One also has to consider IORR in the context of what their peers were releasing that year. The Stones weren't at their best, and neither were most of their peers, in 1974. So they get a pass on IORR.

Compared to the ten years that preceded it, 1974 was a pretty dire year for rock music and helped pave the way for the back-to-basics approach of punk and pub rock. Led Zeppelin was in hiding (making Physical Graffiti), The Who put out a leftovers album (Odds and Sods), Pink Floyd was mostly in hiding (except for some shows at the end of the year, otherwise starting Wish You Were Here), John Lennon was ready to quit music for a while, Bowie had broken up the Spiders and was making a transition to funk (though Diamond Dogs was pretty good), Jeff Beck was in hiding (making Blow by Blow), the Stooges and MC5 had fallen apart, Faces and Mott the Hoople were falling apart, and the biggest American band in 1973 (the Allman Brothers Band) was on hiatus. With Yes, Rick Wakeman, and ELP headlining arenas and Genesis on the rise, prog was all the rage.

Dylan and The Grateful Dead, however, salvaged the year. Dylan made his comeback tour. The Dead put out a solid studio album (Mars Hotel) and played some of their best shows ever (see archive.org).

Led Zeppelin pulled a Stones EXILE with PHYSICAL GRAFFITI by using previous album sessions material as 'new'!

Quote
ab
One also has to consider IORR in the context of what their peers were releasing that year. The Stones weren't at their best, and neither were most of their peers, in 1974. So they get a pass on IORR.

Compared to the ten years that preceded it, 1974 was a pretty dire year for rock music and helped pave the way for the back-to-basics approach of punk and pub rock. Led Zeppelin was in hiding (making Physical Graffiti), The Who put out a leftovers album (Odds and Sods), Pink Floyd was mostly in hiding (except for some shows at the end of the year, otherwise starting Wish You Were Here), John Lennon was ready to quit music for a while, Bowie had broken up the Spiders and was making a transition to funk (though Diamond Dogs was pretty good), Jeff Beck was in hiding (making Blow by Blow), the Stooges and MC5 had fallen apart, Faces and Mott the Hoople were falling apart, and the biggest American band in 1973 (the Allman Brothers Band) was on hiatus. With Yes, Rick Wakeman, and ELP headlining arenas and Genesis on the rise, prog was all the rage.

Dylan and The Grateful Dead, however, salvaged the year. Dylan made his comeback tour. The Dead put out a solid studio album (Mars Hotel) and played some of their best shows ever (see archive.org).

You missed a few: Springsteen & E Street Band, The Eagles, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, The Kinks, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, ELO, etc. Not saying they were doing anything special either, just that there was a lot
going on at the time.

I think the IORR on the whole is an OK album. I think the time for the Stones to make statement albums stopped with the album released before (Goats Head Soup).

But GHS, IORR, B&B, albums are all good imho.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-27 00:42 by nightskyman.

More on 1974 and how it was a pretty bad year for rock music: Springsteen and the E Street Band hadn't yet broke outside of the northeastern United States and downstate Virginia. The first two albums (both from 1973) didn't make much of a mainstream impact until they were later considered as music leading up to Born to Run. His second one, BTW, is almost as good as Born to Run. The Bottom Line radio broadcast wasn't until the following August, and Born to Run wasn't released until around Labor Day 1975. Bruce may have been at his best in '78, but The E Street Band didn't become truly, jaw-droppingly great until Max Weinberg learned to play without speeding up tempos (between Darkness and The River).

The Preservation albums were the new Kinks work of 1973-74. They're among the most self-indulgent work in Ray Davies's canon. Ray had a roll between 1965 and 1971 that was the equal of anyone in music, but his decline between 1972 (Everybody's in Showbiz) and 1975 (Soap Opera) is similar to the Stones' dip between '73 and '76.

