FLASHPOINT:



Rolling Stones Records (CBS)
Release date: April 2, 1991

Track list:

Start Me Up
Sad Sad Sad
Miss You
Rock and a Hard Place
Ruby Tuesday
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Factory Girl
Can't Be Seen
Little Red Rooster
Paint It Black
Sympathy for the Devil
Brown Sugar
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Satisfaction

Studio tracks:

Highwire
Sex Drive

What are your thoughts on this live album?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2016-02-29 11:00 by DandelionPowderman.

This is a great album!!!

Factory Girl
Little Red Rooster
Start Me up

just for a starter...

2 1 2 0

Live tracks:

Start Me Up 7/10 Okay, but never as good as the Tattoo You version
Sad Sad Sad 4/10 Terrible song
Miss You 5/10 Too slick
Rock and a Hard Place 5/10 Middle of the road rock
Ruby Tuesday 7/10 Nice guitar
You Can't Always Get What You Want 6/10 Great start, but then falls flat, too slick, too polished
Factory Girl 5/10 Great song, should be just one accoustic guitar and a voice,
Can't Be Seen 5/10
Little Red Rooster 5/10 Nice guitarwork, well sung, but too much piano and "yeah, we're gonna do a little blues for you know" doesn't help either.
Paint It Black 6/10
Sympathy for the Devil 7/10 At least back then the guitars still meant something during this song
Brown Sugar 7/10
Jumpin' Jack Flash 6.5/10 Was this the first tour where Ron Wood started to do this high-note-lick during the verses? I don't like that very much, but the rest of the song is okay.
Satisfaction 7/10

Studio tracks:

Highwire 5/10 Another open G tuning done-by-numbers, without any surprises.
Sex Drive 5.5/10 I give it 5.5 instead of 5 because of that short cool guitar lick after the break.

All in all, I don't see the point in listening to this album. None of the live songs sound better than the studio versions and it doesn't add anything to much better live albums like (first and foremost) Get Yer Ya Ya's Out, but even Love You Live (side 3 mainly) and Still Life.
Flashpoint is too slick, too polished and miles away from the steaming, juicy, groovy, blues-based, soul-drenched, steaming rock n roll train which the Rolling Stones are supposed to sound like.

A reasonable document of the tour, the studio songs are embarrassing and unfortunately foreshadowed what was to come.

In the days of its release I welcomed the album very much. It is a good live-album, but it lacks some of the savageness of earlier live albums, the playing is good but somewhat clean and there are too many musicians involved. Compared to LA Friday the difference could not be greater.

With all the live albums available now Flashpoint is kind of average, Live Licks or Shine A Light are cosiderably better albums, not to mention Hampton or LA Friday. Anyway, Flashpoint is a better album than Ya Ya´s, imo.

I love the studio tracks, especially Highwire, which knocked me off my feet as I heard it for the first time, what a great, great song. Still love it and must have played it at least 56.876 times since 1991.
So I am going to play it one more time now!

For me, the album is 50/50 ... I already had Atlantic City bootleg (my own rip from the TV special) and played it to death before this was ever released.

I don't particularly like Can't Be Seen, and think the live version falls very flat. I heard too many live albums by this time and was already tired of them doing tracks like You Can't Always Get, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, etc. My preferred album inclusion would have been:

Ruby Tuesday
Factory Girl
Little Red Rooster
Paint It Black
Sympathy for the Devil
Satisfaction

And some great B-sides, can't remember them all off the top of my head, 2000 Light Years (almost ruined by the short edit), Street Fighting Man, love the slow I Just Wanna Make Love.

Studio tracks? Wrong! No place for them here, should have saved Highwire for the next album and threw away Sex Drive.

It is however an example of how they played with chuck leavel when he was exercising a modicum of self-restraint and not playing all
Over the songs like he would in future tours.

Verdict: better without him.

Mick wanting to make a statement about the hypocrisy of the arms trade during the Gulf war was the excuse to put Studio cuts on it.

There was a nice Play with Fire on a b side . Always rated Sympathy on this release - Keith still had serious chops.


sc uk

The vinyl release is very good (without Rock And A Hard Place and Can't Be Seen).

