Seems like people discussing Let It Bleed have completely changed the topic of the thread. OK - must admit I'm pretty surprised by Doxa and others saying that LIB sounds "disjointed" or "artificial" or "not a band effort". To me, the band sounds totally "locked in". I can't think of a way to improve Gimme Shelter, Live With Me, Monkey Man or Midnight Rambler - all smoking hot performances.

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drbryant
Seems like people discussing Let It Bleed have completely changed the topic of the thread. OK - must admit I'm pretty surprised by Doxa and others saying that LIB sounds "disjointed" or "artificial" or "not a band effort". To me, the band sounds totally "locked in". I can't think of a way to improve Gimme Shelter, Live With Me, Monkey Man or Midnight Rambler - all smoking hot performances.

Well I can. I know there are epic songs on Bleed as Doxa already has pointed out. But they miss something in their performance, so I really prefer them live. I agree with Dandie that Keith did a great job on Bleed, but again, it seems as if he missed a counterpart, being the third man. So Bleed sounds overall a bit sterile to me, however great the songwriting.

I want to construct a thought experiment, rather unrealistic. Imagine one passionate and knowing Rolling Stones fan more than most, familiar with all that happened earlier, waking up on a later date from unconsciousness, which hit him or her after THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST. To cheer up the fan, temporarily advised not to try to read, the '68 - '72 albums are played. Information of the order of the albums is not given. Titles of albums and songs are on the other hand presented, but the doctors and nurses are supposed not to know too much details.

The question is: If asked, would the passionate and understanding fan be certain to be able to guess, in which order the albums were released, only by listening to them. Myself, with no command over any music instruments, put into the situation, I think, I would have been unable. Am I alone?

Following the preceding albums, is it in itself, from the music as such, obvious what the running order had to be, I wonder.

A much later edit: As the post has not found any interest, naturally enough, due only for instance to the following, I can thankfully add a couple of remarks here instead of entering a new post: The thought experiment was not at all so well devised. How should the to consciousness reawakened fan respond to changing or other instrument playing and sounds than before, without having received any clues as to personnel changes. Guest musicians or what. The thought experiment emerged as an echo of my own puzzlements from decades back over the leaps in style from album to album, without my thinking so much about who played what.
My motivation was to touch on the viewpoint on LET IT BLEED as output, being, alleged by some advanced posters, at least three, of a transitional character, something that I to a large extent disagree with.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 01:29 by Witness.

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2000 LYFH
Should GHS be added to the BIG 4 list and make it a 5 album run of the greatest music ever recorded?

Beggars Banquet
Let It Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main St
Goats Head Soup


Love this album:

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

No. It's much more than that..

Include IORR and Black and Blue and Some Girls and you have 8!!! It is NOT a reach to make this case.

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drbryant
Seems like people discussing Let It Bleed have completely changed the topic of the thread. OK - must admit I'm pretty surprised by Doxa and others saying that LIB sounds "disjointed" or "artificial" or "not a band effort". To me, the band sounds totally "locked in". I can't think of a way to improve Gimme Shelter, Live With Me, Monkey Man or Midnight Rambler - all smoking hot performances.

Of those songs you mentioned, I think only "Midnight Rambler" seems to sound like a "band effort", or a having a band "feel" on it - if The Rolling Stones is seen as a four-piece band. If you put the Stones as they then were - four of them - to jam, that was the best you could have.

"Gimme Shelter" is their greatest achievement ever in record, and it catches the band perfecting anything they ever could do and experiment as a "studio band". It is just perfect recording - all the sounds and musical loundcapes it expresses are just perfect - simply genious. But that really is a studio achievement - made of different pieces by singular vision and intuition. When brought live, they needed to rearrange it fit to the needs of a concert act. During modern times, they try to recreate the original studio version with the help of their friends, and one can judge by own how well they manage in that...

"Monkey Man" tries something to the effect, but is not so strong as a song. Still great.

I already talked about "Live With Me" - to me it sounds like glued together from 'not so naturally swinging together' elements, a typical Sixties idea of production, having the just-discovered luxury of using rather many tracks, and adding bits here and there. Even though they had done marvellous results before with that idealogy, here it starts to sound old-fashionable and artificial. I don't think even Charlie's drums breath very well in the song. It is not a band there, but different musicians contributing on their own. But the song is nice, as the basic riff. It is material like this one they would show in their following records how it will sound like if played with a band feel.

