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MelBelli
Stuff sounds good (I'm told); but quite a bit of work left, and still uncertainty about which direction some of it will go.
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Doxa
I think the biggest fear will be if the new album doesn't equal to the sales of BLUE & LONESOME. And it is not so easy to make a two million seller album today.
What they accomplished with BLUE & LONESOME was most likely something no one was able predict before; it was about the best selling album in the whole world around the christmas season. Some people think that it was because it was the first Rolling Stones new studio album for a decade or so, so that explains its great sales. Yeah, to an extent yeah, but I don't think that tells the whole story. From what I have read from the signs in the air, reading and hearing people buying and thinking about the record, some of its great sales is actually due to the fact that it wasn't a typical Rolling Stones album. It gathered an interest not just by the hardcore Stones fans, but a bigger audience being surprised by the very content of it. The music, so to say, speaks for itself. Relatively speaking, it was their biggest hit record maybe since TATTOO YOU or even SOME GIRLS. Both BRIDGES TO BABYLON and A BIGGER BANG were rather minor albums salewise compared to BLUE & LONESOME (of course, selling more absolutely, but clearly less relatively speaking).
So if we now will get a 'normal' Rolling Stones album, something to go along with the lines of A BIGGER BANG stylywise (more or less - it can't be much else, right?), it is interesting if it will get such a huge interest by buying audience. Will there be something distinguished to make it such a hit album? I don't think the idea that it's being a new Stones albums of originals is selling point an sich - for the 'big audience' that's probably something equal they've known for decades, call it STEEL WHEELS, VOODOO LOUNGE, BRIDGES TO BABYLON or A BIGGER BANG - nothing to really excite than a hardcore fan. I mean, 'everybody' knows things like "Doom & Gloom" or "Don't Stop" or "Love Is Strong"... 'Stones-by-numbers' - something everyone knows. The same shit. BLUE & LONESOME, by being something different by nature, surprised positively everybody.
My estimatation is that the great and surprising success of BLUE & LONESOME actually have made a some kind of (positive) problem for the Stones and their record company, and they are actually rather nervous of how the new album of originals might do. As funny it sounds, there is nothing extraordinary in it, unlike with BLUE & LONESOME. It surely will not 'look' good for the Stones if their new album of originals 'fails' in compared to BLUE & LONESOME.
- Doxa
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LongBeachArena72Quote
Doxa
I think the biggest fear will be if the new album doesn't equal to the sales of BLUE & LONESOME. And it is not so easy to make a two million seller album today.
What they accomplished with BLUE & LONESOME was most likely something no one was able predict before; it was about the best selling album in the whole world around the christmas season. Some people think that it was because it was the first Rolling Stones new studio album for a decade or so, so that explains its great sales. Yeah, to an extent yeah, but I don't think that tells the whole story. From what I have read from the signs in the air, reading and hearing people buying and thinking about the record, some of its great sales is actually due to the fact that it wasn't a typical Rolling Stones album. It gathered an interest not just by the hardcore Stones fans, but a bigger audience being surprised by the very content of it. The music, so to say, speaks for itself. Relatively speaking, it was their biggest hit record maybe since TATTOO YOU or even SOME GIRLS. Both BRIDGES TO BABYLON and A BIGGER BANG were rather minor albums salewise compared to BLUE & LONESOME (of course, selling more absolutely, but clearly less relatively speaking).
So if we now will get a 'normal' Rolling Stones album, something to go along with the lines of A BIGGER BANG stylywise (more or less - it can't be much else, right?), it is interesting if it will get such a huge interest by buying audience. Will there be something distinguished to make it such a hit album? I don't think the idea that it's being a new Stones albums of originals is selling point an sich - for the 'big audience' that's probably something equal they've known for decades, call it STEEL WHEELS, VOODOO LOUNGE, BRIDGES TO BABYLON or A BIGGER BANG - nothing to really excite than a hardcore fan. I mean, 'everybody' knows things like "Doom & Gloom" or "Don't Stop" or "Love Is Strong"... 'Stones-by-numbers' - something everyone knows. The same shit. BLUE & LONESOME, by being something different by nature, surprised positively everybody.
My estimatation is that the great and surprising success of BLUE & LONESOME actually have made a some kind of (positive) problem for the Stones and their record company, and they are actually rather nervous of how the new album of originals might do. As funny it sounds, there is nothing extraordinary in it, unlike with BLUE & LONESOME. It surely will not 'look' good for the Stones if their new album of originals 'fails' in compared to BLUE & LONESOME.
