Although I don't like very much of the dirty work album, I felt like with what they had available and a bit of refinement they could have released a decent album.
Depending with how you want the track list to play (a fast and slow side, a mick and keith side or a reasonable mix on either side) you can still make a decent album.

What I tried to do was stick as much to the stones formula as best I could while making the best album in my opinion. For me the stones formula at the time included: mick singing most songs, a good mix of uptempo songs, putting their own flavour on the current music trends, having an album they could tour behind and that would attract common fan interest (not just stones fans) and having a hit or two leading the tracklist with 10 tracks total (same as the released album).
Trying my best to stick to my made up rules, the only sin I committed was having too many keith songs compared to usual but when the material is good it's hard to ignore it.

Here's my tracklist:

One Hit To The Body
Harlem shuffle
For Your Precious Love
Crushed Pearl
Baby You’re Too Much

Had it with you (although I thought can't cut the mustard had more potential)
Gangster’s Moll
Treat Me Like A Fool
What Am I Gonna Do With Your Love
Sleep Tonight


Please keep in mind I know that some of these songs need a bit of work but I really think if they were cleaned up a little for release they would have a more interesting and musically better album than what was released.

I also want to know what others think of this tracklist and what you would have instead!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-17 04:11 by woodyweaving.

The whole concept was not well thought out and recorded at a Stones low point....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-17 05:05 by Brstonesfan.

One Hit to the Body
One Hit to the Body (London Remix)
Harlem Shuffle
Harlem Shuffle (collectibles remix)
Too Rude
Half Hour Studio Jam
Winning Ugly

Thanks a lot for this thread! I guess it's been a while since I've dug around for unreleased Stones, so I googled some of the tracks you mentioned, and I've had a blast hearing a bunch of songs that are new to me!

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Dirty Work, since it was the first Stones album I bought new. I remember it had a red cellophane wrapping that semi-hid the cover. The colors of the real cover didn't reveal themselves until the wrapping came off. That was kind of cool. The weird cartoons on the sleeve were weird, too.

I like your track listing, but I would say it makes the whole record slower. That's cool, but it definitely gives the record a different vibe.

The three songs I don't like on Dirty Work are Fight, Hold Back, and Back To Zero, so I would cut those. I like Too Rude, but I would switch it out for a different Keith song.

I went for 12 tracks, just because I said so. It was too difficult to cut down to just ten. I tried to end each side with a Keith song. The tricky part was ending each side with a Keith song, yet also trying to maintain a feeling that would allow you to listen to the whole album straight through and think it has a good flow. I don't know if I quite succeeded. It's definitely a case of side one being a lot faster and hopefully building up steam until the end, and side two being mellower and slowing down as it goes along. I always thought Harlem Shuffle would sound better coming after a slower number by Keith, and that it would make a good opener for side two as well.

ROLLING STONES - DIRTY WORK

1. One Hit To The Body
2. Dirty Work
3. Eliza
4. Stop That
5. Had It With You
6. What Am I Supposed To Do

7. Harlem Shuffle
8. Winning Ugly
9. Keep It Cool
10. Strictly Memphis
11. Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever
12. Sleep Tonight

A resequencing wouldn't address the underlying faults in the album, is my two cents.

I still think it suffers from a bad mix, unfortunate mid eighties production fads, and weak songwriting.

That said, One Hit is a great track.
Strictly Memphis is one of my favourite outtakes from any era.
And on a good day, I could see the charm in a couple of other tracks.

But I simply can't get over the day I brought that album home. Side one started okay and i went through various stages of denial and bargaining as it went on. And then I put on side two.
That sh*t can scar you for life.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-17 07:22 by andrewt.

Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

I would release an EP

One Hit To The Body
Harlem Shuffle
Had It With You
Winning Ugly
Sleep Tonight

Quote
pepganzo
I would release an EP

One Hit To The Body
Harlem Shuffle
Had It With You
Winning Ugly
Sleep Tonight

Yes, that would have been the best choice.

Side 1

1. One Hit
2. Had it With You
3. Sleep Tonight
4. Harlem Shuffle
5. Cook Cook Blues

Side 2.

1. Stu Playing "Key to the Highway" for 20 minutes

3 stand-alone singles, released during 1985-1987:

One Hit (To The Body) b/w Sleep Tonight

Harlem Shuffle b/w Had It With You

Winning Ugly b/w Too Rude

That way, they could have gotten through the mid-eighties, keeping their hand in, AND meeting at an absolute minimum.