Clapton returned in 1974 from a drug-induced layoff in '74; 461 was OK, but it was the beginning of his slide into MOR lameness. I never had much use for that solo-sensitive-guy-with-acoustic-guitar-pouring-his-heart-out-about-just-getting-dumped thing, except for Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Neil's On The Beach from 1974 holds up really well; that actually may be the best album of that year (check out Ambulance Blues, which he nicked from Bert Jansch's Needle of Death). As for the Eagles, the Dude from The Big Lebowski is my co-pilot.

As for Beatles other than Lennon, McCartney was in hiding in 1974. Harrison made Dark Horse and did that horrible US tour, which I saw when I was 14. That show stands out as one of the worst large concerts I've ever seen in 40+ years of concert-going.

Lou Reed released Rock 'n' Roll Animal, and made that god-awful Sally Can't Dance. But John Cale put out Fear, one of his best. Roxy Music put out Country Life, one of their best. But generally, 1974 was a pretty lousy year for rock music.

All was not hopeless: 1977 -- with Marquee Moon by Television, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia by the Ramones, The Clash, My Aim is True by Elvis Costello, and Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, to name a few -- was just around the corner.

Quote
ab
One also has to consider IORR in the context of what their peers were releasing that year. The Stones weren't at their best, and neither were most of their peers, in 1974. So they get a pass on IORR.

Compared to the ten years that preceded it, 1974 was a pretty dire year for rock music and helped pave the way for the back-to-basics approach of punk and pub rock. Led Zeppelin was in hiding (making Physical Graffiti), The Who put out a leftovers album (Odds and Sods), Pink Floyd was mostly in hiding (except for some shows at the end of the year, otherwise starting Wish You Were Here), John Lennon was ready to quit music for a while, Bowie had broken up the Spiders and was making a transition to funk (though Diamond Dogs was pretty good), Jeff Beck was in hiding (making Blow by Blow), the Stooges and MC5 had fallen apart, Faces and Mott the Hoople were falling apart, and the biggest American band in 1973 (the Allman Brothers Band) was on hiatus. With Yes, Rick Wakeman, and ELP headlining arenas and Genesis on the rise, prog was all the rage.

Dylan and The Grateful Dead, however, salvaged the year. Dylan made his comeback tour. The Dead put out a solid studio album (Mars Hotel) and played some of their best shows ever (see archive.org).

Nothing special? And yet you bought the release 5 times over....lol. A fool and his money indeed.


Why are you still in this thread? Your first post was more than enough.

the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler!

LOVED that album-- was a senior in high school when it came out and me and my friends were devouring that, Lennon's Walls & Bridges, and Ringo's 'Goodnight Vienna" which all ( to my memory ) came out around the same time---Ganja might make the memory a little tricky---
I thought "Its Only Rock n Roll" was a SPECTACULAR album--blew me away as a 17 year old--was getting into Reggae so 'luxury" was the standout track ( especially Keith's backing vocals), "Fingerprint File" gave us our inner city Temptations fix, " Time Waits for no One" blew us away with Mick Taylors incredible guitar work--- just a great album overall
still love the album and play cuts from it all the time on my radio show--- !

<<McCartney was in hiding in 1974>>

He wasn't hiding from the charts. His Band On The Run album, though released in 1974, finally became a hit that year, with major hit singles including nonalbum top 10 singles like Junior's Farm.

As for Lennon, that year he released one of his best works of the first half of the seventies, Walls and Bridges, and wasn't ready to leave the biz until 75, after releasing his Rock and Roll album.

Regarding the Kinks, though Ray Davies had immersed himself in his "Rag Opera" (ragtime music in a rock opera format), the band were still putting on excellent shows, like the widely bootlegged Live At The Hippodrome Golders Green for the BBC.



Also, in recalling that year through the lens of just your top five favorites you invariably leave out stellar moments by others, like Bachman Turner Overdrive (B.T.O.), who had a huge #1 hit that was still getting regular radio play 10 years later.

If anything, 1974 was just a bad year for hair--and beards....