From reading some of the discussion it seems sort of like a triumph as well as a disappointment.

A triappointment maybe?

Disumph?

Disatripointumph!!!

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GasLightStreet

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Aquamarine

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24FPS
Not a triumph at all. Quite a mixed bag. Miller's production prowess was declining fast. Heroin, and the past, did seem to be catching up to them. It's the 70s Between the Buttons, with a couple great songs, and a few clunkers too. And Angie simply outclasses the whole affair.

This reinforces my notion that I'm the only person on the planet who wasn't and isn't into Angie. If I were the sort of person who takes bathroom breaks during a show, which I'm not, it would be during that song.

I have no idea why. Nothing about it grabs me at all, though I can see objectively that it's a good song.

Angie is horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, but the girls like it and when compared to, say, Fool To Cry it's an outright classic.

The guitar playing boys like it, too

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Silver Dagger
The killer songs on GHS are indeed the slow ones - Coming Down Again, Winter, Can You Hear The Music. But that relentless, pounding riff in Heartbreaker is always great to hear.

I, neither girl nor guitarplayer, am among those, who passionately want wonderful "Angie" added to your highly relevant list, Silver Dagger.

Otherwise, "Coming Down Again" is to me the very key song to GOATS HEAD SOUP. That is, to the mood, in the form of a mild melancholy and the possible tiredness, that, as dixcussed in earlier threads, might be said to a certain extent to characterize this album. To capture that mood is for me the best claim to live up to the opening post's wellplaced name for the thread, if seen in exactly such a light. The said song is almost a comment to the band's situation at that long moment, after having delivered the several preceding achievements.

Then, also as discussed in earlier threads, I am one of possibly few who feel that the album somewhat falls part during the two songs that follow "Angie", whereas I quite like the start song "Dancing with Mr. D", that from many other posters is considered as an especially weak point. And I have wondered, whether "Winter" might have worked as a single A-side and therefore on the album ought to have been replaced by another song, in addition to also the preceding two, "Silver Train" and "Hide Your Love" to be made single B-sides and also replaced by other available songs.

With suitable available songs at the time, then also this (changed) album might have featured among my rather long list of great albums by the Stones. One problem with such hypothetic changes, however, might have been to risk to lose the mood of the album.

Angie is a wonderful memory. I lived in the Midwest then, and it came out in the fall, as the leaves were turning and thoughts get melancholy. When it would come on the radio I stopped me until it was over. What a lovely song. "All the dreams we held so close...."

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24FPS
Angie is a wonderful memory. I lived in the Midwest then, and it came out in the fall, as the leaves were turning and thoughts get melancholy. When it would come on the radio I stopped me until it was over. What a lovely song. "All the dreams we held so close...."

I liked it too. The guitar part that Keith plays is inspiring, the way he picks out notes, adds little fills, arpeggios, etc. I'm also from the midwest. It's a great mood album. I've always loved it and it still sounds great. I love how Mick sings Can You Hear The Music. It sounds like he's got a mouthful of rocks.

GHS Revised

Side 1:

100 Years Ago
Heartbreaker
Thru The Lonely Nights
Criss Cross
Can You Hear The Music
Star, Star


Side 2:

Angie
Tops
Winter
Coming Down Again
Waiting On A Friend

Sorry, no love for "Silver Train" here.

Or "Mr. D.". "Hide Your Love" is enjoyable filler.

I think the songs and performances are all good, and for the most part much better than anything they released subsequently. I can't put my finger on it, but I think the production, the overall texture of the album doesn't have much energy. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's just sort of there. If Goats Head Soup had been recorded like Black and Blue was I think it would have been a great success.

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andrewt

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GasLightStreet

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Aquamarine

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24FPS
Not a triumph at all. Quite a mixed bag. Miller's production prowess was declining fast. Heroin, and the past, did seem to be catching up to them. It's the 70s Between the Buttons, with a couple great songs, and a few clunkers too. And Angie simply outclasses the whole affair.