- Doxa

If I may continue to insist with my 'band feel' theme, of which the Stones, I claim, by the end of the 60's started to have a lack of, I think that is the phenomenon Keith Richards keeps on talking when saying that the band should go to studio after a tour - or while touring - when they still are 'red and hot'. Keith's memory is very selective, and he seem to romantically pick up things from the times which seemed to be formative for him. So my way of understanding Keith is that he basically refers to the 'transition' period here. Before Hyde Park and American Tour 1969 they had been basically a studio band for the last two years (and a damn good that one). But even though that produced wonderful records, the way they started to record, and construct new songs (and never even playing them live), had an effect to them as a live band or to the way they actually interact together as a band - the latter wasn't even needed any longer. Mick Taylor, for example, was actually surprised when started to rehearse with them, that how on earth such a lousy band can produce such great records. One can only think how rusty they were as a band by that time (ROCK&ROLL CIRCUS and Hyde Park offer some ideas of that).

But the old band chemistry - with a new gear - became back when they started seriously develop their concert act again. I think crucial and very telling piece what 'playing live' can do for you in Richarsian sense, is to listen "Brown Sugar", which was recorded during the American tour, when the band as a band had just found its chops again. I don't think they could have found that groove and chemistry in the very backing track had they not had that 'playing live' experience by then. Just the way they interact together. They really were 'red and hot', and it was translated into "Brown Sugar". To an extent, a lot of material in both STICKY FINGERS and EXILE ON MAIN STREET do arise from rediscovering (and reinventing) their live band sound essence - their band feel - again. It really sounded different compared to the previous albums. The gap between STICKY FINGERS and LET IT BLEED is a rather huge one.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-01 23:43 by Doxa.

BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I guess that fact makes you smile.

- Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

The four piece band feel is fairly consistent on Let It Bleed. Neither Jones or Taylor contribute in any real way that is particular to their distinctive musical voices. Their subdued contributions in the context of an album also featuring stronger more distinctive contributions from Jones or Taylor would change the perception and feel of the more subdued contribution tracks. However, they are on an album where no other strong Jones or Taylor contributions are to be found.

...

That is turned on it's head on Sticky Fingers as the majority of the tracks feature the sound and feel of the core five piece band. Any tracks not featuring the whole core band distinctively contributing is immediatley answered by tracks which do.

This is also true, but in a more disfunctional way on Beggars Banquet.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 05:02 by His Majesty.

Marx Brothers/Stones

Monkey Business/Beggar's Banquet
Horsefeathers/Let it Bleed
Duck Soup/Sticky Fingers
A Night at the Opera/Exile on Main Street

Goat's Head Soup/A Day at the Races

Marx Brothers fans will get my drift (though actually Duck Soup would more like the sprawl of Exile but I went for time sequence). Day at the Races was the last gasp of their true trailblazing greatness, albeit sucking a little wind. After that it's often good, but they're kinda painting by numbers. Still better than most of the rest of course.

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Wry Cooter
Marx Brothers/Stones

Monkey Business/Beggar's Banquet
Horsefeathers/Let it Bleed
Duck Soup/Sticky Fingers
A Night at the Opera/Exile on Main Street

Goat's Head Soup/A Day at the Races

Marx Brothers fans will get my drift (though actually Duck Soup would more like the sprawl of Exile but I went for time sequence). Day at the Races was the last gasp of their true trailblazing greatness, albeit sucking a little wind. After that it's often good, but they're kinda painting by numbers. Still better than most of the rest of course.

No, Beggars Banquet would be Duck Soup, as it was the last film by the original four Marx Bros. Would Room Service be Emotional Rescue? Love Happy be Dirty Work?

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I guess that fact makes you smile.

- Doxa

No, but it might make you think again, about what you just said about BS...

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DandelionPowderman

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I guess that fact makes you smile.

- Doxa

No, but it might make you think again, about what you just said about BS...

Don't see any reason. You think there is no 'band feel' in "Brown Sugar" because Taylor is buried in the mix? I don't see the latter any big detail - the hotness is basically in Richards/Watts/Wyman connection, which was a result of the band getting their chops back by touring. For the latter Taylor had a big role, and thereby influenced at least indirectly "Brown Sugar", even though not having a big hand in the released version of it (but was there when they cut the basic track, and was credited playing in it).

