Is the album A Bigger Bang their best album since Exile on main street? Many critics and fans a like are saying that it is.

Actually, a majority of the reviews in the german speaking press are rather negative, I noticed. The american press seems to be very upbeat!


Belgrade-Bucharest-Budapest-Brno

"s the album A Bigger Bang their best album since Exile on main street? Many critics and fans a like are saying that it is."

Critics rarely know what the hell they are talking about and just take their cues from the publicity sheet that came with their promo kit which purports this very thing (i.e. best since "Exile'" yadayada).

The opinions of fans on the other end are completely subjective and if they like as much as "Exile'" then bully for them.

I don't know yet but the "exile'" comparison, but it IS damned good.

bddrex Wrote:
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> Is the album A Bigger Bang their best album since
> Exile on main street? Many critics and fans a
> like are saying that it is.


I havent read one review thats gone that far...

Why does everyone have to compare one album with another, does my head in!!You cannot comare Physical Graffitti with Led Zep 4 but they are both classic albums,why not just enjoy ABB for what it is;A %^&$*&^ great album.

The "best album since Exile" is like a nickname for EVERY album since '72. Comes with the promosheet and in every Keith interview for the album in question.

well all i know is that back of my hand could have been an exile track, case closed

I'm not sure that it's the best album since Voodoo Lounge.

!972 - 2005 hmm- thats 33 Years ago.
Well how did ya feel? I was pretty young, so much younger than today.

c'mon people, during the war (which one btw) it used to be different.
Who is asking these silly questions?
Where you even born before '72?
And if, could you say at that time, sweet virgina was a filler?
Would you have the sense to even think you could share the bootlegs with anyone, if the person wouldn't sit next to your HiFi"" (some of you may remember the piece of crap they ownend)
Nowadays we live in a digital world - with loads of digital crap, and to listen to ABB is such a relief for me, instead of that radio gaga.
In '72 Exile wasn't a big bang - it needed some years to grow.
A Bigger Bang tho, goes off like nothing before.

The big majority of the reviews in the greek press are positive, even enthousiastic...

Not sure. It is a long album. On first listening, it sounds better than anything they've done since Tatoo You, and it is probably better than Goats head soup and Black and Blue. But is it better than Some Girls and Tatoo You? Maybe if it were trimmed to 12 songs, but even them, I have my doubts.

What a great album! I'm loving it. Is it better than EOMS? Who knows, and who cares. In 2005 it is one of the best albums released. This album cooks. The band is playing with conviction. This is the album Stones fans knew they could still make. 40+ years into their career and they still have something to say.

It's so very lonely, you're 2,000 Light Years from home

Well what else would you expect from them uptight germans.......

saturn,well said.as i posted earlier today this album is a masterpiece and thats no stretch.

john scialfa

i would definitely say it is the best since Tattoo You

I think comparing albums is fun. It's really harmless and I thing if you want, you should. I'm having my first listen right now (so loud I can barely think) and I'm thinking it knocks VL off the pedestal as my favorite of recent times (thought B2B was dismal), is passing TY (overrated) and is probably better than Steel Wheels (a personal favorite). I'm thinking best since Some Girls (although haven't heard all songs yet).

There, that was fun!

I know that many of you my fellow stones fans will demand to treat my
total ignorance with electro-shock therapy but I have to confess that I
don't love Exile! For me Exile is nothing but a collection of good songs,
yet a very stylish one. I love some of then very much but I never listen to Exile
from the begining to the end- too many songs I don't care.
For me BB, LIB, SF, SG are ALBUMS, each one works as an entity,
that's why they a so GREAT.
ABB also has few songs I use to skip, but it's a great solid album.
ABB is made 33 years after Exile, things have changed in all ways,
why should we compare?

Don't compare BANG to anything, listen to it on it's own. BANG is the Stones 2005 and I am fine with it.

If I want Stones 1972 I will spin Exile.

They put out 16 tracks on BANG and most of them are pretty good.

Not that I am comparing in anyway...but Exile got panned across the board when it came out, as we all know.

BANG has been out 2 days and it's getting trashed already. I remember people bashing side 2 of Tattoo when it first came out.

My feeling so far, is that BANG is an exceptional album for any band, especially a band that has been together since radio was invented.

Milo, NYC
Like airplane lights

But wasn't Exile generally viewed their worst ever by the critics at the time of it's release? So by that logic, Bang is the best ever...

