SW is a very, very good album with some excellent songs on it but a damn pity they left Fancy Man Blues & Wish I'd never met you off it - they should've swapped those 2 for blinded by love and hold to your heart.

pool's in but the patio ain't dry

I'm sorry but Almost Hear you Sigh and slipping away are pure classics.
My only complaint is they should have but Fancy Man Blues on the album
and Cook Cook Blues, than the whole album would be classic.

<hold to your heart.>

You mean they should have skipped both Hold On To Your Hat AND Hearts For Sale?

agree , fancy man blues would have been awesome on steel wheels .

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whitem8
Steel Wheels... I was so excited. And was waiting for a one two punch to tell the world they were back. But it was........so boring. It had its moments, Continental Drift, and the writing was solid as well. But it just felt so flat. Somewhat emotionless and sterile. Again, the production just didn't do the songs justice.

That was my experience with it as well.

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Stoneage
There is no proof whatsoever that everyone hates Steel Wheels. This is a stupid thread to begin with...

Don't be so negative! And believe me, I have proof....

I always thought - I don't have any of the UMe reissues except for SOME GIRLS thanks to the bullshit of not making Disc 2 a seperate release - that the Virgin reissue skimped on the packaging of this album. Which seemed rather strange since when the reissues came out in 1993 it wasn't that long since STEEL WHEELS was out seeing that it was their most recent album and it did sell particularly well.

Virgin made the record look different. The inside artwork was cropped or not fully represented.

I'm not sure if it ever sounded any different either. The 1970s LPs indeed sounded different. I got DIRTY WORK for shits and giggles (and to have all of the Virgin reissues, of course).

think the reissues came out 94?

I don't hate it, but it doesn't belong to their greatest works.

Sad Sad Sad 6/10
Mixed Emotions 6/10
Terrifying 6/10
Hold on to Your Hat 9/10
Hearts for Sale 7/10
Blinded by Love 7/10

Rock and a Hard Place 6/10
Can't Be Seen 8/10
Almost Hear You Sigh 10/10
Continental Drift 3/10
Break the Spell 9/10
Slipping Away 7/10

Average: 7/10

in my opinion.

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sonyzzz
I'm sorry but Almost Hear you Sigh and slipping away are pure classics.
My only complaint is they should have but Fancy Man Blues on the album
and Cook Cook Blues, than the whole album would be classic.

Cook Cook Blues is b-side material and nothing more. Its a throwaway. They could record ten songs like that a day if they wanted. Isnt it an 'Undercover' outtake? Bizarre choice for a release.

Agree with you about AHYS and Slipping Away. The latter, had it been recorded around the same era as 'Wild Horses' would be widely celebrated as one of their greatest ballads. 'Slipping Away' is possibly Keith's best ever vocal on a Stones record - the way he sings 'one of them will be round soon' in the final chorus gives me goosebumps every time. Beautifully soulful. 'Continental Drift' is the real gem for me, though.

I dont think its a major Stones record and like many 80s albums, the production hasnt aged well(the sound on the 'monitor mixes' blows the official release out of the water), but those three songs are probably in the top five Rolling Stones recordings from the entire second half of their career.

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GasLightStreet
I always thought - I don't have any of the UMe reissues except for SOME GIRLS thanks to the bullshit of not making Disc 2 a seperate release - that the Virgin reissue skimped on the packaging of this album. Which seemed rather strange since when the reissues came out in 1993 it wasn't that long since STEEL WHEELS was out seeing that it was their most recent album and it did sell particularly well.

Virgin made the record look different. The inside artwork was cropped or not fully represented.

I'm not sure if it ever sounded any different either. The 1970s LPs indeed sounded different. I got DIRTY WORK for shits and giggles (and to have all of the Virgin reissues, of course).

Oh it did. The Virgin remasters were so much better than the CBS versions.

not everybody hates it ,

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nico one
not everybody hates it ,

It's the last great Rolling Stones album.

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Gazza

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GasLightStreet
I always thought - I don't have any of the UMe reissues except for SOME GIRLS thanks to the bullshit of not making Disc 2 a seperate release - that the Virgin reissue skimped on the packaging of this album. Which seemed rather strange since when the reissues came out in 1993 it wasn't that long since STEEL WHEELS was out seeing that it was their most recent album and it did sell particularly well.

Virgin made the record look different. The inside artwork was cropped or not fully represented.

I'm not sure if it ever sounded any different either. The 1970s LPs indeed sounded different. I got DIRTY WORK for shits and giggles (and to have all of the Virgin reissues, of course).

Oh it did. The Virgin remasters were so much better than the CBS versions.