- Doxa

<the hotness is basically in Richards/Watts/Wyman connection>

Isn't it like that on most of the tracks on BB and LIB as well? Why the need for a clear distinction? And why put BS forward as an example of the Taylor era BAND effort, when Taylor isn't audible. Symbolics rather than the music?

IMO, CYHMK would be a better BAND showcase than BS.

I could see Aftermath or Some Girls being added to the BIG list but GHS? no way!

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Ket
I could see Aftermath or Some Girls being added to the BIG list but GHS? no way!

+1

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DandelionPowderman
<the hotness is basically in Richards/Watts/Wyman connection>

Isn't it like that on most of the tracks on BB and LIB as well? Why the need for a clear distinction? And why put BS forward as an example of the Taylor era BAND effort, when Taylor isn't audible. Symbolics rather than the music?

IMO, CYHMK would be a better BAND showcase than BS.

Because "Brown Sugar" sounds different compared to anything The Stones had released by then (and especially compared to the material in their previous records). There is a kind of hot groove, a special connection between the principal rhythmn players, that I take to be a result of the band simply being redhot by the end of the American tour. The machine was very well oiled. I think they could not have such tightness, but still loose enough, some six months earlier (and nothing to take out of "Honky Tonk Women"). "Brown Sugar" is a wonderful song, but like always with the Stones classics, it is the performance - the band effort - which is a big part of the cake, and there is that live performance feeling in the song, like capturing the whole space or room (also something to do with the studio premises). They captured something magical there at Muscle Shoals (which would work as a blueprint for many Stones songs ever since). And even without the presence of Jimmy Miller (who without doubt had had an important role in sharping and directing the rhythmn things in BEGGARS/BLEED material)

This is what Keith says of it in 1971, hinting to same direction as I do:

We cut a version of Brown Sugar with Al Kooper, it was a good track. He's playing piano on it at Bobby Keys' and my birthday party, which was held at Olympic Studios... We wanted to use it 'cause it's a new version but there's something about the Muscle Shoals feel of the album one, that we got into at the end of the last American tour. Charlie really fills the sound and it was so easy to cut down there.

I really can't make sense of what you mean by emphasizing "Taylor era BAND effort". Yeah, Taylor was a part of the team then, you have a problem with that?

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 16:18 by Doxa.

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I've always said I find the studio BS boring, though it's a great song. The live performances from 70-73 do show the song in its full glory.

Let's just say that I disagree with your analysis below - and leave it at that. Why Keith's three guitars on BS would sound more like a live band effort than Monkey Man I will never understand.

I will just mention that they could get that band feel by playing a lot live in the studio, as the Pathe Marconi sessions clearly showed - two years after the last tour.


Of those songs you mentioned, I think only "Midnight Rambler" seems to sound like a "band effort", or a having a band "feel" on it - if The Rolling Stones is seen as a four-piece band. If you put the Stones as they then were - four of them - to jam, that was the best you could have.

"Gimme Shelter" is their greatest achievement ever in record, and it catches the band perfecting anything they ever could do and experiment as a "studio band". It is just perfect recording - all the sounds and musical loundcapes it expresses are just perfect - simply genious. But that really is a studio achievement - made of different pieces by singular vision and intuition. When brought live, they needed to rearrange it fit to the needs of a concert act. During modern times, they try to recreate the original studio version with the help of their friends, and one can judge by own how well they manage in that...

"Monkey Man" tries something to the effect, but is not so strong as a song. Still great.

I already talked about "Live With Me" - to me it sounds like glued together from 'not so naturally swinging together' elements, a typical Sixties idea of production, having the just-discovered luxury of using rather many tracks, and adding bits here and there. Even though they had done marvellous results before with that idealogy, here it starts to sound old-fashionable and artificial. I don't think even Charlie's drums breath very well in the song. It is not a band there, but different musicians contributing on their own. But the song is nice, as the basic riff. It is material like this one they would show in their following records how it will sound like if played with a band feel.

- Doxa

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kleermaker

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I've always said I find the studio BS boring, though it's a great song. The live performances from 70-73 do show the song in its full glory.

It's not boring, just a perfected studio product

The road versions they did re-arrange for the coming tours were good, especially the ones with the full sax solos.

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DandelionPowderman
Let's just say that I disagree with your analysis below - and leave it at that. Why Keith's three guitars on BS would sound more like a live band effort than Monkey Man I will never understand.

I will just mention that they could get that band feel by playing a lot live in the studio, as the Pathe Marconi sessions clearly showed - two years after the last tour.