This reinforces my notion that I'm the only person on the planet who wasn't and isn't into Angie. If I were the sort of person who takes bathroom breaks during a show, which I'm not, it would be during that song.

I have no idea why. Nothing about it grabs me at all, though I can see objectively that it's a good song.

Angie is horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, but the girls like it and when compared to, say, Fool To Cry it's an outright classic.

Hey, I'm a girl! And I actually much prefer Fool to Cry.

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Elmo Lewis
GHS Revised

Side 1:

100 Years Ago
Heartbreaker
Thru The Lonely Nights
Criss Cross
Can You Hear The Music
Star, Star


Side 2:

Angie
Tops
Winter
Coming Down Again
Waiting On A Friend

Sorry, no love for "Silver Train" here.

A distinct improvement although I'm not nominating it into the big 5 quite yet!

The little girls don't know but the men understand .....hhheee



ROCKMAN

Fantastic album

i dont buy into any of that soap opera-"keith was losing it and being phased out" "jagger and taylor were taking the band in new directions"- "competition within the band"-its all bullshit.

they needed songs for a new record.keith had run a riff marathon with exile.he had riffs turned upside down,inside out,overeasy,sunny side up...no wonder he was maybe a little spent and they needed something different sounding anyway so they wouldnt be just repeating themselves.

as for outtakes-everyone always does this [and i'm guilty of it too] they take a song that wasnt finished and probably didnt fit the record anyway and elevate it to this lofty status because its rarity.

criss cross man wasnt nearly as good a song as silver train and tops didnt fit the feel of the record.waiting on a friend maybe but if it was mixed the same as the rest of goats head it might not have worked as well as it eventually did.

Has anyone ever seen the detail of who played what on this Album. Is there a Stones in the Studio book - like the one for the Beatles?

In the Context of coming out after Exile It is a let down... out of that context , on its own , its a fine album.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-12 02:18 by ryanpow.

I have always liked it. Such great tunes. Doo Doo etc. is great. Funky. Angie pulls at your heart-strings.

Dancing with Mr. D and 100 Years Ago sounded great, too bad we haven't heard them much since. Star Star was good for a few giggles. I have a decent recording of it from (I believe) Newcastle?

I especially liked Hide Your Love, though no one else seems to. Nice, bouncy tune.

Winter is beautiful, coming close to the level of Wild Horses, at least imho.

Yes, there is filler. But it is still enjoyable.

This isn't an album I would give to a beginner fan and expect him to grasp it. It's one that gets played after one has played LIB & SF to death.

GHS was the first "new" Stones release I bought when it came out. (I got into the Stones first through Hot Rocks and then went back and bought all the albums to that date). I recall the general air of disappointment at the time. How could it possibly measure up to the four before it? As I said earlier, a case can be made for the rockers (Silver Train, Mr. D, and Star Star) sounding a little tired and forced; but the ballads are incredible. I think Coming Down Again is the flip side to Happy, the other side of Keith's personality and experience. Happy was triumph and joy. Coming Down Again was the price you pay for being Keith, and if I am interpreting the lyrics correctly, for stealing your mate's girl. I'm not sure Keith in that song or Mick in 100 Years Ago have ever given us something as revealing and emotionally real. For that reason alone the album is a gem, but add in great performances by Mick Taylor, Bobby Keys, and Nicky Hopkins, and you have a Stones classic...maybe it should be "the Big Five".

edited for typos, as usual.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-12 07:33 by 71Tele.

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71Tele
As I said earlier, a case can be made for the rockers (Silver Train, Mr. D, and Star Star) sounding a little tired and forced; but the ballads are incredible. I think Coming Down Again is the flip side to Happy, the other side of Keith's personality and experience. Happy was triumph and joy. Coming Down Again was the price you pay for being Keith, and if I am interpreting the lyrics correctly, for stealing your mate's girl. I'm not sure Keith in that song or Mick in 100 Years Ago have ever given us something so revealing and emotionally real. For that reason alone the album is a gem, but add in great performances by Mick Taylor, Bobby Keys, and Nicky Hopkins, and you have a Stones classic...maybe it should be "the Big Five".

