Worst: Dirty Work
2nd Worst: Steel Wheels


The only real "dogs" if you ask me.

ER? One of my favorites, right behind the Big Four, SG, TY, GHS.

Dirty Work.

Mostly noise, but it has it's moments!

Ross

The worst albums with no doubt for me are

1. Sticky Fingers
2. Exile On Main Street
3. Beggars Banquet
4. ER




























Just Kidding Folks :-D

SATANIC MAJESTIES IS THE WORST
EMOTIONAL RESCUE IS A CLOSE SECOND
ALL THE REST ROCK!

satanic majesties is the worst in my opinion, and for a long time goats head soup also, but the last one i`ll begin to like(took some 25 years on me)

Satanic Majesties by a landslide.

The Stones trying to be something they're not and doing so cheesily and unconvincingly.

However, even the bands worst albums all have some moments of magic.

Dirty Work would be their 2nd worst. Contains "hold back", one of the few Stones songs that I find musically unlistenable and painful, but it has some fine moments like "One hit" and "Sleep tonight".

Between The Buttons - not a bad album, but one I just cant get into.

Bridges to Babylon is actually in my top ten Stones albums.

I love STEEL WHEELS but can PASS on EMOTIONAL RESCUE and DIRTY WORK!

Debra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I love STEEL WHEELS but can PASS on EMOTIONAL
> RESCUE and DIRTY WORK!

I there nothing I can say, nothing I can do to change your mind about Emotional Rescue?

Most of the songs on Undercover are great.She Was Hot = classic Rolling Stones, Tie You Up, Undercover of the Night, Too Tough just to name a few are best when played on a loud sound system when/if you are in the mood for them.

These discussions are always a gas. I dont know alot of hardcore fans in my town so I dont have anyone to debate with aside from my dad. Always amazes me just how diverse Stones fans are in their tastes.

BTW, I also happen to think Voodoo was a great album. It would have been much stronger is Sweethearts Together and Suck on the Jugular had been replaced with So Young and Jump On Top Of Me.

Goatshead (Angie, Star Star), Black and Blue (Memory Motel, Hand of Fate), and IORR(title track, TWFNO, If You Can't..) all have two or several classics that ensure they're not the worst.


I liked Undercover and Emotional Rescue when they came out and still do...lots of rockin' tunes and interesting excursions into other genres..however with the exception of the title tunes on both and Too Much Blood (those horns suck IMHO).

Dirty Work is fine: One Hit is cool...love Sleep Tonight...much of it isn't deep enough, but nothing is total shit.

Steel Wheels is pretty damned weak...Mixed Emotions (I still like it okay) and Rock and a Hard Place were the singles? Damn, that's bad! Nothing earthy here...worse than Dirty Work for sure.

VL and B2B blow DW and SW away! YGMR, Love is Strong,Sparks, I Go Wild (severely underrated!), Out of Tears, Blinded by Rainbows, Out of Control, Saint of Me, Thief in the Night...just about any of these are better than anything on SW and DW, maybe even better than anything on ER and Undercover.

Soooo....Steel Wheels is the worst for me, except that Satanic has only one listenable, semi-Stones like song...She's a Rainbow...

So outside of that strange interlude that in golf would be a Mulligan...it's Steel Wheels

Hands down it has to be Majesties. The absolute worst overall album the band ever released. Half of the "songs" on it are a jangled mess. Majesties were the Stones TRYING to follow a trend......a lesson they learned hard. They learned that there is a huge difference between fashion and style

The only good thing that came out of it is that they hired a real producer (Jimmy Miller), went back and studied their roots and went in a total opposite direction (their own style and direction which thet refined) than most bands at the time.......resulting in Beggars Banquet, which put a spike right thru the heart of all the Sgt. Pepper's, psychadelic bullshit and followed it with Let It Bleed, letting all the world know that so-called flower power was a rotting dog on the side of the road.

Any other album compared to Majesties is great. At least on other albums there is good production, actual structure and real songs....some good, some bad...but at least they were real songs. If I wanna her someone play bad bongos, shake a tambourine and fart and cough a few times in between the noise, I can walk down to Washington Square Park or Union Square any day or night of the week and hear some stinky bums make better "music" than 80% of Majesties.

Milo, NYC
Whats'a 'matter wit you boy?

i dont like dirty work and bridges to babylon

Dirty Work but i could make a case for all the live albums released since Ya Ya's, and the US versions of the early albums but its not the songs its the shoddy way they were put together, My old mono Rolling Stones vinyl album makes the sacd sound pathetic.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-08-02 16:15 by Love In Vain.

Yeah I think SW is by far the worst.
Satanic is so easily dismissed but every time I actually sit and listen to it I find the songs to be pretty strong. Only "Gomper" can be called an actual mess.
SW is so dam 80's, the lyrics are TERRIBLE, and the songwriting pretty much sucks. Sad Sad is forced, RIAHP is my least fave Stones-SoulSurvivor-ripoff of all times. Keith's tune Can't Be Seen" and "Blinded" are jokes. Hold on to your Hat and Hearts for Sale are the ebst thing on the album. But while SW sucks obviously to Stones hardcores I also don't like Voodoo at all. That is a whole thread in itself but I hate Voodoo. (Except I go Wild)

I really do like them all, but Dirty Work is my least favorite. Love One Hit, I love the guitars, I just don't like the barking vocals of Mick. My opinion his worst vocals ever.

It's so very lonely, you're 2,000 Light Years from home

The thing about dirty work and undercover is they were done at a time when Mick was busy with his solo career. Keith talked about how Mick was really not involved enough in the Stones work and was one of the reasons they did not tour between 81-89. Not to make excuses but Dirty and therefore that is what you heard

ER was totally worked on. they were still together just came off of Some Girls
LP and to come out with such a lame effort.