Seriously, it looks like the worse the instant criticism is the greater the album will be later estimated... someone posted here some time ago the reviews of the Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile by Rolling Stone, and none of them were very positive.. all of them were compared to the 'classical stuff' of the 60's, and the needed energy, inspiration, rawness, wilderness etc. all the things that the critics thought made the Stones big and great seemed to be somehow degenerated or lost in those albums... Even Let It Bleed was seen to be a short of cheap version of Beggars..

By the contrary, all the Stones albums from Undercover on seem recieve very positive reviews and viewed "best since Tattoo You", "Some Girls" or even "Exile", you know the pattern.. (check especially Rolling Stone five star reviews...)

SO what is the lesson here? I don't know.

(Before anyone starts correcting my 'facts', I admit that I might do some exaggerating here...)

- Doxa

Well, Biggest bang is not a very good album, its good by standards of old Ex-rockers but not if yuou compare their work in the 60s and 70s. Absolutely not. No way.

Amen.

drbryant has said - "a bigger bang" is better than "goat head soup" or "black and blue". Are your serious? These albums have real new songs, each time it was new sound and rythm. On this new album, each song recalls me something from the past. I don't say songs are bad, we have already hear these sounds somewhere in the past. Nothing new. I have the impression to hear outtakes from different albums and years.

It's still VERY early to say that it is the best since EOMS. But right now, at this moment, I feel it is.

JumpingKentFlash

The new albun had a lot of potential. Imagine the thing with the guitar distortion turned back a half a notch, a heavy dose of maraccas and tamborine, and of course Billy Wyman walking the neck of a bass.

They made an attempt to go back to the start. No drawn out instrumentals, not a lot of extra musicians, a spattering of acoustical instruments and even a few place with Mick and Keith singing together.

Better than anything since Exile, maybe not. Better than anything since Some Girls, well it had the potential to be but without Wyman the Stones sound can't really exist. I would like to say Charlie is and has alway been Charlie and thank god for that.

Hi Skippy!
Still shooting water rats or whatever that was, sipping your home made wine?
I agree totally with you and I really miss Bill. I had thought so many times, especially listening to tracks like Dangerous beauty. With Bill: a hell of a Whip comes down groove. Without Bill: a filler. I do love ABB but Bill would have raised it a step higher, no doubt.
Also agree about distorsion and tambourines.

Hey Otonneau, its ground hogs you goofy Frenchman. Hope your doing well - I trust you been away by choice and not some problem.

ABB was completely trashed yesterday in the Chicago Sun Times by Jim DeROgatis who has had it out for the Stones for as long as he has done rock reviews for the paper. He simply disses the band at every opportunity and when he offers praise it is always a backhand. I could have told people he would abuse the Stones effort before the album came out. He calls the rockers on this album "faux Stones rockers". Complete crap, what a dick. I have listened to ABB all the way through twice. The material is interesting and takes the listener up and down. I think the band is in fine form at the moment. As fans we have new stuff to listen to and for me it's fun listening to this band playing new songs. Would like to hear them play even more off ABB as the tour moves on. There is material on this album that should do well live. ONNYA is simply great on this tour as is Rough Justice and BOMH. I think the guys have done a good job with ABB although it would be nice if they made the liner notes legible for us old farts. I mean how much smaller can they make the print?

What do you guys want to compare with? Exile with BB? Well, you can't compare it, because Exile was recorded in anothe decade. That special feeling feeling of the 70's, the surroundings of the Cote d'Azur, Keith's house Nellcote and of course the all the drugs they consumed at that time made such an album possible! And don't forget such briliant people, like Jimmy Miller Nicky Hopkins!
Unfortunately they're all gone.
So BB is not such a bad recording as most of the press mentioned. It's very traditinal made with two or three weaker tracks, but the rest's quiet well done.
So what the hell do expect from living legends? Legengs who don't have to prove anybody anything?!
If you don't like their stuff, why do still listen to them? That's what I can't really understand.
And I for myself like their stuff already, you can take any Stones song, and it this one's still better than the bullshit will be played all night long through the radio stations.



Keep on rollin'
Gangster

It wouldn't take much to best GHS and B&B. I think this album competes with those two right out of the gate. But I mean who REALLY cares, it's a new Stones album, full of new material. Spend some time with it, get to know it, THEN make all these comparisons. I'm just glad we have this opportunity.

I ain't stupid, I'm just guitarded.

I think Bigger Bang is the best album since Bridges to Babylon which also is a very good album !