Steel Wheels did? I didn't notice a difference.

What I meant was I didn't notice a difference in sound with Undercover, Dirty Work and Steel Wheels with the Virgin reissues.

What else there is to say about this album, "Continental Drift" is a gem and would have crowned other albums as well.

I like any Stones album to a certain extent or in parts, even TATTOO YOU, which I am rather alone in having special problems with.

There are several if not great, so rather good songs on STEEL WHEELS. I can't find the words for it, but there is something about the sound of the music that does not quite appeal to me the way a Stones album usually does. In addition, as to some of the even good songs, I acknowledge that they have some quality, but they are not, all the same, completely to my liking as to how the melodies go.

The weaker material on DIRTY WORK in some way to me sounds more Stones-like than STEEL WHEELS in all such diversity there is for such a characterisation , and I am often surprised that the songs there seem to a non-musician to be rather well played.

However, in between them these two albums, to this listener that is, each has its moments, when one does not expect too much on a renewed hearing, but all the same constitute one compararative slump in this band's career.

I don't like to knock issues of my favourite band, but if all should be seen as equally good, nothing would be given special praise. There are nuances in less favourable critque, though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-29 20:21 by Witness.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Cook Cook Blues a Dirty Work outtake? I always thought that even the released version was recorded circa 1985. Put that one on Dirty Work, it needed all the help it could get.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-30 01:47 by shadooby.

Liked Blinded By Love. Other than that this was no great new Stones record and a far cry from even something as weak as BlacknBlue from years earlier! Face it, they've never put out a truely good album since 1981. And that was a collection of oldies even at the time. The Stones peaked in the 70's, were great in the 60's, and skated ever since.

I think Almost hear you hear you sigh is such a classic that 30 years from
now, when they discover it will be copied in all forms blues, rock and jazz.

Absolutely loved it when I bought it on vinyl in late 1989. Hasn't aged well in the slightest and has slowly become my least favorite Stones album in the 24 years since its release. It's similar in some senses to their lone 70s dud, IORR, in that the entire thing save three songs sounds mailed in. Also similar to Bridges To Babylon in that B2B sounded fresh and exciting in 1997 but in the 16 years since its release it's revealed its utter lack of quality songwriting or memorability. Definitely think the Stones sound way more inspired on the angry, snarling predecessor Dirty Work, and for those on this thread who have claimed that the production on SW was an improvement over DW, I just don't get it. It's even *more* slick, even *more* 80s/dated sounding and, unlike Dirty Work which sounded unlike any album they released before or since (nothing they've done touches the genuine anger and Mick's bizarre shout-singing on that record), it sounded like they were in a board room deciding "what do people want out of a Stones album?" Very clinical and utterly insincere. The songwriting is weak on SW; the production stinks; there's a bazillion extra players on it, just like every Stones album starting with Undercover (but not including ABB ); the lyrics are awful most of the time.

If I ever get it out, it's for the lone three standouts (again, much like IORR whose only standouts were the title cut, TWFNO and Fingerprint File): Terrifying, Almost Hear You Sigh and Slipping Away. Slipping Away, IMHO, is the sole classic Stones song on the record and might just be Keith's best ballad not titled Coming Down Again.

The tour had way too many extra musicians on stage and terrible late 80s DX7 synths. Yuck! Charlie's haircut was ace during this tour though! He was still sporting said 'do when I started the 6th grade in 1991 and I started slicking my hair back to look like him, not realizing how utterly uncool trying to look like a gray-haired baby boomer was to my classmates.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-05 05:56 by CanYouHearTheMusic.

Steel Wheels is the only great Stones album since Some Girls. It is the last coherent, consistently good album with their original, classic rhythm section. This is not an A-Plus album because it lacks a monster single. This is the last Stones album that I will listen to and have that special feeling that I'm listening to the real Rolling Stones creating something new. It has more spunk to it than IORR ever had. It's better than Black and Blue. In fact, it's their second best album post-Exile.

The Stones as a functioning band ended at Leeds in 82. Dirty work was the sound of the band ripping itself apart as it imploded. Quite interesting all the same.
Steel Wheels is, like all the studio albums since, nothing more than an excuse to go on tour and rake in the cash.
Later on they discovered they didn't have to go thru the charade, and would just go on tour anyway, on the back of a greatest hits compilation or some spurious anniversary date.
Don't compare these albums to anything pre '82. It's not the same band. The band you loved is gone. I'd even go as far as to say that if you can't see that you don't even know what the Rolling Stones are, they are not this "Plastic dry hump" imitation corporate co#k sucking money making machine! they used to be artists.

