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treaclefingers

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keefriff99

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Silver Dagger
OK, let's set out the criteria for a classic.

For me that means just about every song being great. No passengers, no filler, no noodling, no jams.

So with that in mind, it's got to be Tattoo You. Nothing since then scores a 10/10. Undercover was a high water mark, Steel Wheels nudges a decent 7/10 but it's basically diminishing returns since then.

I think a classic also has to have some degree of cultural impact. It has to capture a zeitgeist of the moment, which Tattoo You just managed to do (mostly with Start Me Up and the Waiting on a Friend video)...plus the tour was a MAJOR worldwide event.

Nothing since has managed to do that. Plenty of great songs and good albums since, but mostly just used as an excuse to tour.

Tattoo You is the only logical answer.

Funnily enough when looking back, Steel Wheels also fits that 'zeitgeist' criteria...massive excitement, top 10 single, huge tour, the 3d Glasses from 7/11 for TV broadcast thang. It was all pretty huge. Too bad the album itself was overproduced with a few duds. 7/10.

I was thinking that as well, but wasn't the massive world tour the bigger deal than the album itself?

Although I enjoyed Steel Wheels and every album they've released since, they all feel like excuses to launch a globe-conquering tour with a stage show that costs more than the GDP of most small countries.

That's an interesting point, the cultural aspect of it. Any of my friends that are Stones fans don't talk about any videos past Waiting On A Friend. TATTOO YOU was, to put it in terms of how things were done later to now, let's call it adjusting for inflation, the BIGGEST album and tour they've ever done. Especially when you add in that cultural aspect of it.

Videos after that? They were all taken incredibly seriously. Their videos from 1973-1981 are just goofy - the goofiest in all of rock.

TATTOO YOU is, from people that I know that love the Stones and regard the 1969-1972 era as outstanding, the last album that moved them.

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treaclefingers

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keefriff99

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Silver Dagger
OK, let's set out the criteria for a classic.

For me that means just about every song being great. No passengers, no filler, no noodling, no jams.

So with that in mind, it's got to be Tattoo You. Nothing since then scores a 10/10. Undercover was a high water mark, Steel Wheels nudges a decent 7/10 but it's basically diminishing returns since then.

I think a classic also has to have some degree of cultural impact. It has to capture a zeitgeist of the moment, which Tattoo You just managed to do (mostly with Start Me Up and the Waiting on a Friend video)...plus the tour was a MAJOR worldwide event.

Nothing since has managed to do that. Plenty of great songs and good albums since, but mostly just used as an excuse to tour.

Tattoo You is the only logical answer.

Funnily enough when looking back, Steel Wheels also fits that 'zeitgeist' criteria...massive excitement, top 10 single, huge tour, the 3d Glasses from 7/11 for TV broadcast thang. It was all pretty huge. Too bad the album itself was overproduced with a few duds. 7/10.

I'm not sure if you were trying to say it or not, but I don't think Steel Wheels generated nearly the excitement of Tattoo You. The Stones being back together and touring, however, did. They were on the cover of time magazine!

Tattoo You was huge because of Tattoo You - the album was a monster hit; Steel Wheels not so much, even at the time. Mixed Emotions faded fast, Start Me Up was in regular radio rotation for years.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-09-28 18:01 by Turner68.

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Turner68

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treaclefingers

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keefriff99

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Silver Dagger
OK, let's set out the criteria for a classic.

For me that means just about every song being great. No passengers, no filler, no noodling, no jams.

So with that in mind, it's got to be Tattoo You. Nothing since then scores a 10/10. Undercover was a high water mark, Steel Wheels nudges a decent 7/10 but it's basically diminishing returns since then.

I think a classic also has to have some degree of cultural impact. It has to capture a zeitgeist of the moment, which Tattoo You just managed to do (mostly with Start Me Up and the Waiting on a Friend video)...plus the tour was a MAJOR worldwide event.

Nothing since has managed to do that. Plenty of great songs and good albums since, but mostly just used as an excuse to tour.

Tattoo You is the only logical answer.

Funnily enough when looking back, Steel Wheels also fits that 'zeitgeist' criteria...massive excitement, top 10 single, huge tour, the 3d Glasses from 7/11 for TV broadcast thang. It was all pretty huge. Too bad the album itself was overproduced with a few duds. 7/10.

I'm not sure if you were trying to say it or not, but I don't think Steel Wheels generated nearly the excitement of Tattoo You. The Stones being back together and touring, however, did. They were on the cover of time magazine!

Tattoo You was huge because of Tattoo You - the album was a monster hit; Steel Wheels not so much, even at the time. Mixed Emotions faded fast, Start Me Up was in regular radio rotation for years.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. I'm too young to remember how the public reacted to Steel Wheels, but after looking at all the archive footage and news releases of the day, the big story appeared to be, "STONES TOURING THE WORLD" and not, "STONES RELEASE GREAT NEW ALBUM".

A bigger bang really

Last Rolling Stones Great Classic Record: Tattoo You

Last Rolling Stones Great Record: A Bigger Bang


In other words, the meaning "classic" is NOT all the word, IMO...