Can't agree with Factory Girl, Ruby Tuesday and Paint It, Black being mediocre, though. Those versions are excellent, imo.

I think Start Me Up is very good, too. What's wrong with Sad Sad Sad? It's just as good as it is on the Atlantic City-show - not tampered with, and destroyed, like Undercover of the night was on that single B-side.

The warhorses (SFTD, BS, JJF and S) are very well performed, imo. The guitars on Miss You (was it the last time) are funky and cool (shame on Clifford for using the synth-harmonica, though!).

Little Red Rooster is the clunker on this live album.

Sex Drive is very good. Highwire is okay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-02-29 14:01 by DandelionPowderman.

Only liked Sexdrive and Highwire. Dont play thse 2 not a lot anymore, maybe once in every two years. Dont care much for the live songs on Flashpoint, too slick and it dont get my stones-blood rushing.
Jeroen

Quote
LeonidP
For me, the album is 50/50 ... I already had Atlantic City bootleg (my own rip from the TV special) and played it to death before this was ever released.

I don't particularly like Can't Be Seen, and think the live version falls very flat. I heard too many live albums by this time and was already tired of them doing tracks like You Can't Always Get, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, etc. My preferred album inclusion would have been:

Ruby Tuesday
Factory Girl
Little Red Rooster
Paint It Black
Sympathy for the Devil
Satisfaction

And some great B-sides, can't remember them all off the top of my head, 2000 Light Years (almost ruined by the short edit), Street Fighting Man, love the slow I Just Wanna Make Love.

Studio tracks? Wrong! No place for them here, should have saved Highwire for the next album and threw away Sex Drive.

Yeah, the B sides were a great addition and I will give both studio tracks 7.5/10. Don't understand why Sex Drive gets a bad rap. Couple more B side releases: PLay With Fire and Undercover. I'll have to give a listen this week…..

After Dirty works and Steel wheels, third on my worst albums' list.

--------------------------------------------


"I'm gonna walk... before they make me run"

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No.
I did not purchase it at date of release,
but I purchased the whole thing, and tried it.
Nope. None of it pulls me.
I own many other live RS recordings I go to instead.

Quote
Maindefender

Quote
LeonidP
For me, the album is 50/50 ... I already had Atlantic City bootleg (my own rip from the TV special) and played it to death before this was ever released.

I don't particularly like Can't Be Seen, and think the live version falls very flat. I heard too many live albums by this time and was already tired of them doing tracks like You Can't Always Get, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, etc. My preferred album inclusion would have been:

Ruby Tuesday
Factory Girl
Little Red Rooster
Paint It Black
Sympathy for the Devil
Satisfaction

And some great B-sides, can't remember them all off the top of my head, 2000 Light Years (almost ruined by the short edit), Street Fighting Man, love the slow I Just Wanna Make Love.

Studio tracks? Wrong! No place for them here, should have saved Highwire for the next album and threw away Sex Drive.

Yeah, the B sides were a great addition and I will give both studio tracks 7.5/10. Don't understand why Sex Drive gets a bad rap. Couple more B side releases: PLay With Fire and Undercover. I'll have to give a listen this week…..

Sex Drive? For me, I just don't like it. They include a funky type of number on many albums, many work for me but some I don't get. Examples, I love the earlier funky numbers, Fingerprint File, Dance, especially Slave. I hate the mid 80's thru 90s numbers, Back To Zero, Sex Drive, Suck On The Jugular ... although on Mick's solo album, Sweet Thing is truly sweet! Almost as good as Slave.

Sweet Thing is truly sweet!

Sure is ... Got a 12" somewhere with different mixes on it...Great Stuff

In the beginning, when life was simple
We were at each other night and day
You were so sensual and so inventive
We said we'd stick together come what may

In the beginning, you were so brutal
You turned the heat on in the afternoon
Get so excited, get so addicted
You had me eating from your golden spoon ................mmmmmmmmm



ROCKMAN

Quote
Turner68
...the studio songs are embarrassing and unfortunately foreshadowed what was to come.

Rather they act as a flashback; a regurgitation of the sound heard on Steel Wheels.

'Gunface', 'Thief in the Night' and 'Rough Justice' they aren't.