- Doxa
How many of those buyers do you think have actually played the record in the past 3 months? Hell, how many people on this board have played it in the past month?
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bitusa2012
...IF the, any, new record of original material is PLAYED by the band in a studio, and not a pieced together 'project', I for one hold out some hope...
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LongBeachArena72Quote
Doxa
I think the biggest fear will be if the new album doesn't equal to the sales of BLUE & LONESOME. And it is not so easy to make a two million seller album today.
What they accomplished with BLUE & LONESOME was most likely something no one was able predict before; it was about the best selling album in the whole world around the christmas season. Some people think that it was because it was the first Rolling Stones new studio album for a decade or so, so that explains its great sales. Yeah, to an extent yeah, but I don't think that tells the whole story. From what I have read from the signs in the air, reading and hearing people buying and thinking about the record, some of its great sales is actually due to the fact that it wasn't a typical Rolling Stones album. It gathered an interest not just by the hardcore Stones fans, but a bigger audience being surprised by the very content of it. The music, so to say, speaks for itself. Relatively speaking, it was their biggest hit record maybe since TATTOO YOU or even SOME GIRLS. Both BRIDGES TO BABYLON and A BIGGER BANG were rather minor albums salewise compared to BLUE & LONESOME (of course, selling more absolutely, but clearly less relatively speaking).
So if we now will get a 'normal' Rolling Stones album, something to go along with the lines of A BIGGER BANG stylywise (more or less - it can't be much else, right?), it is interesting if it will get such a huge interest by buying audience. Will there be something distinguished to make it such a hit album? I don't think the idea that it's being a new Stones albums of originals is selling point an sich - for the 'big audience' that's probably something equal they've known for decades, call it STEEL WHEELS, VOODOO LOUNGE, BRIDGES TO BABYLON or A BIGGER BANG - nothing to really excite than a hardcore fan. I mean, 'everybody' knows things like "Doom & Gloom" or "Don't Stop" or "Love Is Strong"... 'Stones-by-numbers' - something everyone knows. The same shit. BLUE & LONESOME, by being something different by nature, surprised positively everybody.
My estimatation is that the great and surprising success of BLUE & LONESOME actually have made a some kind of (positive) problem for the Stones and their record company, and they are actually rather nervous of how the new album of originals might do. As funny it sounds, there is nothing extraordinary in it, unlike with BLUE & LONESOME. It surely will not 'look' good for the Stones if their new album of originals 'fails' in compared to BLUE & LONESOME.
- Doxa
The only flaw in this argument is that Blue & Lonesome, an utterly forgettable record by a once-proud band running on fumes, was a success only with the NPR/Starbucks/CBS Sunday Morning crowd. The record had no impact at all on people who actually drive the music business today—young people all over the world for whom streaming is the new paradigm. "Sales" of that record, which as you correctly note were only great in "relative" terms, are deceptive. How many people are actually listening, today, to Blue and Lonesome? It was a brilliantly-timed and craftily-themed release, a coffeehouse phenomenon that allowed those few segments of the music-consuming public who still buy physical music a branded trip down memory lane.
How many of those buyers do you think have actually played the record in the past 3 months? Hell, how many people on this board have played it in the past month?
While I find the interpretations of blues songs on this record to be unimaginative and slavishly faithful to the much more vibrant originals, I suppose it was possibly good news that there seemed to be a level of "band-ness" about the recordings, just a few guys getting together and jamming on some tunes they'd learned back when Hector was a pup. And another poster has raised the possibility of Blue & Lonesome being a precursor to a great album, the way Dylan two folk song collections preceded Time Out of Mind. These are interesting, potentially hopeful developments. But then ... we remember the original Jagger/Richards songs they've recorded over the past 3 or 4 decades ... and we hear from an 'insider" that there is still a lot of work to be done on this already-years-in-gestation project and that some of it even lacks a 'direction,' and we cannot help but wonder what fresh hell this record might represent.
The band might very well have serious worries about the public reaction to a new album of original songs ... but I cannot imagine that among them is a worry about measuring up to a record that made so little impact on popular music.
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DandelionPowderman
The singles (Just Your Fool, Ride 'Em On Down and Hate To See You Go) have between 4 and 5 million streams on Spotify.
