Good article, mentions Dirty work is a fine album, I listen to it quite a bit myself. I love the raw and dirty feel of all those tracks on this one, that's how I like my Stones!
-------------------------------

BIO from: www.rollingstones.com
June 17, 2005

It's hard to overestimate the importance of the Rolling Stones in rock & roll history. The group, which formed in London in 1962, distilled so much of the music that had come before it and has exerted a decisive influence on so much that has come after. Only a handful of musicians in any genre achieve that stature, and the Stones stand proudly among them.

Every album the group released through the early Seventies - from The Rolling Stones in 1964 to Exile on Main Street in 1972 -- is essential not simply to an understanding of the music of that era, but to an understanding of the era itself. In their intense interest in blues and R&B, the Stones connected a young American audience to music that was unknown to the vast majority of white Americans. Though the Stones were not overtly political in their early years, their obsession with African American music - from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf to Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and Don Covay - struck a chord that resonated with the goals of the civil rights movement. If the Stones had never made an album after 1965 they would still be legendary.

Soon, of course, the Stones - singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, in those days - became synonymous with the rebellious attitude of that era. Songs like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Street Fighting Man," "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Gimme Shelter" captured the violence, frustration and chaos of that era. For the Stones, the Sixties were not a time of peace and love; in many ways, the band found psychedelia and wide-eyed utopianism confusing and silly. The Stones always were - and continue to be - tough pragmatists. Against the endless promises of Sixties idealism the Stones understood that "You Can't Always Get What You Want." You simply want to Let It Be? Why not Let It Bleed?

For those reasons, as the Sixties drained into the Seventies, the Stones went on a creative run that rivals any in popular music. Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972) routinely turn up on lists of the greatest albums of all time, and deservedly so. All done with American producer Jimmy Miller - "in incredible rhythm man," in Richards' terse description - those records shake like the culture itself was shaking. As the Stones were working on Let It Bleed, Brian Jones died, and the band replaced him with Mick Taylor, a guitarist whose lyricism and melodic flair counterbalanced Richards' insistent, irreducible rhythmic drive, adding an element to the band's sound that hadn't been there before, and opening fertile new musical directions.

After that, the Stones were an indomitable force on the music scene, and they have continued to be to this day. In 1978, the band's album, Some Girls, rose to the challenge of punk ("When the Whip Comes Down") - whose energy and attitude the Stones had defined a decade earlier - but also swung with the sinuous grooves of disco ("Miss You"). The album is one of the best of that decade. Meanwhile, guitarist Ron Wood had replaced Mick Taylor in 1975, adding another key element to the version of the Rolling Stones that would last another three decades - and counting.

Tattoo You (1981) added the classics "Start Me Up" and "Waiting on a Friend" to the Stones' repertoire, and took its prominent place among the Stones' most compelling - and most popular - later albums. Possibly the most underrated album of the Stones' career, Dirty Work finds the band at its rawest and most rhythmically charged, a reflection of the tumult within the band when it was recorded. True Stones fans have long worn their appreciation of Dirty Work as a hip badge of honor.

With the release of Steel Wheels in 1989, the Stones went back on the road again for the first time in seven years and inaugurated the latest phase of the band's illustrious career. They've made strong, credible new albums during this period - Voodoo Lounge (1994), Bridges to Babylon (1997) - along with the excellent live album Stripped (1995) and the fun, satisfying hits collection, Forty Licks (2002).

More significantly, though, the Stones have set a standard for live performance during this time. That is an achievement completely in accord with the band's history. When the Stones began to be introduced on their 1969 tour as "The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,' they were staking that claim on the basis of their live performances. It was almost fashionable for bands to withdraw from the road at that time - Bob Dylan and the Beatles had both done so. But the Stones set out to prove that writing brilliant songs and making powerful records did not mean that you were too lofty to get up in front of your fans and rock them until their bones rattled. The Stones' live shows - epitomized, of course, by Jagger's galvanizing erotic choreography - had earned the band its reputation in its earliest years, and that flame was being rekindled.

It was lit again twenty years later, and it's burning still. Since 1989 the Stones have toured every few years to ecstatic response. Bassist Darryl Jones, who had formerly played with Miles Davis, joined the band in 1994, replacing Bill Wyman, and the Stones turned what could have been a setback into a rejuvenating rush of new energy. The Stones' live success during this period is not a matter of dollars or box-office breakthroughs, though the band has enjoyed plenty of both. It's about demonstrating a vital, ongoing commitment to the idea that performing is what keeps a band truly alive.

And that's the critical misunderstanding of the question, "Is this the last time?" that has been coming up every time the Stones have toured for close to forty years now. It's true that over the decades the Stones have been in the news for many reasons that have little to do with music - arrests, provocative statement, divorces, affairs, all the usual detritus of a raucous lifetime in the public eye. And there's no doubt that Mick Jagger is as famous a celebrity as the world has ever seen.

