The stones didn't get too far out musically (TSMR perhaps being the trippiest), but what do you think are the tracks of theirs that head into that foggy, proggy zone?

Time signatures

The Stones haven't really messed about with time signatures. The odd 2/4 bar (on Black Limo and one of the BL tracks). Of course the bridge of Rocks Off features one bar of 5/4.

Chords and Sounds

The haven't really explored all the myriad of chords available, sticking to a pretty traditional rock set. Or maybe I'm forgetting something...

They've definitely had some spacy, interesting productions - Can You Hear the Music, Continental Drift, Moon is Up..

What do you think? When did the Stones get proggy?

King Crimson/Yes/Rush territory?

Never. Nothing they've done ventures into that genre. It's like asking what's the most "death metal" moment in Stones history.

Midnight Rambler, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Fingerprint File...hey've got extended passages where the tempos switch up and the main riff changes, but those songs are more extended jams than true prog.

Time Waits For No One has an uncharacteristically long and showy solo, but it's in a standard time signature so, again, it doesn't really qualify.

Moonlight Mile has passages that are borderline prog.

Going Home -- that's when they went off the beaten path when going longer than when the song was necessary, just going "free form" in a way that wasn't necessarily rock, R&B, or jazz. Just take Bill's bass runs in that jam -- when were those ever used in a song at that point, for rock or R&B when everything was still a 2- or 3-minute song?

I would say by "prog" you don't really need to mean retrospectively according to what we associate with the catch-all phrase "prog"... as in Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, etc. But again, aside from the jazz and symphonic leanings of prog, there was also the technological, and certainly 2000 Light Years would certainly stand out in a Stones show as "different" or progressively experimental, as it did on their 1989/1990 tour. A band that made a career of things like 2000 Light Years would have been a very different band indeed.

...So, I would say Citadel is pretty prog indeed.

As proof, who would cover it? Certainly not a garage band learning their standard 3 chords and so on. But the Flight Reaction did a few years ago, so who knows?: [www.youtube.com]

Other than that, the jazzy playout of Can't You Hear Me Knockin' and the arts and crafts joke of scraping violas and cellos in the middle of She's A Rainbow.

And one more, the jazziest of all and never played live as a Stones set -- Heaven. Oh, and does Continental Drift count?

Continental Drift?

100 years ago

The Stones are a 'black' band. No room nor need for 'proggyness'...

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peoplewitheyes

What do you think? When did the Stones get proggy?

They would have gone proggy... if Mick Taylor had managed to take control of the band's musical wheel (in 74-75?). TWFNO is as close as a Stones song built under Taylor's guidance.

Fortunately, as addicted as he was in 74-75, Keef never handed the reins of the band to the blonde axeman (and that's a good thing). In other words MT never broke the Mick-Keef songwriting team.

I can imagine Taylor wanted to go in that direction. "The Rolling Stones are not the band to use some of his musical ideas" Mick Jagger commented in an interview. I don't remember the name of the magazine.

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dcba

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peoplewitheyes

What do you think? When did the Stones get proggy?

They would have gone proggy... if Mick Taylor had managed to take control of the band's musical wheel (in 74-75?). TWFNO is as close as a Stones song built under Taylor's guidance.

Fortunately, as addicted as he was in 74-75, Keef never handed the reins of the band to the blonde axeman (and that's a good thing). In other words MT never broke the Mick-Keef songwriting team.

Yeah, I think GHS/IORR were the two albums that just barely had hints of progginess, partially due to the times, and a bit due to whatever influence MT might have been able to have.

Can You Hear The Music with it's "Love is a mystery/I cant demystify/Oh no" line struck me as sort of George Harrison/Beatles-ish.

Proggy would be an apt description.

The Stone's have done some experimental things for sure, but I don't think they've ever committed to it enough to cross over into prog territory.

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RoughJusticeOnYa
The Stones are a 'black' band. No room nor need for 'proggyness'...

Black bands can prog out; here's one:

Funkadelic -- Maggot Brain



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-07-09 22:45 by LongBeachArena72.

"just wanna see his face"
and
"heaven"

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-07-09 22:45 by LongBeachArena72.

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keefriff99

Yeah, I think GHS/IORR were the two albums that just barely had hints of progginess, partially due to the times, and a bit due to whatever influence MT might have been able to have.

Methinks at that time MT thought Keef was going to fall by the wayside (whatever that means...) and he (MT) would team with Jagger to jointly run the songwriting side of things.
That could have pushed the Stones sound into "progginess".