Some of the ol' farts are probably streaming, but I'm pretty sure a substantial number of youngsters have checked out our beloved blues group as well...
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
The singles (Just Your Fool, Ride 'Em On Down and Hate To See You Go) have between 4 and 5 million streams on Spotify.
Some of the ol' farts are probably streaming, but I'm pretty sure a substantial number of youngsters have checked out our beloved blues group as well...
That's true but those numbers are damn far from any kind of 'hit' category...
- Doxa
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
The singles (Just Your Fool, Ride 'Em On Down and Hate To See You Go) have between 4 and 5 million streams on Spotify.
Some of the ol' farts are probably streaming, but I'm pretty sure a substantial number of youngsters have checked out our beloved blues group as well...
That's true but those numbers are damn far from any kind of 'hit' category...
- Doxa
We can't expect 70-75 year old musicians to make «hits», can we?
This album got the recognition and sales it deserved + turned on young people to the blues. We can't ask of more than that, imo.
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Doxa
To recapitulate my above by more metaphorical terms: I am sure a part of Mick Jagger would love to see the sales of a number one album to be consisted solely on streaming than of ancient physical/downlading sales as he would prefer the audiences of sold-out Stones shows to be consisted mostly of model-looking teenager girls than of old/middle-aged fat males, but I am sure that one part (the pragmatic and realistic side) of Mick Jagger is rather satisfied when the record company or the promoter of a tour comes up with their numbers...
- Doxa
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
The singles (Just Your Fool, Ride 'Em On Down and Hate To See You Go) have between 4 and 5 million streams on Spotify.
Some of the ol' farts are probably streaming, but I'm pretty sure a substantial number of youngsters have checked out our beloved blues group as well...
That's true but those numbers are damn far from any kind of 'hit' category...
- Doxa
We can't expect 70-75 year old musicians to make «hits», can we?
This album got the recognition and sales it deserved + turned on young people to the blues. We can't ask of more than that, imo.
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowdermanQuote
DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
The singles (Just Your Fool, Ride 'Em On Down and Hate To See You Go) have between 4 and 5 million streams on Spotify.
Some of the ol' farts are probably streaming, but I'm pretty sure a substantial number of youngsters have checked out our beloved blues group as well...
That's true but those numbers are damn far from any kind of 'hit' category...
- Doxa
We can't expect 70-75 year old musicians to make «hits», can we?
This album got the recognition and sales it deserved + turned on young people to the blues. We can't ask of more than that, imo.
I am bit skeptical if the album actually functioned that way - that of "turning on young people to the blues" (no matter how nice that sounds like). If that had been the case, the streaming numbers should have been much more effective. My estimation is more like it succeeded mobilizing the potential mass of 'old farts' who are still buying albums, the ones already familiar with the blues idiom, but who hadn't heard anyone, and especially the Stones, doing such a thing for a long time as vibrantly.
- Doxa
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Bashlets
I actually view this as a good sign. They're not rushing it to meet a deadline which has always been the case since Steel Wheels.
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DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
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matxilQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
What do you mean? Those 2 million will be mostly Stones fans, and they bought it because they are Stones fans (and probably also like the blues). And mostly will be 40+. I got it for Xmas because I never know what to ask and it beats socks (and I never wear ties).
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
matxilQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
What do you mean? Those 2 million will be mostly Stones fans, and they bought it because they are Stones fans (and probably also like the blues). And mostly will be 40+. I got it for Xmas because I never know what to ask and it beats socks (and I never wear ties).
It's one more million people who bought this album than ABB. And that happened now – in times where people don't really buy a lot of physical albums. Way more people bought CDs in 2005.
So, yeah, I'm pretty sure there were others that were turned on this time. I bet Georgelicks can tell more about those numbers..
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matxilQuote
DandelionPowdermanQuote
matxilQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
What do you mean? Those 2 million will be mostly Stones fans, and they bought it because they are Stones fans (and probably also like the blues). And mostly will be 40+. I got it for Xmas because I never know what to ask and it beats socks (and I never wear ties).
It's one more million people who bought this album than ABB. And that happened now – in times where people don't really buy a lot of physical albums. Way more people bought CDs in 2005.
So, yeah, I'm pretty sure there were others that were turned on this time. I bet Georgelicks can tell more about those numbers..