But, for all that, the Stones are best understood as musicians, and their own acceptance of that fact is what has enabled them to carry on so well for so long. For all the tabloid headlines, Mick Jagger is finally an extraordinary lead singer and one of the most riveting performers - in any genre - ever to set foot on a stage. Keith Richards is the propulsive engine that drives the Stones and makes their music instantly recognizable. Ron Wood is a guitarist who has formed a rhythmic brotherhood with Richards, but who also colors and textures the band's songs with deft, melodic touches. And Charlie Watts, needless to say, is one of rock's greatest drummers. He is both the rock that anchors the band, and the force that swings it. At once elegant in their simplicity and soaring in their impact, none of his gestures are wasted, all are necessary. He and Darryl Jones enliven the often-monolithic notion of the rock & roll rhythm section with an irresistible, unpretentious, jazz-derived sophistication.

Musicians live and create in the moment, and that's why fans still go see the Stones. Certainly there's also a catalogue of songs that only a handful of artists could rival. Surely there's also the desire to encounter a band that has played a pristine role in defining our very idea of what rock & roll is. But seeing the Rolling Stones live is to see a working band playing as hard as they can, and there's no last time for that.

- Anthony DeCurtis

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-06-17 22:03 by LISMM63.

great. thank's.

"True Stones fans have long worn their appreciation of Dirty Work as a hip badge of honor"


I always thought I was hip!

Dirty Work: Highly underrated slice of great rock n roll!!

Karl

agreed. Loved it when it came out and still do

Yup, it separates the Real Fans from the tools.

Their first edgey album with attitude in aeons.......and all the girly fans say......."Ooooh, the drum sound is mixed too high", "Jagger is shouting and not singing".

Stuff it, darlings, it's Real Rock and Roll. (It came without a health warning).

Im ashamed to say that this is the only stones album i dont have, but because of what you guys have talked about, i will go get it tomorrow.

"Is it any wonder that we fuss and fight"

"all the girly fans"?!
LoFL - i love Dirty Work!
the guitars! the guitars! the guitars!



"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

stonesriff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Im ashamed to say that this is the only stones
> album i dont have, but because of what you guys
> have talked about, i will go get it tomorrow.
>
> "Is it any wonder that we fuss and fight"


Don't bother....

i've always liked it. that's were stones got into more kind off pop music with like one hit(to the body). great song, one of my favorites.

Tape One Hit To The Body & Sleep Tonight then sell it on.

sssoul,

Indeed, my dear Watson, the GUITARS!

Loved it, as I love them all. More or less...

Vilhelm
Nordic Stones Vikings

I love it.. it´s a Rolling Stones álbum,,,

Count me as one of the girly fans. I bought it the day it came out. I liked One Hit, Fight & Harlem Shuffle, but it just didn't connect with me. I must have listened to it 200 times.....sub par. Video for Harlem Shuffle might be their best.

Has a few highlights...but by FAR their weakest album. In short...El stinko...for a Stones album...average to slightly above for the rest of the bands out there.

Girly, Girly!

Asides for Harlem Shuffle, Had it With You and Sleep Tonight: an truly awfull album.

Mathijs

good article but i dont like the implication that darryl jones is a stone
because he is not, and this bothers me very much, he is just a paid sideman
the stones have never in anyway made me feel that he is a rolling stone
and he should not be imho, as far as dirty work, its an ok album with a couple of
good tracks, ohthb and fight



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-06-19 17:41 by melillo.

don't let it "bother you very much"...if you let that happen...you'll always be upset...media folks often write incorrect things.

Don't get your feathers ruffled to much Melillo.

melillo wrote:

"good article but i dont like the implication that darryl jones is a stone
because he is not, and this bothers me very much, he is just a paid sideman
the stones have never in anyway made me feel that he is a rolling stone"

You are refering to the portion of the article below? The writer could have chosen other words, I suppose, to describe D. Jones. If the author had done his homework he'd realize that Darryl is "no where" near a "True STONE," for one thing, he certainly isn't getting an equal cut of the STONES money, say that Mick, Keith. Charlie and Ronnie get.

In all fairness, when the media mentions Lisa, Bernard, Blondie, etc., they are mentioned as members of the Band. They aren't refered to as "STONES" but only members of/or those joining the band.

Excerpts"
"Bassist Darryl Jones, who had formerly played with Miles Davis, joined the band in 1994, replacing Bill Wyman,...

...He and Darryl Jones enliven the often-monolithic notion of the rock & roll rhythm section with an irresistible, unpretentious, jazz-derived sophistication."

Cheers

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-06-20 08:16 by LISMM63.

Great songs:

One Hit
Fight
Harlem Shuffle
Too Rude
Dirty Work
Had It With You
Sleep Tonight
"Stu's boogie"

Can't be all that bad?

