If it doesn't seem like there's a surplus of classics here, all the songs work well, illustrating just how far they've traveled in their songcraft, as well as their exceptional talent as a band — they make this all sound really easy and darkly alluring, even when the sex'n'satanism seems a little silly. To top it all of, they cap off this utterly excessive album with "Star Star," a nasty Chuck Berry rip that grooves on its own mean vulgarity — its real title is "Starf*cker," if you need any clarification, and even though they got nastier (the entirety of Undercover, for instance), they never again made something this dirty or nasty. And, it never feels more at home than it does at the end of this excessive record.
About winter, and all the album feeling and mood

The gentle strums of a slightly overdriven, ringing guitar played by Mick Jagger opens the song, which is joined in short order by Mick Taylor augmenting with lyrical, country-like licks, Charlie Watt's ebullient drum and cymbal work, Nicky Hopkins' upper-register, tinkling piano, and epic string arrangements by Nicky Harrison. The reverb that shimmers over all of it adds to the seasonal feel of the ballad, and sets the tone for Jagger's lyrics and vocal performance. The song is an indigo mood piece from Goat's Head Soup, an underrated album filled with such atmosphere. As Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" so successfully captures the feeling of that month, "Winter" summons a wide range of the season's sensations and emotions: the light and darkness; the gloom and effervescence; and intimacy and expanse.
I think is one of the most experimantal and one that transport yourself to another climate, mood, and situation....if satanic is the dark masterpiece of the stones, for me GHS is the peaceful, funky, crippi, underrated masterpiece.
For me one of the best albuns they made and a different one. Muisc to fly and meditate, grat lyrics by jagger, grat ballads, some psicodelic stuff, funk, and rock and roll....Wath do you think about GHS..and I want your rating!
mine is 9/10 (onlylb,sf,ems, deserves a 10/10)

what an interesting piece of writing - are you quoting someone there?

(i have a personal "issue" with GHS - it's a splendid album, but ... ow ow ow, it has Engine on it. i have forgiven them for Engine, but it left a scar.)


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

Engine?

I agree. GHS is a great album. The only thing is the sound, which is not as "open" as EOMS or IORR. But the songs: GREAT!

I'm listening to this album right this very second actually (100 years ago).


It's beautiful.

Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.

I Love GHS!!

But the sound sharpness is a problem for the 3 albums: EOMS, GHS and IORR.

It gets a lot better with B&B!!

I don't think 'Goats Head Soup' is underrated. It's one of the very few sub-par albums the Stones have made (along with 'Satanic Majesties', 'Emotional Rescue' and 'Dirty Work'). It really lacks energy, and the Stones sound bored and extremely drugged out on it. Only "Heartbreaker", "Angie", "Winter" and "@#$%&" stand out for me on the album. So four good tracks means it's not an awful album...but it's well below the Stones' usual standards.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-04 09:52 by RockR.

>> Engine? <<

yeah, you know: engine engine, you can't say we ... and so on.
the Rolling Stones get everybody's goat sooner or later, see, and they sure got mine with that one.
(not only mine - that track was a huge problem in some circles when it came out, and that video with the little hat etc just made it worse.)
as i say, i've forgiven them, but it was touch & go there for a while. :E

and i'd still like to know who wrote that heavily-adjectival piece that DarrylJones is quoting at the start of the thread, please and thank you ...


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

HAHAHA!! That is too cool sssoul. I was thinking the samw thing. Before I saw your answers and I was still rerading the original posts I was already thinking about my response. I mean "ebullient" drum??? The "crippi" masterpiece?? OUCH! I think this is the product of one of those Internet Translation Machines. At least I hope so. If not it is some of the funniest writing in a while.
I am not trying to be rude to darryljones; those are some valid thoughts. It's those adjectives I take umbrage with...oops!
I had heard the story behind "engine" already LOL. Madame Sssoul is very strict with the band when it comes to this album. From what I understand it took them a while to climb back into her good graces.

>> From what I understand it took them a while to climb back into her good graces. <<
yes it did yes it did - but for the record, even at the depths of my goat-gotten umbrage, i never gave up on Keith. that tooth proved he was still himself. :E

meanwhile, helpless strings of adjectives are real typical of rock writers struggling to express the ineffable (which doesn't mean we shouldn't credit our sources!).
just for contrast, here's one of my favorite pieces of rock writing:
"he played good is what i mean to say, and when Keith is on, ain't no one can touch him."
- Chet Flippo, 1977, re the second El Mocambo gig


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

Taylor on GHS

Taylor's Presence on GHS

GHS is a great record from the boy's 'coming down'again from the exile sessions and they explore different kinds of music. The record is not riff dominated but has a melodic feel mainly due to Taylor's presence and him collaborating with Jagger. This record is more of Taylor's sound of the stones vs how Keith wants the stones to sound. One example is a song like 100 years ago a new kind of song for jagger letting him explore is vocal style against Taylor's brilliant
wah wah guitar. This kind of song and collaboration builds the working relationship between jagger and Taylor and allows the two later on to craft one of the best songs the stones ever recorded in 'Winter' with again jagger exploring himself as an artist with the help of Taylor's tonal brilliance and the song has that magical ride. Later on the two hook up on Hide your Love
and jam together over Taylor's brilliant solo and jagger on piano. Taylor
was there for jagger and proved how important he was to the stones in exploring new types of music and how Taylor helped jagger find a new energy and vocal style in delivering those songs. Taylor's presence did not stop here with GHS but
again on IORR Taylor was there in the studio to help
out and contribute in many ways. Yeah Keith was MIA and
Taylor stepped up and helped out sir jagger. Over the
years these two records have become two of my favorite
stones records.