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TheGreek
Undercover is the last great one where the Glimmers cared enough to fight about it !

Have you forgotten about the making of B2B?

I love B2B, they are a lot of really good tunes on there but it is not the same as UNDERCOVER and previous studio albums.Also i have to mention Voodoo lounge as a good later day Stones album but unlike the really creative and very fertile songwriting from Undercover and before .

Exile.

Counting as one vote in an apparent minority view:

When I received TATTOO YOU as new album, I was quite saddened and thought, without any irritation, but rather downcast, it eventually was all over with the Rolling Stones as the great band it had been to me from when they conquered me by their very first albums and EP- and single stuff as a drawn out process over a couple of years in the first half of the '60s. That supposed end with TATTOO YOU was even by their own doing and choice.

I don't remember now all the details of my frustration then. Anyhow, it translates into my feelings today that this album might preferably have been reduced to a maxi single, consisting of "Waiting on a Friend" and "Black Limousine" and one may add "No Use Crying". Maybe a couple of other songs could be rerecorded anew in another context, preferably in more "noisy" or heavy arrangement and sound. Usually I am tolerant and will not take away the rest of the album, and their joy of it, from other people. But when I notice how ready others would be to abolish songs and albums that I either love or to varying degree at least do like, I would have traded the rest of the songs on TATTOO YOU outside the mentionned two or three for any unheard unreleased Stones songs without any reversal of the transaction granted as condition.

During that distant period I was two concerts in Gothenbourg 1982. The first one was the most uninspired Stones concert I have been to ever. But the second was outright great and gave me back my hope and belief in the band. The promises from that evening was more than kept with UNDERCOVER. During the approximately first 25 listenings to that album, to me it was not only as great as all earlier releases, no , during those ecstatic days, it was their greatest album ever to me. After that beginning, it sank somewhat, but not more than that I today still see it as one of something like 12 albums, that I consider as great, the last one apparently, unless the Stones might let themselves be inspired to have a go to make a last great one.

All in all, it means that to me the last great and "classic" album of the Rolling Stones is UNDERCOVER. Slightly better than EMOTIONAL RESCUE, while both of them are greater than SOME GIRLS in my evaluation.

[Added: To Dandelion's objection to another post, B2B (and ABB ) are bordering on the semi-great, but can't with me be seen as unqualified great.]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-09-28 20:03 by Witness.

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TheGreek

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DandelionPowderman

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TheGreek
Undercover is the last great one where the Glimmers cared enough to fight about it !

Have you forgotten about the making of B2B?

I love B2B, they are a lot of really good tunes on there but it is not the same as UNDERCOVER and previous studio albums.Also i have to mention Voodoo lounge as a good later day Stones album but unlike the really creative and very fertile songwriting from Undercover and before .

I agree, but I was referring to the fight on B2B

The big 4 come first in terms of greatness, the order can be flexible. Then comes Some Girls. That is the last great one!

There are many other very good ones but for me it is those 5 and then the rest.

Tattoo You was the last "great" album.

I don't understand why anyone would care if they came back to work on songs they had started in some cases years before...The end result was a classic record...How many times have authors completed great books after years of working on other works only to return back to finish a novel they started years before.


I also think they have had some very, very good albums since Tattoo You that may not live up to their greatest of works, but were as good if not better than what was on the chart at the time.

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LeonidP
The big 4 come first in terms of greatness, the order can be flexible. Then comes Some Girls. That is the last great one!

There are many other very good ones but for me it is those 5 and then the rest.

I really think Some Girls is hugely overrated. I never feel the need to listen to it. Goats Head Soup is much better IMO, but even in comparison to other stuff from their late period, I'd much rather hear "Dance Pt. 1", say, or "Undercover" than anything off of Some Girls.

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LeonidP
The big 4 come first in terms of greatness, the order can be flexible. Then comes Some Girls. That is the last great one!

There are many other very good ones but for me it is those 5 and then the rest.

i really suggest you listen to more of the brian jones era stones. they have plenty of records as good as some girls.

the rolling stones albums are really only ever appraised in comparisen to what they did before. so obviously recent stuff isnt as highly thought as what they did in the 80,s and that isnt as highly thought as what went before that.

i think the stones have made a lot of very good songs in the last 30 years, but as the bands career has proggressed, so its creativity and quality has thinned out like the atmosphere does as it gets higher. The stones get panned for that, even though its impossible for them to compete with thier younger days.

As for deciding the last time they made a classic album, that really depends on what your looking for, many bands make records that are considered classic and they maybe have 3 or 4 great songs, some good ones and the rest filler, the stones by comparisen have albums with almost all great songs, and the last one to have this and be considered a classic in my opinion is tattoo you.

however post tattoo you, there is plenty of good songs and some great, and obviously plenty filler and just plain crap.

ps. i think some girls is overrated, its a very good album, but its short of a classic.

I don't think a "classic" album needs to be an album where every song is a masterpiece. Some songs simply function as connective tissue that, when taken as a whole, constitutes a classic.

