't shut up when he's talking 'bout people like Solomon Burke (and rightfully so!).

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BowieStone
Why do people keep saying OOC is a Keith tune?
The quote of Mick that he wrote it was posted a couple of times...in this thread.
Just have a listen, it's all Mick.

Btw... it's Mick who is the soul fan.
He can't shut up when he's talking 'bout people like Solomon Burke (and rightfully so!).

But it was Keith who ripped off a horn riff from a Martha And The Vandellas song - or saw a dream of it while sleeping one night - and transformed it to the most well-known guitar riff of all times... You see the pattern there..

- Doxa

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wanderingspirit66


Out of Control is a Keith song. It started out as something called Vietnamese Object or something...

No, it was called "North Korean Entity" if I recall right...

- Doxa

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Doxa

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wanderingspirit66


Out of Control is a Keith song. It started out as something called Vietnamese Object or something...

No, it was called "North Korean Entity" if I recall right...

- Doxa

You're probably thinking of Bangladeshian Remedy, supposedly with Keith on drums in an early take...