Why does everyone hate Steel Wheels?

OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I've always liked it. Felt like a new band, new tour coming up, Chuck was present and the return of the The Master Musicians of Jajouka. And a great Slipping Away to end it, what isn't there to love...

Sad Sad Sad
Mixed Emotions
Terrifying
Hold on to Your Hat
Hearts for Sale
Blinded by Love

Rock and a Hard Place
Can't Be Seen
Almost Hear You Sigh
Continental Drift
Break the Spell
Slipping Away



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-25 21:11 by bv.

Production?

I like it i love my record

Slipping away and Almost hear you sigh are great

Good songs, fake plastic sound

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"I'm gonna walk... before they make me run"

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I always play the bootleg, which is fantastic, never the official album.

With all due respect to Chuck, but I think it's funny you name him as one example that the record's good.

Yeah, I suppose the 80s production is the biggest downside to this record.

I like SW and loved most of it when it came out.

Don't care for "Blinded", "Can't Be Seen", or "Rock" but can handle most of the rest.

Really like "Mixed" and "Hearts". "Almost" and "Slipping" are most excellent songs (thanks, Keith).

Love it!

Terrifying, Continental Drift and Almost Hear You Sigh all deserve way more recognition, imo.

I still like about half of it. Production or at least the mastering is the real problem.

The sessions bootleg has a better sound.

sc uk

i love it. one of my favorite stone releases

It was great seeing The Stones in Paris " Steel Wheels Tour".
The songs I do like from this album are;
Terrifying
Rock and a Hard Place
Can' t Be Seen
Almost Hear you sigh
Continental Drift

My introduction to the 'modern-era' Rolling Stones. I guess I first heard it circa the year 2000. I was only familiar with the 60's records, so was totally clueless to how they'd sound 'today' I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I remember being particularly impressed by Keith's soloing on Sad, Sad, Sad. I thought it was a decent effort upon first hearing, and I still feel it holds up pretty well. I prefer it to Voodoo Lounge.

bad production, ugly cover and chuck are 3 reasons to dislike it...on the other hand, there's few cool songs on the album:

Sad Sad Sad
Blinded by Love
Can't Be Seen
Almost Hear You Sigh
Continental Drift
Slipping Away

but it's not that good album - this is the band that made Let It Bleed, Beggars, sticky Fingers, Exile, Goats Head Soup, and other classics...I'm kinda suprised that people feel the need to justify their worst recordings: Undercover, Dirty Work, Steel Wheels. Those are the low points in their career..Bigger Bang, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are far greater than the weak 80's crap.

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runaway
It was great seeing The Stones in Paris " Steel Wheels Tour".
The songs I do like from this album are;
Terrifying
Rock and a Hard Place
Can' t Be Seen
Almost Hear you sigh
Continental Drift

We may have been at the same concert. Parc des Princes, right? I think in Europe it was the "Urban Jungle" tour.

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blivet

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runaway
It was great seeing The Stones in Paris " Steel Wheels Tour".
The songs I do like from this album are;
Terrifying
Rock and a Hard Place
Can' t Be Seen
Almost Hear you sigh
Continental Drift

We may have been at the same concert. Parc des Princes, right? I think in Europe it was the "Urban Jungle" tour.

Yes Parc des Princes, I was there june 25 1990 Urban Jungle, concert tickets were still worth to look at in those days!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-23 14:15 by runaway.

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seitan
bad production, ugly cover and chuck are 3 reasons to dislike it...on the other hand, there's few cool songs on the album:

Sad Sad Sad
Blinded by Love
Can't Be Seen
Almost Hear You Sigh
Continental Drift
Slipping Away

but it's not that good album - this is the band that made Let It Bleed, Beggars, sticky Fingers, Exile, Goats Head Soup, and other classics...I'm kinda suprised that people feel the need to justify their worst recordings: Undercover, Dirty Work, Steel Wheels. Those are the low points in their career..Bigger Bang, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are far greater than the weak 80's crap.

GHS? I prefer SW to that one.

I forgot to mention Break The Spell, a brilliant, different blues.

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DandelionPowderman

Quote
seitan
bad production, ugly cover and chuck are 3 reasons to dislike it...on the other hand, there's few cool songs on the album:

Sad Sad Sad
Blinded by Love
Can't Be Seen
Almost Hear You Sigh
Continental Drift
Slipping Away

but it's not that good album - this is the band that made Let It Bleed, Beggars, sticky Fingers, Exile, Goats Head Soup, and other classics...I'm kinda suprised that people feel the need to justify their worst recordings: Undercover, Dirty Work, Steel Wheels. Those are the low points in their career..Bigger Bang, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are far greater than the weak 80's crap.