Take Let It Bleed or Exile as examples: Country Honk? Turd on the Run?

I don't think either song qualifies as classic, BUT they enhance the albums overall. The only way a song detracts is if its an utter embarrassment that blights the rest of the album.

Sticky Fingers is the closest the Stones have gotten to where every single song is a masterpiece, but that bar is too high for simply calling an album "classic".

*. A BIGGER BANG
1. Some Girls DeLuxe disc 2
2. Cross Eyed Heart
3. I Feel Like Playing
4. Sticky Fingers Live 2015
5. Sweet Summer Sun Hydepark
6. Exile Deluxe disc 2
7. The ABC and D of Boogie Woogie
8. Boogie 4 STU
.....out of competition bootlegs:
-. Glastonbury 2013
-. One More Shot LIVE 2012 Pay Per View

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His Majesty
Exile.

As much as I love SG, TY I agree with that. Some post Exile albums might be classic for Stones fans but not for the wider audience. Crosseyed Heart - a classic album? Seriously?

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Roll73

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His Majesty
Exile.

As much as I love SG, TY I agree with that. Some post Exile albums might be classic for Stones fans but not for the wider audience. Crosseyed Heart - a classic album? Seriously?

It's not even a classic Keith Richards album!

OK, that would be impossible for me to even know as I haven't listened to it. Getting it from Amazon later this week.

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treaclefingers

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Roll73

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His Majesty
Exile.

As much as I love SG, TY I agree with that. Some post Exile albums might be classic for Stones fans but not for the wider audience. Crosseyed Heart - a classic album? Seriously?

It's not even a classic Keith Richards album!

OK, that would be impossible for me to even know as I haven't listened to it. Getting it from Amazon later this week.

we're awaiting your superheavy vs crosseyed heart album death match sometime in the middle of this week in that case.. best not to wait until you listen to the album ;-)

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treaclefingers

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Roll73

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His Majesty
Exile.

As much as I love SG, TY I agree with that. Some post Exile albums might be classic for Stones fans but not for the wider audience. Crosseyed Heart - a classic album? Seriously?

It's not even a classic Keith Richards album!

OK, that would be impossible for me to even know as I haven't listened to it. Getting it from Amazon later this week.

Treacle in quicksand, or just unfathomably patient?

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keefriff99
I don't think a "classic" album needs to be an album where every song is a masterpiece. Some songs simply function as connective tissue that, when taken as a whole, constitutes a classic.

Take Let It Bleed or Exile as examples: Country Honk? Turd on the Run?

I don't think either song qualifies as classic, BUT they enhance the albums overall. The only way a song detracts is if its an utter embarrassment that blights the rest of the album.

Hey now, "Turd on the Run" is a masterpiece!

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Turner68

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treaclefingers

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Roll73

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His Majesty
Exile.

As much as I love SG, TY I agree with that. Some post Exile albums might be classic for Stones fans but not for the wider audience. Crosseyed Heart - a classic album? Seriously?

It's not even a classic Keith Richards album!

OK, that would be impossible for me to even know as I haven't listened to it. Getting it from Amazon later this week.

we're awaiting your superheavy vs crosseyed heart album death match sometime in the middle of this week in that case.. best not to wait until you listen to the album ;-)

That is a freakin' great idea! I'll just compare song titles and imagine what the Keith songs probably sound like.

Do you think I should simulcast this again?

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blivet

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keefriff99
I don't think a "classic" album needs to be an album where every song is a masterpiece. Some songs simply function as connective tissue that, when taken as a whole, constitutes a classic.

Take Let It Bleed or Exile as examples: Country Honk? Turd on the Run?

I don't think either song qualifies as classic, BUT they enhance the albums overall. The only way a song detracts is if its an utter embarrassment that blights the rest of the album.

Hey now, "Turd on the Run" is a masterpiece!

I don't mean THAT song specifically...I was just using it as an example.

CoUntry honk is a classic. Love the fiddling. Also one of the earliest experiments with country on a rock record.

I don't know what happened but after SG's they lost somehow. Have tried to get into any post Tattoo but I can not. Stripped was it and after that zip.

Short answer: Tattoo You, nothing else after has come close.
The only tune that turns me off is Start Me Up.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

I'm going to say "Stripped". The quality of musicianship on that one is amazing. Seems like the band at the amazing apex of ability and maturity. I could listen to the versions of Love in Vain and Wild Horses from that one every day.

STEEL WHEELS. And Slipping Away should have been their swan song. In a way it is, with Wyman bowing out and pulling the rhythm section apart. Steel Wheels has some great songs, including Blinded By Love and Continental Drift. The last Stones album with a bunch of varied styles that worked and don't feel dated. It doesn't have a monster single, but overall it's a fantastic return to form after Undercrap and Dirty Crap.

Voodoo Lounge is like a primer for those just getting onboard. Very retro. And I think it took a while for Bill to be missed because Darryl played pretty close to how Bill would have handled his business on songs like Love Is Strong. Darryl never again replicated that level of success on a Stones record.

undercover was the last great classic record

Feel The Fear
And Do It Anyway