Free Speech

Do you get the feeling that MT's 'brilliant!!

yes - WRAP AROUND MY COAT WOMEN and Taylor plays that back with his brilliant
melodic wonderment.

DOCTOR!!!!!!.........

You don,t need a doctor or any medicine to dive into that melodic wonderment
just a natural high and love of the brilliant passage that will CURE all your
daily needs to get through the day. Life without music I cant imagine that
bleak existense.

I like you OpenG..... you don't bite anymore! Life without music I can get but endless guitar solo's? Now THATS a bleak existence!!! LOL!

NO your missing the whole point of taylor's contribitions with the stones they are paintings within the framework of the jagger/richards compositons
and chord foundations.he provided the melody and explored that within 3 chord
rock songs which was brilliant and probably after 5 years boring to him,but its on
all on those records and you cant say eric clapton or jeff beck would of done the same magic with the stones that taylor contributed.

"and probably after 5 years boring to him"...
- Wonderful history writing!

Boring to him.... try reading it everyday!

I dont think its a well-mixed album. The Mickboy remaster "Dancin So Free" is a great improvement and I heard it in a new light when I got a copy of that. I'd recommend it to anyone who feels that GHS falls a bit short as a great Stones record.

GHS's biggest problem in the way its remembered is it's timing. Considering the run of records the Stones had made since 1968, with each album (IMO) being even better than the one that had immediately preceded it, it was inevitable that theyd reach a point where they couldnt continue to beat what theyd done before. If theyd put out an album of that standard at any time since, it would be remembered with more fondness. That said, the different styles on it would probably have divided a lot of fans

Musically, its a bit of an oddity and shows a band in transition. Theres relatively few archetypal Stonesy barrelhouse rockers on it and a lot of songs that are a bit of a departure from their more traditional sound. Taylor seems to have more input than on any other record that he was on during his spell in the band - as Open G says, it has more of a melodic feel than being riff orientated.

It's an album that it took me a long time to fully appreciate. Its certainly grown on me over the years. There arent a high amount of instant classics that jump out at you in the way that there are on, say, Sticky Fingers, but its an album thats appreciated more as a whole than as a series of individual songs. I wouldnt put it with my favourite Stones albums, but I still think its a fine record.

Just listen toe the european tour 73, and find out how good these songs were live! Dancing with Mr D, Heartbreaker, @#$%&, not to mention Angie. They're fantastic, I tell you!

It really lacks energy, and the Stones sound bored and extremely drugged out on it. Only "Heartbreaker", "Angie", "Winter" and "@#$%&" stand out for me on the album. So four good tracks means it's not an awful album...but it's well below the Stones' usual standards.



silver train is master piece.
it is the opposite of what you just said;
cheers

The least GHS lacks is energy. I save more comments for the
future; you are pickin on my old fav album.

I don't think GHS lacks energy at all. Like it's been said the problem IMO is in the mix and mastering. There was a giant cup of Nyquil spilled over the Mixing Board!
All one has to do is check out the Liver versions of these tunes to realize how got they are. MrD and Silver Train e.g should be redhot but come off as luke warm. There is something very dragging about the faster tunes on this album. It actually rides on it's ballads. Coming Down, Angie and Winter are by far the best tunes here. @#$%& is just not to be denied on the lyrics alone. The chords also are irresisitible. But imagine this one done a la Exile. Would have been worlds better. CYHTM could have been extremely groovy. Yet it puts you asleep before the first chorus has eneded. And those bridges are very pretty. That monster riff falls totally flat. This one should have been pulsating like Fingerprint File. 100 years, heartbreaker, Hide Your Love...it's like there is a big sheet of saranwrap stretched over the whole soundscape.
I agree with Gazza that another weak spot of GHS was it's time and place. We all know that the successor to Exile was going to have a hard time. Still when seen from a historic point of view the album could have eventually claimed it's rightful place among the great ones had it been maybe a departure from the style before; a new direction that we might not have appreciated at the time and that had revealed itslef to us over the course of time. But GHS does not do this. It really is weaker than the Great Four. Like Gazza says up till then every album had been better than the one before. And if better is not the correct word, then "growth" might be better. A development. One thing that fascinates me about the Flaming Lips is that every album in their career does just that: it expands on the ones that came before.
But GHS doesn't really do that. I don't think fans were alienated by the varying styles. Sticky Fingers is a PERFECT cinescope of wildly different musical genres. Yet when all is said and done it is all vintage Stones. The grungy Blues, the Soul song, the country shuffle, the beautiful ballads the druggy nightmare, the samba funk, and all that cockrock.
Missing was the vision of Jimmy Miller for sure. The twins were left to their own and maybew they had to learn first.
And at the risk of oversimplefying I think the main problem with GHS is - No Keith.

2000 LIGHT Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> silver train is master piece.
> it is the opposite of what you just said;
> cheers


Nope...all "Silver Train" is is a second rate re-write of "All Down the Line".
The Stones were running out of gas on this album -- the debauchery and decadence were catching up with them. They rebounded somewhat with 'It's Only Rock 'n Roll' (NOW THAT'S an underrated album !).

I don't think it's underrated at all. It's a great album, it just suffers from being the next release after Exile...Black and Blue now there is an overrated pile of shit.

the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler!

Black and Blue a pile of shit? Hmmm, you must be out of tune man.....

love goat stew & black-blue both....even the worst of those two are enjoyable

GHS was my first Stones album, back in the days when I played them in my room until they were ingrained in my brain, so I have a special fondness for it and it is hard to be objective, like a first love that you romantisize(sp?).

probably because its not very good.