This.

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Bob C.
Has anyone ever seen the detail of who played what on this Album. Is there a Stones in the Studio book - like the one for the Beatles?

We have the liner notes..

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71Tele
GHS was the first "new" Stones release I bought when it came out. (I got into the Stones first through Hot Rocks and then went back and bought all the albums to that date). I recall the general air of disappointment at the time. How could it possibly measure up to the four before it? As I said earlier, a case can be made for the rockers (Silver Train, Mr. D, and Star Star) sounding a little tired and forced; but the ballads are incredible. I think Coming Down Again is the flip side to Happy, the other side of Keith's personality and experience. Happy was triumph and joy. Coming Down Again was the price you pay for being Keith, and if I am interpreting the lyrics correctly, for stealing your mate's girl. I'm not sure Keith in that song or Mick in 100 Years Ago have ever given us something as revealing and emotionally real. For that reason alone the album is a gem, but add in great performances by Mick Taylor, Bobby Keys, and Nicky Hopkins, and you have a Stones classic...maybe it should be "the Big Five".

edited for typos, as usual.

I love album reviews like this - great

Jim Horn also blew some freshness into CDA, and Preston wasn't "overplaying" yet - he does some lovely stuff on the album.

Some of Taylor and Keith's finest playing is on this album, imo, but the rockers and Winter doesn't impress me that much.

It was the second album from this era I bought, so I heard this album repeatedly before BB, LIB and SF. I think Hide Your Love should have been omitted. This album, with its mood, would have been better without a blues jam on it, imo.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-12 08:59 by DandelionPowderman.

I love Hide Your Love.

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Aquamarine
I love Hide Your Love.

You are not alone.

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Aquamarine
I love Hide Your Love.

Me too, but a half-baked blues doesn't necessarily make a perfect fit with some of the other more "serious" songs on GHS. It's the same with Star Star, imo.

If you're gonna paint it black, do the job well, I'd say

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Green Lady

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Aquamarine
I love Hide Your Love.

You are not alone.

Within the album, I have to say that it is for me a weak point.

However, I don't remember where or when , I have at least once been confronted with it either isolated or in another context, and it struck me how much better impression "Hide Your Love" made on me then than as track of the album, an effect which I have remembered afterwards.

"Hide Your Love" .... they use it in the Sweet Summer Sun DVD...



ROCKMAN

That was my point exactly, Witness: Within the album.

On its own, Hide Your Love is a nice blues pastiche.

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treaclefingers

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Elmo Lewis
GHS Revised

Side 1:

100 Years Ago
Heartbreaker
Thru The Lonely Nights
Criss Cross
Can You Hear The Music
Star, Star


Side 2:

Angie
Tops
Winter
Coming Down Again
Waiting On A Friend

Sorry, no love for "Silver Train" here.

A distinct improvement although I'm not nominating it into the big 5 quite yet!

I would have preferred "Coming Down Again" and "Waiting on a Friend" placed on side A and B respectively, each as the axis, which the other songs would revolve round. Then the lyrics would also have its role in that. All the way with the TATTOO YOU version of "Waiting on a Friend" in mind.

So far I have said in an earlier thread, too. But then I became aware of a possible objection, without being able to come up with an answer. Now that could be put into a question. One thing is that "Waiting on a Friend" would have had Mick Taylor's guitar, probably. Consequently, might have been a little different. Much more important though, do we know if the earlier version of "Waiting on a Friend" had obtained its lyrics or as much as its title then? Or would an earlier version of the song, given a finish and hypothetically released on GOATS HEAD SOUP, been quite another and different song really, maybe with other modifications, too?

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Rockman
"Hide Your Love" .... they use it in the Sweet Summer Sun DVD...

Yes, you are right. (I have not got that one myself, only the vinyl recording.) I have wondered a little if that is with an improved production or something.