I was recently listening to "Mixed Emotions" and was trying to figure out what i don't like about Stones albums from 1989 and after. It occurred to me that it's because they all sound more like Mick Jagger solo albums with the rest of the band sounding like studio musicians. I'm guessing it is because they don't even write together anymore. I'm curious if others feel the same.

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stratt219
I was recently listening to "Mixed Emotions" and was trying to figure out what i don't like about Stones albums from 1989 and after. It occurred to me that it's because they all sound more like Mick Jagger solo albums with the rest of the band sounding like studio musicians. I'm guessing it is because they don't even write together anymore. I'm curious if others feel the same.

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I think Mick Jagger solo would have chosen a completely different approach than what
we hear on Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon and A Bigger Bang.
A huge list is to be made of songs where we can hear the full band at its best.
Grooving, cutting edge guitar licks and riffs, upbeat drumming. Everything we love about
this band.

That being said, I would certainly love it, if they would take a couple of months in the studio
next time and bounce ideas off each other. I think interesting results would come out
of it, if they'd all had their input in the creation of the songs.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

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marcovandereijk
I think Mick Jagger solo would have chosen a completely different approach than what
we hear on Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon and A Bigger Bang.
A huge list is to be made of songs where we can hear the full band at its best.
Grooving, cutting edge guitar licks and riffs, upbeat drumming. Everything we love about
this band.

That being said, I would certainly love it, if they would take a couple of months in the studio
next time and bounce ideas off each other. I think interesting results would come out
of it, if they'd all had their input in the creation of the songs.

All four of those albums are DOMINATED by Mick though, especially the last two. Keith largely threw in the towel creatively aside from the tracks where he sings lead.

Sure Keith, Ronnie and Charlie can't help but put their Stonesy imprint on Jagger's compositions, but you clearly get a Jagger-only feel on a lot of those four albums that you didn't get prior to, say, 1981.

A Bigger Bang is a Mick's solo album played by the Stones. A sort of Goddess part. 2 with two Keith's decent solo songs.
I hope that new Stones album will be as good as Crosseyed Heart.

I agree about Keith checking out on the stones creatively starting at some point in the 90s. I don't think it happened as early as 89. I think even on stage you can tell he is more along for the ride than leading it.

I think mick and Keith have serious weaknesses as individual songwriters. They need someone to push them, tell them when their song is crap, and help them with the rougher edges. This is of course common with songwriting teams. Once the stones lost that things took a big turn for the worse.

Steve Jordan is a big part of why cross eyed heart is so good if for no other reason than that he played this role with Keith.

I'm amazed that Dylan is able to do what he does on his own.

Almost half of B2B were Keith-penned songs.

They wrote more songs together in France than many here think (Let Me Down Slow, She Saw Me Coming, Dangerous Beauty come to mind).

The VL bootlegs are loaded with good Keith songs as well.

But clearly Mick dominated the amount of songwriting for these albums.

You should listen to Mick´s crap, so you will surely be able to hear the difference. SW, VL, BTB & ABB doesnt sound like Jagger-solo-albums at all. You could as well say Black And Blue sounds like a Mick Jagger-album. Nobody does, because he hasnt released a solo-album until 1985. Since then some fans seem to see the solo-Jagger lurking everywhere... they cant listen to a Stones-song without wondering could it be a Jagger-song or a Richards-Song. It makes no difference if a song is Jagger or Richards as long as it is a good one.

If its a bad one, then of course it is Jagger´s

I don't blame Mick or Keith individually for the poor songwriting the last couple of decades and think they both deserve equal blame. I also think it's a huge burden to be held up against the standard of their best work. My guess it that it's a combination of many factors as to why they don't continue to produce the magic they once did. Mostly a true lack of hugely original ideas, less motivation to really work each others material, their personal tastes have grown apart and their lifestyles don't keep them in touch with the majority of middle class rock fans.

all of those post 89 records sound better than mick or keiths solo efforts.

that's not saying much because mick and keiths solo records suck,in different ways but they suck just the same.

it's mick trying not to sound like the stones and failing and keith trying to sound like the stones..and failing.

the reason- those musicians on the solo records just arent that good,the guys with a man crush on keith have convinced themselves that there is some sort of more "authentic" sound to keiths stuff,no it's pseudo rolling stones played very poorly by linda ronstadts guitar player and a bunch of no-names you'd never listen to if they weren't with keith.

jagger is even worse-he's trying these "experiments" to "take the music somewhere else and try something different"
what mick needs to do is "experiment" with trying to write a song that doesnt suck.
it's like he's constantly writing things and dividing them up-"this one will work with the stones this one is something else".what seems lost on him is that the ones that wont work with the stones are that way because the aren't any good.the ones that will work with the stones need to be worked on in a studio with the band for weeks or months,in the end its easier to travel around the globe on vacation for 9 months and then make another small fortune playing jumpin jack flash and satisfaction again.

so to answer the original question,the answer is no.

even though i only like about 30% to 40% of the songs on them ,those latter day stones records are a hundred times better than mick or keiths solo stuff for the simple reason that mick,keith,charlie,ronnie,bill/daryl are a better band than the hacks and wannabes on the solo records.
at least the glimmers actually worked together a little bit on the songwriting,so we take what we can get.but to compare an official release to that crap they put out by themselves,no way.

