I find this Mick quote from 1989 very interesting:

"A lot of (the band's adventurousness) had gone by the boards in the last few years... (T)he whole idea of pushing the envelope a little bit. We became a hard rock band, and we became very content with it. The ballads got left a little behind as well. The hard rock thing just took over, and we lost a little bit of sensitivity and adventure. And it's BORING just doing hard rock all the time. You gotta bounce it around a little.

- Mick Jagger, 1989"

There are not many ballads in UNDERCOVER and DIRTY WORK... in many ways STEEL WHEELS is stylistically and melodically richer, including such adventurous pieces as "Continental Drift", than their previous albums. A bit vague statement by Mick, though, but yeah, interesting. By "becoming a hard rock band" he could refer just to the 80's ("a few years"), but even to whole development since 1969 or so.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-25 12:50 by Doxa.

But who's fault is that, he asked rhetorically. Mick chasing the modern production values with the big sounds. It wasn't Keith's fault that Dirty Work ended up sounding like it did with its cannonball drum sound. Listen to all the outtakes, with all the Keith demos, and consider what DW could have sounded like with a more soulful approach. For a solo project Mick hired Joe Satriani, whereas Keith hired Waddy Wachtel. What was Mick saying with that quote? That he was fearing his own trendy modern tastes?

I think Mick took on a broader scope on things, including what the band became in the 70s.

This might very well be the "Vegas" baptizing-quote by Mick. A lot would change from then on, musically and stylistically...

Forgot who said it, someone in the media, but there's the saying "The history of rock is the Rolling Stones"--meaning, what it became, the Stones became as well, or vice versa.

Yeah, it could be that refers to live shows, which all the way from 1969 were rather strongly guitar-driven and one-sided, probably "hard rock" in Mick's vocabulary. Their sound varied from a tour to tour, but basically they rocked by heart, with not much nuanced variance. More 'sophisticated' and different stuff within a show like "Ruby Tuesday", "2000 Light Years From Home" and "Paint It Black", with the tight and adventurous - no-electric guitar driven - arrangements, did not belong to that stance. Also pieces like "Sympathy For The Devil" had a rather strong 'hard-rock' clothing those days. It could be that 1981/82 tour being the one Jagger especially has in his mind, when it got "boring" to him, judging his later actions.

- Doxa

< It could be that 1981/82 tour being the one Jagger especially has in his mind, when it got "boring" to him, judging his later actions.>

Could be, although some tracks went through the arrangement-mill, and were played differently, already for that tour (UMT, WOAF and TIOMS come to mind).

Seems like Sir Michael is very easily bored. He got bored with the blues and here with "hard rock". One thing he never gets bored with though are fixed set lists.
He just loves to belt out Honky Tonk Women, Miss You and Satisfaction in the same manner at every concert...

<He just loves to belt out Honky Tonk Women, Miss You and Satisfaction>

Yep, country rock, disco and rock/pop. All the variety he needs

I think Mick was saying I'm producing this album, "Keiths" fiasco Dirty Work is history.

I found that statement a bit odd already when it first came out.
I mean: "Hardrock" ?!

Too Tough, One Hit (To The Body) and It Must Be Hell pointed in that direction.

They even talked about Ronnie's "heavy metal solo" on Too Tough when it came out.

Mick obviously was influenced, but that vanished apparently...

One Hit, Too tough etc to me is good ol rock music. Hardrock see under Deep Purple and friends.
Well, just one of Mick's insights . .

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CousinC
One Hit, Too tough etc to me is good ol rock music. Hardrock see under Deep Purple and friends.
Well, just one of Mick's insights . .

Elements. The small details. I guess they were in Mick's mind, along with the fear of becoming what some of the other 70s bands became in the 80s...

They've certainly taken care of this problem.

-*Sigh*-

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stonehearted
But who's fault is that, he asked rhetorically. Mick chasing the modern production values with the big sounds. It wasn't Keith's fault that Dirty Work ended up sounding like it did with its cannonball drum sound. Listen to all the outtakes, with all the Keith demos, and consider what DW could have sounded like with a more soulful approach.