Okay, all you hear there is "Keith's three guitars" - I basically hear there one Keith's guitar, Bill's bass, and Charlie's drums - tighted together and making such a groove I have never heard them doing so intensively ever before. That's the cake, which is then iced with different (and tasty) flavors.

What goes for Pathe Marconi sessions, for god sake's we are there talking about a whole different band as far as live experience goes and of musicians in a whole different level of professionalism (which doesn't make them, of course, any better than what they were in, say, 1968/69).

Of course, they could have get the 'band feel' in studio back in 1968/69 (had they aimed such a thing), but I am not talking about any eternal truths, but just trying to explicate some actual happenings in the history of the Rolling Stones by using as the most reliable evidence the music they did at the time. Besides I think one of the basic errors in interpreting the history of the band is to see it in one vision and see them always going according to the same pattern in their doings. Them as players, as a unit, and their customs have changed a lot during the years, especially in their formative years (which I suppose should cover all the years to 1989 now).

- Doxa

The big 4 and 5 is way to tight and I prefer a top 10, For sure GHS and Let It Bleed will be in it, LIB was probably my second Stones vinyl and it was a great joy listening.

Early renditions of three tracks later to appear on Let It Bleed album were recorded during The Beggars Banquet sessions: Midnight Rambler-You Got The Silver and You Can't Always Get What You Want March/June 1968. Live With Me is the forerunner of the sound so succes fully captured the following month on Brown Sugar. LIB has lots of styles moving to the home-recorded Exile Sound.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 17:37 by runaway.

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DandelionPowderman
Let's just say that I disagree with your analysis below - and leave it at that. Why Keith's three guitars on BS would sound more like a live band effort than Monkey Man I will never understand.

I will just mention that they could get that band feel by playing a lot live in the studio, as the Pathe Marconi sessions clearly showed - two years after the last tour.


Of those songs you mentioned, I think only "Midnight Rambler" seems to sound like a "band effort", or a having a band "feel" on it - if The Rolling Stones is seen as a four-piece band. If you put the Stones as they then were - four of them - to jam, that was the best you could have.

"Gimme Shelter" is their greatest achievement ever in record, and it catches the band perfecting anything they ever could do and experiment as a "studio band". It is just perfect recording - all the sounds and musical loundcapes it expresses are just perfect - simply genious. But that really is a studio achievement - made of different pieces by singular vision and intuition. When brought live, they needed to rearrange it fit to the needs of a concert act. During modern times, they try to recreate the original studio version with the help of their friends, and one can judge by own how well they manage in that...

"Monkey Man" tries something to the effect, but is not so strong as a song. Still great.

I already talked about "Live With Me" - to me it sounds like glued together from 'not so naturally swinging together' elements, a typical Sixties idea of production, having the just-discovered luxury of using rather many tracks, and adding bits here and there. Even though they had done marvellous results before with that idealogy, here it starts to sound old-fashionable and artificial. I don't think even Charlie's drums breath very well in the song. It is not a band there, but different musicians contributing on their own. But the song is nice, as the basic riff. It is material like this one they would show in their following records how it will sound like if played with a band feel.

- Doxa

I don't think there's much difference in how I view things. "Gimme Shelter" is, not only their most oerfect recording but, to me, the greatest track in rock. Everything works, from Keith's iconic intro and solo, to the vocal on the fade out.

I think I understand what you're saying about "Live with Me". The instrumentation is bare bones, but I like that. I love the way that you can hear each instrument clearly during the sax break - unlike, for example, Rip this Joint where everyone other than Bobby Keys is buried in the mix. It's a little ironic - critics at the time thought that the Stones had messed things up by adding layers of acoustic guitars on Brown Sugar.

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DandelionPowderman

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kleermaker

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I've always said I find the studio BS boring, though it's a great song. The live performances from 70-73 do show the song in its full glory.

It's not boring, just a perfected studio product

The road versions they did re-arrange for the coming tours were good, especially the ones with the full sax solos.

No it's not because it bores me even while I like the song. All versions from the 70/73 tours never tire me. BS is on SF is a missed chance. Gimme Bitch anytime, better on SF than live.

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Doxa

Quote
DandelionPowderman
Let's just say that I disagree with your analysis below - and leave it at that. Why Keith's three guitars on BS would sound more like a live band effort than Monkey Man I will never understand.

I will just mention that they could get that band feel by playing a lot live in the studio, as the Pathe Marconi sessions clearly showed - two years after the last tour.