Sorry duludervi but Jagger and Richards have written together only in the 60s, when they were living together. SF or EOMS already have not been scitti together.

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Testify
Sorry duludervi but Jagger and Richards have written together only in the 60s, when they were living together. SF or EOMS already have not been scitti together.

who do you think wrote the music and chorus for wild horses, and who do you think wrote the verses?

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Turner68

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Testify
Sorry duludervi but Jagger and Richards have written together only in the 60s, when they were living together. SF or EOMS already have not been scitti together.

who do you think wrote the music and chorus for wild horses, and who do you think wrote the verses?

That was in the 60s, though

40% of SF is from the 60s..

At least they wrote Memory Motel together...

true, although SF was mentioned, so i figured it kinda applied :-)

i found myself hard pressed to think of songs on Exile that we *knew* they had worked on together. I kind of like not knowing though, and assuming they were all written together.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-09-22 21:38 by Turner68.

Most of the musicians Mick worked with on his solo-albums are far from being hacks and wannabes. But it seems like they decided to create only bullshit for reasons that are beyond me.

Keith´s Winos are a garage band and the drummer is sounding awful. Keith´s albums seems to be better because its roots music without any modern touch to it. Most Stones-Fans like it like that. Mick is going the other way constantly ignoring that all this modern shit isnt really suited for him, basically he´s a rock and blues singer, if he tries to create "modern" and "trendy" music he always falls on his face. Keith´s latest album is AVERAGE, but people praise it like it was the holy grail. No way that Keith could record an album that´s better than a stones album, it will always lack the chemistry of a stones album. Voodoo Lounge or Steel Wheels are rather weak albums but ten times better than the solo-albums of Mick and Keith. All this recording of solo-stuff was/is a waste of time, they should stop this because at their age they are running out of time. To me personally post-89-Stones-albums do not sound like Jagger-solo-albums, except maybe Bridges To Babylon which indeed sounds as if it was stitched together of two halves of never released solo records by Mick and Keith. AAB sounds like a genuine Stones-album and I think it is only a myth that Keith contributed only two songs. It sounds like a band-record, not like Jagger-songs played by Keith/Ronnie/Charlie. But what do I know, ears are different, people often hear what they want to hear and the truth has many faces.

HMS you make an interesting point about Mick. It's like somewhere someone told him that he was a great singer. He isn't. He isn't even a good singer. He is, however, a great rock/blues singers. There's such a huge difference.

Steel Wheels is the last great Rolling Stones album. I don't consider it as part of the group that emerged after Wyman split. Voodoo Lounge and A Bigger Bang are echoes of earlier triumphs. Jagger's lyrics have never flagged, but the band around him has been less than creative. Their rhythm section has been crippled for years, not really noticed on stage heard live, but in the studio it has been critical.

I think Doom and Gloom was a triumph. It's most likely a Mick song through and through but it works, and gives them an updated sound that they created. Keith's contribution, the B-side One More Shot, is lame at best, like the bonus cuts on 40 Licks.

Nota big fan of the Mickbashing and Keith is a victim thing.

They need each other. Mick thinking forward - wanting to make a "modern" album -with new influences with Keith not letting Mick go too far away from their original rock/blues influences. That's the great dynamic. The chemistry.

When Mick can do whatever he wants too...he often tends to go way too far away from his roots. Sometimes/often with embarrasing results.

Keith is always safe and secure in his rock/country/blues rootbased music. But he hasnt been looking forward musically since the late 70's. Now it's only oldboysrock. And the band was at their best being a developing force in music.

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Turner68
HMS you make an interesting point about Mick. It's like somewhere someone told him that he was a great singer. He isn't. He isn't even a good singer. He is, however, a great rock/blues singers. There's such a huge difference.

And who sings As Tears Go By, Lady Jane and Angie?

A pretty good singer, if you ask me.

PS: I know what you mean, of course



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-09-22 22:33 by DandelionPowderman.