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vertigojoe
The Stones as a functioning band ended at Leeds in 82. Dirty work was the sound of the band ripping itself apart as it imploded. Quite interesting all the same.
Steel Wheels is, like all the studio albums since, nothing more than an excuse to go on tour and rake in the cash.
Later on they discovered they didn't have to go thru the charade, and would just go on tour anyway, on the back of a greatest hits compilation or some spurious anniversary date.
Don't compare these albums to anything pre '82. It's not the same band. The band you loved is gone. I'd even go as far as to say that if you can't see that you don't even know what the Rolling Stones are, they are not this "Plastic dry hump" imitation corporate co#k sucking money making machine! they used to be artists.

Good lord I think I spilled some coffee on my shirt.

I understand what you're saying, but understand this...they had 2 decades of unprecedented success, and then they slipped into middle age. Mick had his I think quite understandable 'mid life crisis' starting with 'State Of Shock' and continuing through She's The Boss, Ruthless People and Primitive Cool.

Obviously Dirty Work sits in the middle of that.

So, Steel Wheels was coming to terms with that, settling into middle age and now old age. The creativity is dulled but the performances are still great...maybe not 1973 but at a very high level still.

It's the same band, just older and you either embrace and accept it, or get your knickers in a twist about something that you can't change.

I love STEEL WHEELS. It's been in my car's CD player for a week and I've not been tempted to change it. What prompted me to "revive" it, of all things, was seeing the movie CLEOPATRA for the first time on TV recently, and I wanted to listen to BLINDED BY LOVE more closely.

Characters in BLINDED BY LOVE:

"On a barge that was burnished with gold." Mark Anthony and Cleopatra:


"The secrets that two lovers share/Should never have been betrayed":


“A parvenu second-hand lady.” Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-05 08:20 by Title5Take1.

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Title5Take1
I love STEEL WHEELS. It's been in my car's CD player for a week and I've not been tempted to change it. What prompted me to "revive" it, of all things, was seeing the movie CLEOPATRA for the first time on TV recently, and I wanted to listen to BLINDED BY LOVE more closely.

Characters in BLINDED BY LOVE:

"On a barge that was burnished with gold." Mark Anthony and Cleopatra:


"The secrets that two lovers share/Should never have been betrayed":


“A parvenu second-hand lady.” Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward:

It's a fantastic Stones song. Up there with their very best.

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24FPS
Steel Wheels is the only great Stones album since Some Girls. It is the last coherent, consistently good album with their original, classic rhythm section. This is not an A-Plus album because it lacks a monster single. This is the last Stones album that I will listen to and have that special feeling that I'm listening to the real Rolling Stones creating something new. It has more spunk to it than IORR ever had. It's better than Black and Blue. In fact, it's their second best album post-Exile.

It doesn't even come CLOSE to touching a single thing they did in the 70s; to say it has more spunk than the (also kinda boring) IORR is a bit much but to say it's "the second best album since Exile" is to have permanently convinced yourself that a dated 80's relic that commences and flat-out defines their Vegas sound is a masterpiece. I get that some will like it (we're talking about the Stones here!) but to mention it in the same breath as *any* album they made between the classic years (1962-1981) is to be utterly delusional. Especially considering Tattoo You and Goats Head Soup wipe the FLOOR with this album, as do Black and Blue and Emotional Rescue. Heck, the two predecessors are both better and of those two Undercover is certainly waaaaay more daring! Ah well. We always disagree on this topic and are just having a little fun here.

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vertigojoe
The Stones as a functioning band ended at Leeds in 82. Dirty work was the sound of the band ripping itself apart as it imploded. Quite interesting all the same.
Steel Wheels is, like all the studio albums since, nothing more than an excuse to go on tour and rake in the cash.

Don't compare these albums to anything pre '82. It's not the same band.

+1

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shadooby
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Cook Cook Blues a Dirty Work outtake? I always thought that even the released version was recorded circa 1985. Put that one on Dirty Work, it needed all the help it could get.

Supposedly it was recorded during the UNDERCOVER sessions, although FLASHPOINT + says it's from 1985...

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CanYouHearTheMusic

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vertigojoe
The Stones as a functioning band ended at Leeds in 82. Dirty work was the sound of the band ripping itself apart as it imploded. Quite interesting all the same.
Steel Wheels is, like all the studio albums since, nothing more than an excuse to go on tour and rake in the cash.

Don't compare these albums to anything pre '82. It's not the same band.

+1

So maybe the question is, are we better of with the imposters after 82 or would we have been better off without them? I vote with them...

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24FPS

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nico one
not everybody hates it ,

It's the last great Rolling Stones album.

I agree...and Mixed Emotions the last great song.