IT STILL CAN! Get me access to the master reels and I will make that sucker rock! We get glimpses of it on tracks like Fight, Dirty Work and Had It With You. The snare sound on those is much easier on the ears than say One Hit To The Body.

Overall the album is hard to enjoy due to Jagger's constant screaming. If the guitars were balanced by real singing, the album would be much better. Hold Back is the worst song on the album aside from the last 30 seconds or so.

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CousinC
One Hit, Too tough etc to me is good ol rock music. Hardrock see under Deep Purple and friends.
Well, just one of Mick's insights . .

In my perspective I prefer to uphold the probably wellknown distinction between hardrock and heavy rock, the latter represented for instance by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Correct or not, I share the view uttered by I do not know whom, that heavy rock exposed to punk music, itself (heavy rock, that is) in its time developed, perhaps by newer bands than the original heavy bands, into heavy metal as something contrasting.

EDIT added later: I WITHDRAW THE VIEWPOINT OF THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH. IT BUILT UPON AN APPLICATION OF CONCEPTS THAT APPARENTLY IS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH GENERAL USE.

As to the Stones themselves, hardrock obviously has been one of the elements of their music, but I believe seldom or never singlehanded. And some of the greatness of the Rolling Stones has been due to the presence of elements of hardrock, but at the same time also by virtue of the fact that their music also has had many other nuances.

I must say that the quote from Mick Jagger, which I did not know, all the same somewhat disappointed me and made me a little sad. If, as Doxa touched on, STEEL WHEELS had more varying styles than their predecessors and some better melodies, only "Continental Drift" was adventurous, (I add, in my opinion). The sound of the other tracks was not to my liking, lessening the impact even of those melodies that could have been good. On the other hand, I should not be disappointed by the quote, because I guess that its saying from Mick Jagger was his sentiment at a certain moment and not necessarily ought to be read as his point of view at any time. If anything, what emerges is his increasing acknowledgement that the distribution of their kind of music through a market is vulnerable to the whims of the market, especially as the band over time would be confronted with a loosening of the enthousiasm of their aging fanbase and the difficulty of their attracting new generations of rock. And BRIDGES TO BABYLON showed that the quote from Mick did not mean the end of all their adventurism outside a commercial direction.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-27 14:14 by Witness.

Patti Hansen said in some Keith profile years ago about DIRTY WORK, "Keith had a lot of anger during that album." It comes across.

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Title5Take1
Patti Hansen said in some Keith profile years ago about DIRTY WORK, "Keith had a lot of anger during that album." It comes across.

However, I myself as a listener feel that "All About You" (then, of course, EMOTIONAL RESCUE) expresses more intense bitterness, in contrast to anger, than I have heard in any other Stones song at all, I think. I read in a Wikipedia post, which I cannot judge the content of, that the song might have been aimed most of all at Anita Pallenberg, but possibly also at Mick Jagger, said in case to be an early such reaction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-25 20:52 by Witness.

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Stoneage
Seems like Sir Michael is very easily bored. He got bored with the blues and here with "hard rock". One thing he never gets bored with though are fixed set lists.
He just loves to belt out Honky Tonk Women, Miss You and Satisfaction in the same manner at every concert...

I would wager that Mick is just as bored with the set lists as we are, but realizes that is what the vast majority of Stones concert goers want to hear when they go to a Stones concert. Just talk to some casual fans and they will tell you that they want to hear the hits. Firestone must get bored making tires, but they keep right on producing them, year in, and year out.

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Witness

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Title5Take1
Patti Hansen said in some Keith profile years ago about DIRTY WORK, "Keith had a lot of anger during that album." It comes across.

However, I myself as a listener feel that "All About You" (then, of course, EMOTIONAL RESCUE) expresses more intense bitterness, in contrast to anger, than I have heard in any other Stones song at all, I think. I read in a Wikipedia post, which I cannot judge the content of, that the song might have been aimed most of all at Anita Pallenberg, but possibly also at Mick Jagger, said in case to be an early such reaction.

That has one of my favorite lines: "I may miss you/But missing me just isn't you." Largely because it reminds me of a girl I dated. Didn't last, no surprise. I realized she wasn't capable of missing anyone. Which, who knows, may be Mick, too.