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DandelionPowderman

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Turner68
HMS you make an interesting point about Mick. It's like somewhere someone told him that he was a great singer. He isn't. He isn't even a good singer. He is, however, a great rock/blues singers. There's such a huge difference.

And who sings As Tears Go By, Lady Jane and Angie?

A pretty good singer, if you ask me.

PS: I know what you mean, of course

As someone pointed out about how Mick is a great bunch of guys, he's also a great bunch of singers! Sometimes he just blows me away and sometimes I can barely stand listening to him. It's an odd thing really since I don't find myself feeling that way about many other singers.

In general his singing has been pretty good on the last tour though.

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Naturalust

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DandelionPowderman

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Turner68
HMS you make an interesting point about Mick. It's like somewhere someone told him that he was a great singer. He isn't. He isn't even a good singer. He is, however, a great rock/blues singers. There's such a huge difference.

And who sings As Tears Go By, Lady Jane and Angie?

A pretty good singer, if you ask me.

PS: I know what you mean, of course

As someone pointed out about how Mick is a great bunch of guys, he's also a great bunch of singers! Sometimes he just blows me away and sometimes I can barely stand listening to him. It's an odd thing really since I don't find myself feeling that way about many other singers.

In general his singing has been pretty good on the last tour though.

Couldn't agree more.

Something happened round 1981. Surely, he must have started taking lessons. On the TY tour all of a sudden he was using his stomach like "real" singers do.

The fans love to criticise his singing on that tour, though

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DandelionPowderman

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Naturalust

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DandelionPowderman

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Turner68
HMS you make an interesting point about Mick. It's like somewhere someone told him that he was a great singer. He isn't. He isn't even a good singer. He is, however, a great rock/blues singers. There's such a huge difference.

And who sings As Tears Go By, Lady Jane and Angie?

A pretty good singer, if you ask me.

PS: I know what you mean, of course

As someone pointed out about how Mick is a great bunch of guys, he's also a great bunch of singers! Sometimes he just blows me away and sometimes I can barely stand listening to him. It's an odd thing really since I don't find myself feeling that way about many other singers.

In general his singing has been pretty good on the last tour though.

Couldn't agree more.

Something happened round 1981. Surely, he must have started taking lessons. On the TY tour all of a sudden he was using his stomach like "real" singers do.

The fans love to criticise his singing on that tour, though

89 is where he really started to try singing for the first time since, say, 69.

Listen to TIOMS, WOAF and TFR from the 81 tour. An obvious change of technique, imo.

I thought he saved his voice more on the SW tour.

Yes, you're right, the improvement in 81 was noticeable, I just really meant to say that in 1989 he was by anyone's definition truly singing and not just bellowing.

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HMS
Most of the musicians Mick worked with on his solo-albums are far from being hacks and wannabes. But it seems like they decided to create only bullshit for reasons that are beyond me.

Keith´s Winos are a garage band and the drummer is sounding awful. Keith´s albums seems to be better because its roots music without any modern touch to it. Most Stones-Fans like it like that. Mick is going the other way constantly ignoring that all this modern shit isnt really suited for him, basically he´s a rock and blues singer, if he tries to create "modern" and "trendy" music he always falls on his face. Keith´s latest album is AVERAGE, but people praise it like it was the holy grail. No way that Keith could record an album that´s better than a stones album, it will always lack the chemistry of a stones album. Voodoo Lounge or Steel Wheels are rather weak albums but ten times better than the solo-albums of Mick and Keith. All this recording of solo-stuff was/is a waste of time, they should stop this because at their age they are running out of time. To me personally post-89-Stones-albums do not sound like Jagger-solo-albums, except maybe Bridges To Babylon which indeed sounds as if it was stitched together of two halves of never released solo records by Mick and Keith. AAB sounds like a genuine Stones-album and I think it is only a myth that Keith contributed only two songs. It sounds like a band-record, not like Jagger-songs played by Keith/Ronnie/Charlie. But what do I know, ears are different, people often hear what they want to hear and the truth has many faces.

agree on all counts-
i went to see the first wino's tour with a friend from my early stones tours and i remember his exact line as we were walking out-"good to see keith again but where'd he get that band? they're terrible."

i wish anyone who thinks the winos were any good could've seen the new barbarians live[ and no,your grainy you tube videos dont count]

having said that, keith is still closer to what the band needs than mick. the problem is that for years finding new things to add to the stones sound worked for mick.most people think of keith as the one who found reggae,he didnt.
jagger knew marley and tosh and was interested in reggae,just like he developed the new wave,punk and rap styles he learned from living in new york into some girls.
his mistake is simple,theres nothing left to add. it's become a tangent.at some point he needs to ,as page and plant once said,begin "looking for what i knew"
thats where he needs to go with the band-sorry mick,but backwards.and thats where musically speaking,he'll find keith waiting.the guy can do blues,country and rock and roll to this day better than anybody but he always starts wandering off and it is absolutely a waste of time.i think mick sometimes forgets that if you make music only for yourself you might end up being the only one listening to it.