Well, it was pretty obvious that B&L would be better (or at least safer) than ABB. I mean, ABB were "own songs", which already was a warning not to expect too much. Whereas B&L, well, it's blues, what can go wrong? Nothing.
I don't know what young people listen to (I am 47), but I doubt, I really doubt that anyone below 25 cares about or listens to the Stones. And I am pretty sure they don't know that B&L exists, except for a few exceptions.
I don't mind that, I think it's ok. I only wish they'd accept that too, and just would play for the hell of it. Not compete with anything. Not even try to make "a great album" again. If they're gonna make an album again, it will probably be their last. Why not let it all go? Just play one long single note and scream on top of it. They're old, death is near, they've been through a lot, I'm sure they could express a lot of wild emotions once they'd stop caring about what other people think. Actually, it might even be a way to get some youngsters interested (the weirdoos at least).
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DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
Dandie, don't underestimate the power of old farts - there are a couple of rock generations who were brought up by buying albums (and who lived in a world in where rock music was a main stream pop thing), and some of them still do that by habit in addition to putting incredible sums in attending to concerts. The Stones are very wealthy men because of these people, buying records and going to concerts. I am sure that even Mick Jagger knows this...
- Doxa
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
Dandie, don't underestimate the power of old farts - there are a couple of rock generations who were brought up by buying albums (and who lived in a world in where rock music was a main stream pop thing), and some of them still do that by habit in addition to putting incredible sums in attending to concerts. The Stones are very wealthy men because of these people, buying records and going to concerts. I am sure that even Mick Jagger knows this...
- Doxa
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
Dandie, don't underestimate the power of old farts - there are a couple of rock generations who were brought up by buying albums (and who lived in a world in where rock music was a main stream pop thing), and some of them still do that by habit in addition to putting incredible sums in attending to concerts. The Stones are very wealthy men because of these people, buying records and going to concerts. I am sure that even Mick Jagger knows this...
- Doxa
But those ol' farts haven't really been digging in their pockets since Voodoo Lounge. Did they all collectively do that now, because it was a cover album?
My guess is that B&L became a hype, or was «trending», leading also to new buyers. Remember that 2 million physical products sold today is an amazing number, even for the Stones.
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowdermanQuote
DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
Do you think that 2 million people bought it because it was a blues cover album?
If so, someone else than the regular «ol' farts» must have bought it, right?
Dandie, don't underestimate the power of old farts - there are a couple of rock generations who were brought up by buying albums (and who lived in a world in where rock music was a main stream pop thing), and some of them still do that by habit in addition to putting incredible sums in attending to concerts. The Stones are very wealthy men because of these people, buying records and going to concerts. I am sure that even Mick Jagger knows this...
- Doxa
But those ol' farts haven't really been digging in their pockets since Voodoo Lounge. Did they all collectively do that now, because it was a cover album?
My guess is that B&L became a hype, or was «trending», leading also to new buyers. Remember that 2 million physical products sold today is an amazing number, even for the Stones.
Yes, I think the sales of BLUE & LONESOME are to be explained more the Stones actually succeeding to attract again some potential - not necessarily a big Stones fan - people who have probably bored with their same-sounding records for ages - than to find some totally new audiences. It is not because BLUE & LONESOME is a "cover album"; it is is because what it sounds like - sounding positively different than a typical Stones album a'la VOODOO LOUGE, BRIDGES TO BABYLON or A BIGGER BANG - albums only a hardcore fan can really differentiate from one to other. Add there that blues music is an idiom anyone brought in rock music is somehow aware of. Of course, it hasn't an obvious commercial character, but the Stones - seemingly unintentionally - managed to touch the right sentiment at the right time (so unlike matxil I don't think it was a safe choice initially at all). I agree that there was a "trend" or even a "hype" around the album - but only among the 'old farts' (who, by definition, are about the ones still buying old-time physical copies - plus some "weirdos" (a good one, matxil) - from a younger generation)...
Another thing to notice is that the competition isn't such huge as it once was - there aren't that many oldies acts any longer to remind us of the great old days of rock music. But there are still a lot of us old farts hungry for some new music from the old heroes...
Of course, I would love to think that the Stones have managed to discover a brandnew, young audience, but nothing I think indicates so. But then again, I haven't yet interviewd all the 2 million people who have brought the album so who knows hahaha...
- Doxa