Bad album (Had it with you is great tho!)

Dirty Work......Wish they had have worked a lil more on the Keith tracks Some Of Us Are On Our Knees and You're Too Much. Both had potential and either would have tamed the glare that Hold Back added to the first side or the slackness that Back To Zero gave to the second side.

ROCKMAN

Hold Back = Raw (Attack, Attack, Attack!!).

Back to Zero = Busy/Rich.

I think the title song has a nice edge on it. The band sounds quite mean, and Jagger is my man as far as slagging the opposite sex is concerned. But the theatricality and teaching of "Hold Back" is that "Let's Work" philosophy he adopted during the 80's. Don't suit you, Sir. But the intentional naivity of "Had It With You" works just fine. The Stones do work when the boys (Mick, the lead singer and frontman, and Keith, the band maestro) are in the same level, hitting the same target. That's the problem of the album mostly; Mick is not really there. And no matter how mean and dirty guitar Keith and Ronnie are able to accomplish, the magic of The Stones doesn't really happen. No 100% Mick, no Stones.

Okay.. let's go, from the start. The opening song, despite it's dramatic intro of acoustic and electric guitar, has never grown up to me. It's just too... hmm.. easy-listener-manufactured I think; too 80's stadium rock poser feeling on it. Any sparky touch of Jagger is totally absent. He sounds so toothless. The presence of Jimmy Page does not help a bit."Fight"... I have never stopped really to listen to that song.. it just comes and goes, a filler I suppose with abit too intentional aggressive feeling. "Harlem Shuffle"; a nice song to dance, and one of their last real hits, but somehow it was a mark of senility to do a cover for the major single of the album. And the Stones didn't really add anything to the song. Then that weak and mentioned "Hold Back", one that rocks without any purpose. The over-produced soundscape of "Too Rude" makes it almost listenable nowadays. A joke that does not make anyone laugh. Boring.

B-side (yes, I use the concepts of 'sides' in thinking of this album). "Winning Ugly". One of rare Jagger's contributions? A leftover from his solo album, I guess. Sound artificial; no purpose; no band feeling; just lost in mid-80's mainstream. Then that rare (and sadly forgotten) pearl, "Dirty Work" (like "Too Tough" in Undercover) where the band seems to work as a unit; all directed into same purpose and even getting there. Is that horrible piece of crap "Back To Zero" next? Total sidekick, even though the maestro of the following decade is already there contributing (hahahahahahhaa.. IRONY!!!!). This 'song' makes plausible the idea that is was good that Jagger was not more offering more of his new musical ideas to The Stones at this stage. He was clearly leaving the traditional musical lanscapes of The Stones behind at that time. Then the funny but retro rocking, strangely bassless "Had It With You", before the last Richards ballad that hasn't the feeling of "not a @#$%& ballad again". But the most remarkable moment of music in Dirty Work is a clipse of Stu's piano in the end. But they could have respect his memory better by offering better 10 pieces of music before that.

So, all this said, I can not honestly say that Dirty Work is a really good album. Girlish talk, I know...

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-06-20 16:02 by Doxa.

Quote
LISMM63
Good article, mentions Dirty work is a fine album, I listen to it quite a bit myself. I love the raw and dirty feel of all those tracks on this one, that's how I like my Stones!
-------------------------------

BIO from: www.rollingstones.com
June 17, 2005

......Possibly the most underrated album of the Stones' career, Dirty Work finds the band at its rawest and most rhythmically charged, a reflection of the tumult within the band when it was recorded. True Stones fans have long worn their appreciation of Dirty Work as a hip badge of honor.......



- Anthony DeCurtis

Black & Blue is the most underrated in my opinion.

Ridiculous. This is a lousy album and has nothing to do with a 'shouting Mick' or a "too loud Charlie".

The writing is pathetic. Back to Zero, Hold Back, Dirty Work??

Come On!

Quote
treaclefingers
Ridiculous. This is a lousy album and has nothing to do with a 'shouting Mick' or a "too loud Charlie".

The writing is pathetic. Back to Zero, Hold Back, Dirty Work??

Come On!

fans can be discerned from fanatics when commenting on this album.

2 or 3 half decent songs and the rest, well...the fact they have never played them live says it all...it's a weak, patchy piece of work put out at a time when Stones fans were desparate for something - anything. The badge of Honour thing is a load of bollocks...if ever there was a concept where there was a badge of honour for stones fans it would be Exile as it was a move away from previous recordinga and largely slated by the music press...the true fans loved it!

Quote
treaclefingers
Ridiculous. This is a lousy album and has nothing to do with a 'shouting Mick' or a "too loud Charlie".

The writing is pathetic. Back to Zero, Hold Back, Dirty Work??

Come On!

Come On wasn't on Dirty Work. More Hot Rocks IIRC.