Okay, all you hear there is "Keith's three guitars" - I basically hear there one Keith's guitar."
- Doxa

Maybe Keith is weaving with himself, making three guitars sound like one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 17:36 by kleermaker.

This is where it seems I differ slightly from Doxa and kleermaker. Or maybe not.

For me context and consistency is important. Gimme Shelter as heard on the album or on it's own is magic, same with Midnight Rambler, Monkey Man (except for the lyrics hehe) and so on.

It's not essential that every core band member should be on every track, the music doesn't call for that and it seems they are quite willing to acquiesce when the track requires it or someone else has a stronger idea on how a part should go etc.

The weirdness of let It Bleed is that we get so many tracks which only feature the four piece Rolling Stones and even the tracks featuring the third man, new or old, doesn't really give us either of those line ups in their fully formed and functioning way.

Hearing a load of tracks essentially recorded by four piece Rolling Stones or variations of stones set ups all together without any real distinctive contribution from either Jones or Taylor makes for a weird, incomplete stones listening experience.

In essence a whole Rolling Stones album made up of the line up on Gimme Shelter still makes for ace listening, but it's strange listening as far as it being an album by The Rolling Stones.

Beggars Banquet treads a fine line, but I think there's enough of the full core band on the album to balance any of the variations of the core band set ups on it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 18:00 by His Majesty.

Quote
2000 LYFH
Should GHS be added to the BIG 4 list and make it a 5 album run of the greatest music ever recorded?

Beggars Banquet
Let It Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main St
Goats Head Soup


Love this album:

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

GHS is a fantastic Jagger/Taylor album.
Do YOU consider it part of the Big Five? Because if you do, you're right, and that's all that counts. Screw the people who say otherwise.
Just like when I slam the band's complete existance past 1999, if you don't like it, then screw me

[thepowergoats.com]

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kleermaker

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DandelionPowderman
BS also sounds like a "four piece-band", as Taylor is either buried in the mix or inaudible

I've always said I find the studio BS boring, though it's a great song. The live performances from 70-73 do show the song in its full glory.

Like always, I differ in opinion here (which I guess can be seen my post in regards to "Brown Sugar" in this thread...). I think the original studio version is perfect, but so are the best 'road versions' of it as well. Of the latter, my favourite are the 1972/73 show openers, which added a new dimension to the song. I generally like the idea to make the songs differ from the originals (and previous live versions), just for arts sake. (A very old-fashionable idea nowadays, I know - but gladly Bob Dylan exists).

But that said, I like the fresh "Brown Sugar" from Altamont, which is very close to the 'version' they just cut in a studio two-three days earlier (so probably not much time or reason for artistic reinterpretation...). You Kleerie left that out...

- Doxa

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His Majesty
This is where it seems I differ slightly from Doxa and kleermaker. Or maybe not.

For me context and consistency is important. Gimme Shelter as heard on the album or on it's own is magic, same with Midnight Rambler, Monkey Man (except for the lyrics hehe) and so on.

It's not essential that every core band member should be on every track, the music doesn't call for that and it seems they are quite willing to acquiesce when the track requires it or someone else has a stronger idea on how a part should go etc.

The weirdness of let It Bleed is that we get so many tracks which only feature the four piece Rolling Stones and even the tracks featuring the third man, new or old, doesn't reslly give us either of those line ups in their fully formed and functioning way.

Hearing a load of tracks essentially recorded by four piece Rolling Stones all together without any real distinctive contribution from either Jones, Taylor makes for a weird, incomplete stones listening experience.

In essence a whole Rolling Stones album made up of the line up on Gimme Shelter still makes for ace listening, but it's strange listening as far as it being an album by The Rolling Stones.

Beggars Banquet treads a fine line, but I think there's enough of the full core band on the album to balance any of the variations of the core band set ups on it.

Funny that it's just you that voices my feelings about Let It Bleed so well. I always felt it misses something, however great the album is. But I was never able to put my finger on it, as we say it here. You did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-02 18:03 by kleermaker.

October 2002- Musicians and Mojo Writers determine, once and for all, the 10 Greatest Stones Albums Of All Time!
1-Exile On Main Street.
2-Let It Bleed.
3.Beggars Banquet.
4-Sticky Fingers.
5-Their Satanic Majesties Request.
6-Aftermath.
7-Some Girls.
8-Goats Head Soup.
9-The Rolling Stones.
19-Tattoo You.