Wouldn´t change anything. Dirty Work is a great Stones-album, it is hard rocking, it is tight and Mick is on top of his game. Plenty of excellent guitars on it. One Hit is marvelous, Keith shines on Sleep Tonight, Had It With You and Dirty Work are very pleasing Stones-rockers. Harlem Shuffle is one of the greatest cover-versions they ever did. Winning Ugly is hot and sleazy, a pure delight. Back To Zero is a bit too much 80ies, but listenable. Fight and Hold Back are really wild and most enjoyable. Too Rude is Keith-Reggae at its best. No need for any changes. Their best album since Black And Blue and completely underrated (for whatever reason). It is also the best sounding Stones-album of all time. And it is way better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon & A Bigger Bang. These albums need resequencing, they are way too long and have to be shortened. Too much weak fillers on these albums. Dirty Work has no fillers, only killers.A killer album from the bottom to the top, i love it.

I know this topic is an evergreen here, DW and also Undercover, continually re-evaluated, deconstructed, but I always find them interesting.

Perhaps it's the Stones bias, but when you break it down, DW isn't awful, it actually contains quite a few very good songs -

One Hit (to the Body) = Love it; great riff, nasty vibe, Jimmy Page; what more can one ask!

Sleep Tonight = Not up there with 'Slipping Away', but a fine Tom Waits assisted ballad nonetheless.

Too Rude = Have always loved this one; Keef, Ronnie thumping drums, Jimmy Cliff; played on both Winos tours so obviously Keef rates it. As do I!

Dirty Work = One of the best passages on the album, that guitar breakdown in the middle. Song itself I'd rate also.

Had it With You = minimal, not a great track, but definitely decent.

Harlem Shuffle = Good version of a great song!


The sessions provided more and could have improved the album; Crushed Pearl, Strictly Memphis...etc..etc.

For an album maligned as horrible, when looking at the components, there's acually a good album there; nowhere near great, but it's an album I do still revisit.

I would change it from LP to SP and the tracklist would be as follows:

A: One Hit
B: Sleep Tonight

It is all well and good to have at least one terrible album released in the ' 80s so I change nothing on this album. If you change songs, it can became good, and thus published in the wrong decade...

2 1 2 0

Quote
HMS
Wouldn´t change anything. Dirty Work is a great Stones-album, it is hard rocking, it is tight and Mick is on top of his game. Plenty of excellent guitars on it. One Hit is marvelous, Keith shines on Sleep Tonight, Had It With You and Dirty Work are very pleasing Stones-rockers. Harlem Shuffle is one of the greatest cover-versions they ever did. Winning Ugly is hot and sleazy, a pure delight. Back To Zero is a bit too much 80ies, but listenable. Fight and Hold Back are really wild and most enjoyable. Too Rude is Keith-Reggae at its best. No need for any changes. Their best album since Black And Blue and completely underrated (for whatever reason). It is also the best sounding Stones-album of all time. And it is way better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon & A Bigger Bang. These albums need resequencing, they are way too long and have to be shortened. Too much weak fillers on these albums. Dirty Work has no fillers, only killers.A killer album from the bottom to the top, i love it.

I think I just clicked on an alternate universe IORR.

Quote
treaclefingers

Quote
HMS
Wouldn´t change anything. Dirty Work is a great Stones-album, it is hard rocking, it is tight and Mick is on top of his game. Plenty of excellent guitars on it. One Hit is marvelous, Keith shines on Sleep Tonight, Had It With You and Dirty Work are very pleasing Stones-rockers. Harlem Shuffle is one of the greatest cover-versions they ever did. Winning Ugly is hot and sleazy, a pure delight. Back To Zero is a bit too much 80ies, but listenable. Fight and Hold Back are really wild and most enjoyable. Too Rude is Keith-Reggae at its best. No need for any changes. Their best album since Black And Blue and completely underrated (for whatever reason). It is also the best sounding Stones-album of all time. And it is way better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon & A Bigger Bang. These albums need resequencing, they are way too long and have to be shortened. Too much weak fillers on these albums. Dirty Work has no fillers, only killers.A killer album from the bottom to the top, i love it.

I think I just clicked on an alternate universe IORR.

Don't feed the trolls.

I slightly agree with HMS in the regards that it is a great (I'd say good) Stones album, except for 'Fight'. That may be one of the most redundant songs they made from 1980-1989, since the only words I can remember are 'Gotta get into a fight, gotta get into it, yeah yeah!" repeated, along with something about 'broad daylight' and some garbled nonsense. But in short, I enjoy my vinyl copy and CBS remaster......However, HMS is dead wrong about it being "way better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon & A Bigger Bang." Each of those albums is much better (especially as far as tours/promotions go) than Dirty Work.