'Sad, Sad, Sad', 'Rock And A Hard Place' and 'Can't Be Seen' they are.

.....

Olly.

Maybe they should have released the Atlantic City concert as a double-lp instead? It can't have been worse that this sterile, overdubbed, lifeless piece of shit. Even the cover sucks.

Each time I see this album, I remember when I got a copy at a used books/DVDs/CDs/Vinyl store... I though it was a bootleg due to the foreign 'LIVE's on the back. Not the worst (by far that's Got LIVE...), but certainly not the best.

When this album came out I listened to it a lot. And I still like it. The songs that first comes to mind as the best is Paint it black, Little Red Rooster and Sad Sad Sad. I have always thougt Highwire is a good song, better than Sexdrive, but I think both songs is good and a fine addition to the live songs.

Least favourite live release, never thought a stones album would bore me like this one does.

Mixed feelings. Since 1981 (Hampton vs Still Life) I always liked bootlegs much more then official live albums. At the time of Flashpoint we already had Atlantic City . Then you are listening to Flashpoint with these obvious overdubs? Start Me Up with three guitars? No thank you.
On the other hand it has a great atmosphere and the band is on fire.So perhaps it is a great album when you don't listen with a guitar/musical ear.
Not to forget one of the worst cover designs they ever did ( and compared what fantastic artwork bootleggers did at the time...)

Tom

There are three guitars on Hampton as well

Sad Sad Sad is identical to the AC version.

Where is the third guitar on SMU, btw (It’s been a while)? I know Ronnie played a new solo. Did he keep his old one as well?

Always really like JJF on this one even though Jagger's vocal seems totally done in a studio.

Not one of their finer moments.

I haven´t listened since this album was released....

People on here don't like Factory Girl, Paint It, Black, Ruby Tuesday or the killer version of SMU?

Describing it as a piece of shit. Really?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-03-01 10:36 by DandelionPowderman.

My 1st Stones live album
Has an affective value more than a musical one I must admit, but like some others I love it for Factory Girl, PIB, Ruby Tuesday and Can't Be Seen.

Sexdrive and Highwire are IMO better than many songs on Steel Wheels...

Dostoevsky wrote several classic novels, all of which I've read at least twice. But some of his lesser works I've never bothered to read or binned after a few pages.

I've never listened to Flashpoint and never will. I'd rather re-read The Brothers Karamazov.

I think I'm getting weary of the minutia constantly being discussed on this forum. Stop living and breathing mediocre Stones live albums and read some Dusty!

Quote
DandelionPowderman
People on here don't like Factory Girl, Paint It, Black, Ruby Tuesday or the killer version of SMU?

Describing it as a piece of shit. Really?

Not as piece of shit, rather as sterile plastic. I think the guitar on Ruby Tuesday is okay, and I like that they did Factory Girl, but everything sounds post-80's: polished, without any rough edges, a lot of keyboard. There's not a single rough *tud* or "grawl" on the album, as you would hear when you strike a bunch of blues notes through a tube amplifier.
I just thought of this recently: it's amazing that after all those really wild and savage sounds of the 60s (Hendrix, Stones, the Cream, Bo Diddley), somehow in and after the 80s everything became plastic (Matt Bianco, Bon Jovi, etc...) and I don't think rock music ever recovered from that. The last time music sounded really raw was with punk, and even though that was rather repetetive and simple, at least it was alive.
The Stones in 1981 still sounded raw live, but after that, it became slick and bland.

When I put on SMU I don't hear plastic, and it's the same with BS, JFF and Satisfaction as well. All rocking versions, albeit with some show-arranging (horns).

There's nothing 80s-sounding on the four songs I mentioned. Not on Sad Sad Sad either, for that matter

The «plastic», however was saved for Miss You and Rock And A Hard Place (+ the live sampler-version of I Just Wanna Make Love To You, with its horrendous synth harp).

The excellent B-side 2000 Light Years From Home should have been included on Flashpoint, though.

There are more synths on Fingerprint File and Time Waits For No One combined than on the good part of Flashpoint. Just saying...

Perhaps people don't like the sound of Keith's nylon string-guitar, and that's why they don't like RT, PIB and FG? Beats me...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-03-01 11:26 by DandelionPowderman.