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Title5Take1
That has one of my favorite lines: "I may miss you/But missing me just isn't you." Largely because it reminds me of a girl I dated. Didn't last, no surprise. I realized she wasn't capable of missing anyone. Which, who knows, may be Mick, too.

Outside the theme of the thread: Only "You Got the Silver" and "Coming Down Again" can rival "All About You" for me of Stones songs, sung by Keith, I think (if I have not forgotten any.).

I liked Dirty Work. *runs away*

Me too

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DandelionPowderman
I find this Mick quote from 1989 very interesting:

"A lot of (the band's adventurousness) had gone by the boards in the last few years... (T)he whole idea of pushing the envelope a little bit. We became a hard rock band, and we became very content with it. The ballads got left a little behind as well. The hard rock thing just took over, and we lost a little bit of sensitivity and adventure. And it's BORING just doing hard rock all the time. You gotta bounce it around a little.

- Mick Jagger, 1989"

I think what Mick was getting at was not the Stones in the studio as much as what their live sound had become by 1981 / 1982. The '78 and '81 tours both had a very loud, hard guitar sound, with little room for nuance and Mick was probably already wishing they could capture the sound of the studio versions, which he pretty much demanded in '89. They hardly played much in the way of ballads in '78 - '81, maybe cause they felt they would sound too ragged. I remember Keith saying something in '78 about how they were playing mostly fast rockers onstage because they seemed to work best live.

<<I think what Mick was getting at was not the Stones in the studio as much as what their live sound had become by 1981 / 1982. The '78 and '81 tours both had a very loud, hard guitar sound, with little room for nuance>>

Again, that's Mick's insistence. Some Girls was his answer to the punk movement, an expression of what he had absorbed, plus he was also listening to the Ramones.

If the direction of the Stones music were up to Keith, it would have been Muddy Waters and Otis Redding forever.

It was Mick who wanted to compete with the brash new hard rock bands, not Keith. Keith wanted to age like a blues man, whereas Mick wanted to remain the sarcastic young upstart forever.

I don't remember the Stones ever sounding like a hard rock band. Quess I don't understand what Mick might have meant by this statement.

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rob51
I don't remember the Stones ever sounding like a hard rock band. Quess I don't understand what Mick might have meant by this statement.

Only to know how I am to read you, may I ask: Is for you "hard rock" = "heavy rock" (the latter as exemplified by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath). Which could indicate that my own use of those terms may be questionable.

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Witness

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rob51
I don't remember the Stones ever sounding like a hard rock band. Quess I don't understand what Mick might have meant by this statement.

Only to know how I am to read you, may I ask: Is for you "hard rock" = "heavy rock" (the latter as exemplified by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath). Which could indicate that my own use of those terms may be questionable.

Definitely questionable: Purple are a multi-textured band, with the loudness of Blackmore and Gillan counter-balanced by Jon Lord's amazing prog-esque keyboards.

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tomcasagranda

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Witness

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rob51
I don't remember the Stones ever sounding like a hard rock band. Quess I don't understand what Mick might have meant by this statement.

Only to know how I am to read you, may I ask: Is for you "hard rock" = "heavy rock" (the latter as exemplified by Deep Purple and Black Sabbath). Which could indicate that my own use of those terms may be questionable.

Definitely questionable: Purple are a multi-textured band, with the loudness of Blackmore and Gillan counter-balanced by Jon Lord's amazing prog-esque keyboards.

OK (or possibly OK). However, is that response then due to a more nuanced evaluatution on your part of Purple alone , such as your description might indicate. (Myself, I have got only four albums by Deep Purple and, in fact, I listened a little unconcentrated to five songs of them the day before yesterday.) Because then I wonder: Is it my rubrication of Deep Purple that you find questionable, or is it the used terms and the distinction I make between them? In other words: Do you find my use of the terms questionable also in the case of Sabbath?

Later added: You seem almost to consider them in the direction that Vanilla Fudge developed into on their last albums.

[I might a little OT add that what I call "heavy rock" is more what I respect than really delight in, whereas I do like almost anything by Vanilla Fudge and directly love some of their releases.]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-26 13:47 by Witness.