GHS? I prefer SW to that one.

I forgot to mention Break The Spell, a brilliant, different blues.

Yes, me too! I find some posters can be so seitanic sometimes.

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seitan
Bigger Bang, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon are far greater than the weak 80's crap.

I think the difference between those albums and the 80's ones is that they don't anymore think that they should be guided by a 'muse'. The problem with 80's albums is that they try to make the difference but they don't have anymore the means to accomplish it convincingly. By VOODOO LOUNGE they 'accepted' the fact that they don't need to sound anything else but 'good ol' Stones'. Thereby the results are generally more easily ear-pleasing by Stones standards (our trained ears), even though they tend to be rather thin or do not last not many listenings despite first sounding so catchy (since there actually is not any real inspiration, but more like 'by numbers' handcraft). I think a song like "Love Is Strong" is a paradigm case of that new idea of The Stones trying to sound exactly like the good ol' Stones. I loved it when I first heard it, but now I can't listen it, since it sounds like a 'walking cliche' to my ears(but that said, if any 'modern' Stones cut - like "Love Is Strong" - randomly occurs in unexpected circumstances, it does indeed sound good, since it is 'stylistically' okay, but it is better - my experience says - to leave it there).

I personally rate the 80's 'experimentalism', despite its failures, above the 'retroism' from VOODOO LOUNGE on. I just find that more interesting. More in retrospect, I actually lost my interest in the Rolling Stones when I had listened VOODOO LOUNGE for several times back in 1994. I thought they don't even try any longer and even worse: they are are actually underestimating the taste - or even intelligence - of their listeners. It took me many years to recover from that (and to an extent, I never have).

- Doxa



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-22 23:27 by Doxa.

That was probably the case with GHS as well, Doxa, all "empty" after Exile...

Production is very decent - crisp but not too plastic, it stands the test of time much better than Dirty Work or Primitive Cool. As far as the songs:

Sad Sad Sad - good rocker
Mixed Emotions - great single, very nice backup vocs in chorus
Terrifying - terrifying
Hold On To Your Hat - funny rocker, altough not outstanding
Hearts For Sale - great riff, gets a little bit boring towards the end, but still nice
Blinded By Love - nice ballad but Jagger's vocals are overdone
Rock And A Hard Place - hardrocking riff is great but not the greatest lyrics
Can't Be Seen - nice song
Almost Hear You Sigh - amazing ballad!
Continental Drift - absolutely amazing song, they had the guts to experiment and the outcome is great
Break The Spell - ok, nothing special
Slipping Away - very nice ballad, but I prefer Stripped version

<Terrifying - terrifying>

!!!

.....maybe franzk is scared of animals ...



ROCKMAN

The Fox isn't that scary...

Fox ... me favourite animal ..



ROCKMAN

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DandelionPowderman
That was probably the case with GHS as well, Doxa, all "empty" after Exile...

Yeah, but they still reflected that situation beautifully in that album, giving its a peculiar flavor in their catalog of albums. The muse actually was still rather strong then, even not so compelling as it was in previous years. An artistic 'hang-over' album, but the guys being able to come up with a league of stellar songs reflecting the moment, starting with "Angie" (and ending up offering classics like "Waitin' On A Friend" years afterwards) I think the first 'retro' album they did - in the sense start getting more inspiration from their past works than driving by a ever present and forward-looking muse - is IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL. But it still contains individual songs that would make any post-TATTOO YOU album effectively stronger.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-23 00:05 by Doxa.

Always fun to see how Doxa expresses himself.......... he took the words right out of my mouth

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I love that record - after Hot Rocks, it was the first Stones album I ever bought.

Their last great album. Far better than ER/UC/DW combined. Can't Be Seen is not up to snuff, Sad Sad Sad is not strong enough to lead off an album (although an okay rocker), and Rock and a Hard Place doesn't quite go anywhere. The rest of the album is first rate and the last great contribution by Bill Wyman. He was much more engaged with the album than he was by the time the tour rolled around. I think he said his goodbye with Slipping Away and walked through the tour with his head somewhere else.

Were did you get that idea from that everyone hate it!?
Athough a few people on this site get something out of talking about how they don´t like Steel Wheels i think that the majority of people who have the album is positive about it. Steel Wheels was very well recieved when it came out both critics and buyers. I think it is a very strong record and anyone who saw the 1989-90 tours must have noticed how the new song were strong beetween the most famous best of catalog. Plus... a great bass playing on it.