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treaclefingers

Quote
HMS
Wouldn´t change anything. Dirty Work is a great Stones-album,

It is also the best sounding Stones-album of all time. And it is way better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon & A Bigger Bang.

Dirty Work has no fillers, only killers. A killer album from the bottom to the top, i love it.

I think I just clicked on an alternate universe IORR.

No no it's just Friday afternoon so things happen... or Mathijs has gotten an alias and he's trying to pull our leg ><

Quote
bitusa2012
Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

Add Too Rude, and I am with you.

Surprised by all the Winning Ugly mentions -- one of my all time hated Stones tracks! Along w/ most of the rest of this album.

Quote
woodyweaving
One Hit To The Body
Harlem shuffle
For Your Precious Love
Crushed Pearl
Baby You’re Too Much

Had it with you
Gangster’s Moll
Treat Me Like A Fool
What Am I Gonna Do With Your Love
Sleep Tonight

So you want to include a song that was recorded in 1989 on a 1986 album?

One Hit (To The Body)
Fight
Harlem Shuffle
Too Rude
Dirty Work
Had It With You
Sleep Tonight

Winning Ugly is in the Top 5 of Worst Stones Songs Ever. It's beyond an atrocity. It makes Back To Zero seem decent.

Wheels, Lounge, Bridges, Bang - you can find very good to excellent songs on this albums as well. But these albums carry also a bunch of lame and I mean REAL lame ones, boring ones. Dirty Work isn´t boring, it sounds untamed, aggressive and bold. Dirty Work mirrors the conflict between Keith and Mick, that is where the energy comes from. And the energy level is very high on Dirty Work. On Steel Wheels it is very low, so...

...let´s have a look at Steel Wheels:

Sad Sad Sad
Mixed Emotions
Terrifying------>FILLER
Hold On To Your Hat
Hearts For Sale
Blinded By Love--------->FILLER
Rock And A Hard Place-------->FILLER
Can´t Be Seen-------->FILLER
Almost Hear You Sigh--------->FILLER
Continental Drift------->FILLER
Break The Spell
Slipping Away------>FILLER

...no FILLER on Dirty Work, except maybe Back To Zero. But Back To Zero beats songs like Slipping Away, Can´t Be Seen or Terrifying every time, not to mention such ridiculous crap like Blinded By Love or Almost Hear You Sigh.

So if the Stones have released a weak album in the 80ies, it must be Steel Wheels. No other album has so many fillers on it, not even Bridges To Babylon, which is also rather weak. I really like Hold On To Your Hat, Hearts For Sale and Break The Spell. I can live with Sad Sad Sad and Mixed Emotions. The rest is weak and boring, substandard-Stones.

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
bitusa2012
Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

Add Too Rude, and I am with you.

Surprised by all the Winning Ugly mentions -- one of my all time hated Stones tracks! Along w/ most of the rest of this album.

Winning Ugly suffers from the 80's production, i.e. the instruments sound terrible. And it's a poppy/disco-ish kinda song.
But as such, as a song, it's rather good: the build-up, the melody, the chord-structure, the bridge, the bass-line (although - again - the sound of the bass is bad).

Quote
matxil

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
bitusa2012
Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

Add Too Rude, and I am with you.

Surprised by all the Winning Ugly mentions -- one of my all time hated Stones tracks! Along w/ most of the rest of this album.

Winning Ugly suffers from the 80's production, i.e. the instruments sound terrible. And it's a poppy/disco-ish kinda song.
But as such, as a song, it's rather good: the build-up, the melody, the chord-structure, the bridge, the bass-line (although - again - the sound of the bass is bad).

I disagree on the 'good' ... It's a bad tune, no matter how you look at it.

Mine woukld look like this:

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
matxil

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
bitusa2012
Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

Add Too Rude, and I am with you.

Surprised by all the Winning Ugly mentions -- one of my all time hated Stones tracks! Along w/ most of the rest of this album.

Winning Ugly suffers from the 80's production, i.e. the instruments sound terrible. And it's a poppy/disco-ish kinda song.
But as such, as a song, it's rather good: the build-up, the melody, the chord-structure, the bridge, the bass-line (although - again - the sound of the bass is bad).

I disagree on the 'good' ... It's a bad tune, no matter how you look at it.

yeah, winning ugly is yet another low point. good though that most of the Stones career lows happen all in one spot.

Quote
LeonidP

I disagree on the 'good' ... It's a bad tune, no matter how you look at it.