Mick's voice is not a problem. His lyrics have been more of one. The two of them used to trust each other to do what they do. Keith used to start things off, even if Mick had chords, and Mick used to fill things out spectacularly while Keith fashioned the sound. (C.F. Soul Survivor on the Exile bonus disc.) Now they have riffs and rhythm, but Mick's lyrics tend either to simplistic or mawkish, and Keith doesn't or isn't trusted to fashion the sound. Those of us who like Crossyed Hearts are hearing a sound fashioned by Keith, with his assistants. Of course it's not as good as a great Stones album, but it's at least part of one.

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lem motlow
all of those post 89 records sound better than mick or keiths solo efforts.

that's not saying much because mick and keiths solo records suck,in different ways but they suck just the same.

it's mick trying not to sound like the stones and failing and keith trying to sound like the stones..and failing.

the reason- those musicians on the solo records just arent that good,the guys with a man crush on keith have convinced themselves that there is some sort of more "authentic" sound to keiths stuff,no it's pseudo rolling stones played very poorly by linda ronstadts guitar player and a bunch of no-names you'd never listen to if they weren't with keith.

jagger is even worse-he's trying these "experiments" to "take the music somewhere else and try something different"
what mick needs to do is "experiment" with trying to write a song that doesnt suck.
it's like he's constantly writing things and dividing them up-"this one will work with the stones this one is something else".what seems lost on him is that the ones that wont work with the stones are that way because the aren't any good.the ones that will work with the stones need to be worked on in a studio with the band for weeks or months,in the end its easier to travel around the globe on vacation for 9 months and then make another small fortune playing jumpin jack flash and satisfaction again.

so to answer the original question,the answer is no.

even though i only like about 30% to 40% of the songs on them ,those latter day stones records are a hundred times better than mick or keiths solo stuff for the simple reason that mick,keith,charlie,ronnie,bill/daryl are a better band than the hacks and wannabes on the solo records.
at least the glimmers actually worked together a little bit on the songwriting,so we take what we can get.but to compare an official release to that crap they put out by themselves,no way.

We're down to two Keith stickies so I guess we can talk about the band again--yay!

First, I don't know you, lem motlow, but there are two of the funniest lines ever in your post above:

--describing Waddy Wachtel as "linda ronstadts guitar player"
--suggesting that "what mick needs to do is "experiment" with trying to write a song that doesnt suck"

Funny shit, dude.

I agree with the "modern-day-Stones-records-are-crap-but-they're-still-better-than-Mick-or-Keith-solo-records" view, as well. These guys, for whatever reason, just can no longer write hits. SUPERHEAVY was awful. There isn't a single song on CROSSEYED HEART that, if it were on a Stones album anyone but a hardcore Keith fan would say, "wow!, The Stones are back, that reminds me of their glory days!"

They had a GREAT 15 years of songwriting. (And if you throw out "Satsifaction" and "Miss You," they mostly today perform songs written during the 10 years of 68-78.) They've been together over 50 years. So, depending on how you measure it, they've been excellent songwriters for 20-35% of their band's existence.

Like probably all of you, I want to believe they have "one more classic" in them. I really do. But, realistically, has a rocker or band whose roots are in the 60's had a hit record in the past, oh, 25 years? (I don't know, just presuming that the answer is probably 'no.')

'Cause that's what I want from The Rolling Stones. I don't want their version of CROSSEYED HEART, if they record again. I don't want a record that hardcore fans will celebrate as "authentic" and that the rest of the world will ignore. I want a song, just ONE SONG, that is so @#$%& good the people who go to see them in South American will leave disappointed if they don't hear it live.

So, getting back to this thread: I think it's about the poor quality of songwriting. I don't think it's a Mick-or-Keith thing.

Doom And Gloom did pretty well as a single?

Nothing of what they did in their prime would break the charts today. The world has changed. What's left are us, their fans. But many of us don't like what they're doing anymore. So, what to do?...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-09-23 00:25 by DandelionPowderman.

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DandelionPowderman
Doom And Gloom did pretty well as a single?

Nothing of what they did in their prime would break the charts today. The world has changed. What's left are us, their fans. But many of us don't like what they're doing anymore. So, what to do?...

I think putting together the IORR band was a brilliant idea :-)

LOL!