She's so cold only decent song

Where the boys go sounds like slopy seconds of respectable.

Terrible.

1. Emotional Rescue - Lazy, half-assed effort.

2. Satanic Majesties Request - A genre that the Stones hadn't mastered.

3. Dirty Work - Cover photo is so embarrassing that they covered it in red cellophane.

4. Between the Buttons - Nice "swinging london" pop songs, but except for Mick's voice, it doesn't sound like the stones.

This thread has Dirty Work written all over it.

JumpingKentFlash

There was a time when I actually liked Satanic Majesties but alas, time has proved to be very unkind to it.

Stick to what you do best, boys.

SteelWheels is about the worst. Not so much for the songs as they're no better or worse than the other Stones albums post 1981 but i really do hate the sterile eighties production. Satanic Majesties may be deemed misguided but it was recorded when the Stones were full of creativity and it was interesting.

Four candidates I would say

It´s widely uphold that the best albums the Stones have produced are the golden 4 from the years 1968-72 and so think I. When it comes to chosing the worst album let´s remember that the Stones has been an extremely professional band since their first album that came in 1964 even if they were just in the beginning of writing own material. That means that when the Stones are weak they are still better than most other.

The Stones have had two particularly weak periods. The first was when they just had started to write songs and they felt a hard competition from the Beatles, that is the pop music phase of 1966-67. The other weak period is in the 80´s when the band almost split up. If the four mentioned albums were the best I would say that there are four candidates for the worst album: Between the Buttons – a total pop music album just when the Cream and Jimi Hendrix were about to emerge. Majesties – an answer to Sergeant Pepper and an opportunistic flop. Undercover a funky album that doesn´t sound like Stones and finally Dirty Works where Mick Jagger was quite uninterested in the Band.

The final choice is for me quite personal. I am one of the older fans at this board and was hooked on Stones already in 1964. When Between the Buttons came it was a complete disappointment to me, I loathed it (and so did many other friends of mine at that time). After that I was quite uninterested in what the Stones did, I actually never acquired Majesties, and I haven´t still listened to all of its songs so maybe it´s even worse as other here maintain. Undercover is another album which I find horrible, it´s not a rock album, even if it has a few rock songs. I think the lesson for the Stones is that when they have experimented it has normally gone bad, I think that´s the reason why they have been so careful since then. Dirty Works is bad, but better than Undercover.

So from the point of view of disappointment I vote for Between the Buttons. It made me turn of the button for Stones records, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac were so much better at that time.

Mago

There are none!! Every single one has at least one major hit!

1. Bridge to babylon
2. dirty work
3. Steel wheels

Its really hard to say which is worst because they all have something I like. I guess for me the worst would have to be Steel Wheels but to the dismay of many here I also think IORR is one of my least favorite. Out of all of their well-known hits the title track is my lest favorite warhorse. And the ballads and production on this album are not very good.

The only thing that saves the album from being a complete bomb in my eyes is Dance Little Sister, If You Can't Rock me, TWFNO and Fingerprint File.

Just to throw one more out there, Undercover is so so.

I think Satanic Majesties has to be looked at differently, it was a crucial time for the band and that album is a reflection of what was going on. There are some good songs on it but I am glad the Stones did a pychedelic album like this. I listen to it way more than IORR.

Satanic is getting a lot more criticism on this thread than I would have expected. I still listen to this one very often - still sounds fresh to me (the SACD upgrade is astounding). Yeah, the band was experimenting (who the hell wasn't in '67?) - but that's part of its charm. Creativity was high - Nicky's contributions are wonderful - the atmosphere is "electric." Still a fun listen, IMO.

I have normally regarded these "polls" we have at the board as uninteresting, but this time I found it interesting and it shows a slight variety of opinions. If I have counted well Dirty Work is at the lead with 12 votes followed by ER and Majesties both 8 votes. Maybe not so surprising after all.

What I find peculiar is that there are several votes for the three last albums SW, WL and Bridges to B. Personally I find all these three albums strong, I play them regularly and they are a strong reason why you find me at this board. Another reason is that I have been very impressed by the Stones resent live performances, the three shows in Stockholm which I saw in 2003 were terrific. Still it seems that at this board the public opinion is that the Stones hasn´t delivered live for at least 20 years. So some don´t like the live performances and don´t like the music the Stones have been writing the last decade but are still here. Then the competition must be weak indeed!

Mago

I'm in the Steel Wheels camp. It sounds like the 80's because it was created in the 80's!!!!!!! Good songs that do not make me cringe as when I'm listening to Indian Girl or Back To Zero......the only thing I don't like about the Stones recent records are there have not been enough of them.

I have to agree the 90's CD's I actualy think were better then the 80's

VL Was critically acclaimed and I thought it was great.

You could tell Mick was half into it in the mid 80's

Love is strong is very good.

Steel Wheels was the best of the junky 80'S cd's

I mean tatoo You was the Best. (No one mentions that one) The rest terrible to ok

I think so far Bang sounds good.

I Though Mixed emotions sounded like the theme of some bad chick flick

Sadd sad sad was not bad

How can a big hitter like Mathijs get it so wrong?

The weak tracks on B2B are Always Suffering (airbrushed and over-egged, it lacks the raggedness that marks out the best latter period Stones ballads - same over the top vocal that threatens to sink Streets of Love) and Too Tight (nothing mmemorable) Thief is a great track with a terrific groove and YDHTMI is their best ever reggae.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if Voodoo Lounge had ended after Swethearts Together it would have been hailed as a return to form.

The worst stones albums are all those early american LPs that London created from the Decca albums and EPs.