I only listen to it. Looking at the Dirty Work cover I find very depressing.
Also, it helps trying to forget that it's a song by the Stones.
Pretend it's something made by Wham and you'll see the song wins a lot more credit. Especially if you only focus on the guitars and the vocals and pretend the bass sounds dirtier. I agree, it's quite an exercise in mental blindness, but it works for me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-17 19:01 by matxil.

Can´t understand why so many people dislike Winning Ugly. It´s a really great song, great melody, great vocals, great groove and it sounds fantastic. Have not heard it in the last two weeks or so. Shame on me. So I gonna get my earphones right now and play it over and over. You should do that too, believe me, the song will grow on you.

Quote
HMS
Wheels, Lounge, Bridges, Bang - you can find very good to excellent songs on this albums as well. But these albums carry also a bunch of lame and I mean REAL lame ones, boring ones. Dirty Work isn´t boring, it sounds untamed, aggressive and bold. Dirty Work mirrors the conflict between Keith and Mick, that is where the energy comes from. And the energy level is very high on Dirty Work. On Steel Wheels it is very low, so...

...let´s have a look at Steel Wheels:

Sad Sad Sad
Mixed Emotions
Terrifying------>FILLER
Hold On To Your Hat
Hearts For Sale
Blinded By Love--------->FILLER
Rock And A Hard Place-------->FILLER
Can´t Be Seen-------->FILLER
Almost Hear You Sigh--------->FILLER
Continental Drift------->FILLER
Break The Spell
Slipping Away------>FILLER

...no FILLER on Dirty Work, except maybe Back To Zero. But Back To Zero beats songs like Slipping Away, Can´t Be Seen or Terrifying every time, not to mention such ridiculous crap like Blinded By Love or Almost Hear You Sigh.

So if the Stones have released a weak album in the 80ies, it must be Steel Wheels. No other album has so many fillers on it, not even Bridges To Babylon, which is also rather weak. I really like Hold On To Your Hat, Hearts For Sale and Break The Spell. I can live with Sad Sad Sad and Mixed Emotions. The rest is weak and boring, substandard-Stones.

The only things on Steel Wheels regarded as 'Filler', is Hold On To Your Hat and Break The Spell. These two songs would most likely have ended up on the cutting room floor, had it not been for the idea to make longer albums, because of the compact disc-age. Hold On To Your Hat is unlovely c***-rock and Break The Spell is a subpar blues. Like it or not, but The Stones very much rated Blinded By Love, Terrifying and Rock And A Hard Place, because it broke new ground for them, which is the reason to continue making records anyway. A blues like Break The Spell, has been done to death by them and it is those kind of things which only give records like Steel Wheels a bad name, because it's just a continuation of something done much better by them years earlier. Move on forward Terrifying and Blinded By Love!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-18 09:05 by Blueranger.

Quote
Blueranger

The only things on Steel Wheels regarded as 'Filler', is Hold On To Your Hat and Break The Spell. These two songs would most likely have ended up on the cutting room floor, had it not been for the idea to make longer albums, because of the compact disc-age. Hold On To Your Hat is unlovely c***-rockand Break The Spell is a subpar blues. Like it or not, but The Stones very much rated Blinded By Love, Terrifying and Rock And A Hard Place, because it broke new ground for them, which is the reason to continue making records anyway. A blues like Break The Spell, has been done to death by them and it is those kind of things which only give records like Steel Wheels a bad name, because it's just a continuation of something done much better by them years earlier. Move forward Terrifying and Blinded By Love!!!

I agree. And "Slipping Away" is also one of Keith's better attempts at a jazzy ballad.

Quote
treaclefingers

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
matxil

Quote
LeonidP

Quote
bitusa2012
Harlem shuffle
One hit to the body

That's it

Add Too Rude, and I am with you.

Surprised by all the Winning Ugly mentions -- one of my all time hated Stones tracks! Along w/ most of the rest of this album.

Winning Ugly suffers from the 80's production, i.e. the instruments sound terrible. And it's a poppy/disco-ish kinda song.
But as such, as a song, it's rather good: the build-up, the melody, the chord-structure, the bridge, the bass-line (although - again - the sound of the bass is bad).

I disagree on the 'good' ... It's a bad tune, no matter how you look at it.

yeah, winning ugly is yet another low point. good though that most of the Stones career lows happen all in one spot.

It's part of my 'low point' era for the Stones, probably the same for many fans. It was 10 years of hell -- 1984-1994, over 10 years! We got my two least favorite albums -- I detest Dirty Work and am so-so on Steel Wheels -- we almost had the band break up, it led to the first ever solo albums of Mick & Keith (which wasn't bad, but still, it wasn't my classic Stones).

For me anyway, I love Voodoo Lounge, so that was a nice rebound from the 2 previous ...