...I must admit that Dirty Work is a f*uckin' great tune!! One Hit To The Body also rocks pretty good.
But for me these are pretty much all the highlights from this album...
Sometimes "Too Rude" can be nice listening to, but I have to be in the mood for it.

Well if you like three songs, I wouldn't say you "seriously dislike" it.

I have never been able to get through a full listen of Back to Zero. Just can't stand it.

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

CindyC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have never been able to get through a full
> listen of Back to Zero. Just can't stand it.
>
> Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real
> well.


Yup - until SOL came along, Back to Zero had the distinction of being the worst piece of shite the boys had ever recorded....

back to zero, that's where we're headed straight to meltdown!

+ Sleep Tonihgt and Had it with you.

In general the albun is better than ABB.

sucks-one hit is the only classic. fight is good.

i enjoy the album. not the best, but not the worst either. the outtakes are good. to each his own , I suppose...

one hit fight,dont hold back,harlem,the best the rest i can listen to stoned even the shitalbums go well

Love the disc...hate Hold Back. I don't understand the hatered of Back to Zero. I think it has a great groove. Agree with Redrum (Mrs. Torrence), great ottakes from thise sessions. Keith does some really cool rockers

Hold Back is the only major misunderstanding on the album for me too.
i find Back to Zero amusing: how many nuclear-paranoia dance numbers does the world have, after all?!
all the other tracks rock for serious, as do the outtakes - ahh, you know She Never Listen to Me ... :E



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

Reptile Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well if you like three songs, I wouldn't say you
> "seriously dislike" it.


I would rate any album from which I liked only three songs pretty much a disaster.

Had it With You and Sleep Tonight...the rest is 80s rubbish...only fair then and absolutely obsolete now....their worst album



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-05 03:14 by 4tylix.

Had it With You and Sleep Tonight...the rest is 80s rubbish...only fair then and absolutely obsolete now....their worst album...with possible exception of SW and Satanic's



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-05 03:14 by 4tylix.

One Hit (true Stones classic) and Harlem Shuffle do it for me...Fight, sometimes. The rest...ooooh no. Awful.

Rgds
Rod

I really enjoy the whole album. The attitude is part of what makes the album great. It wants do things that would make Goya's paintings look tame.

Josh
np: BoMH

I always thought it was a lousy record...

But "Had It With You" is perfect--completely "Exile"-worthy. The production on "Too Rude" is a little warped, but that's true of the best reggae. "One Hit" has balls to spare. "Harlem Shuffle" isn't as strong as the 12" version, but still pretty cool if ya "take it kinda slow/with a whole lotta soul."

"Sleep Tonight" is a sloppy, confused Keith gospel-y thing. And how can you really resist that?

And finally...30 seconds or so of Stu doing "Key To The Highway" as a graceful tip of the hat to the guiding light of the Stones' first quarter century.

That's fully half the album that is pretty great, actually.

One thing I keep noticing about these "awful" records the Stones have been making for the last twenty-five years is that they usually contain at least five things that any other band would absolutely kill for. If the Stones have been at half speed--I'd argue that it's better than that--since "Tattoo You," it's still better than virtually anyone else's career highs.

I'm preachin' to the choir...

Worth hiring a posse to track down High Temperature - VGP 258 the Dirty Work rehearsals from Paris 1985. Reasonable sound and has some magic Keith moments..
The great slow pleading Some Of Us Are On Our Knees...The funky Jamaican jerk of She Never Listens To Me that sssouly listed ... the bluesy bash of Little Walters R&B sex rattler High Temperature and the fall asleep at the wheel groove of Your Too Much....What Dirty Work could have been....CLASSIC STUFF!!!





ROCKMAN

Their worst album although one hit , Had it with you , Harlem shuffle, Sleep tonight are very good. Too rude & winning ugly OK. Fight, Hold back totally unlistenable. Back to Zero is not Stones Sounds like new wave The Fixx. Dirty work song itself is little below to average at best. But even though the worst still 4-5 good tunes!

Like I said in a different post, Steve Lillywhite ruined Dirty Work with Charlie Watts drum sounds...every album for the most part sounds like Charlie except for this disgrace of Echo's, flanges, triggers, and reverb...just so not Stones...tried too hard to sound 80's but lost the essence of the Stones...the groove is the crispness of the drums and the rhythm of Keith...when you wash over it with effects it gets cloudy and messy..example: Hold Back.

i love don't hold back,and one hit,and fight,and dirty work and had it with you,and the album in general.do not know why other feel diferently.raucus guitar playing.

john scialfa

We all love them all, but when you put a list together...something needs to be at or near the bottom...and this album is pretty close...I like it...Love a few tracks, like a few tracks...but it contains two of the top five worst tracks...Hold Back and Back To Zero.

This album is basically The New Barbarians with guest vocals by Mick Jagger.

Pecman

A couple of other thoughts:

2 Covers
Drums by Ronnie Wood
No Bass on Had It With You
2 Tracks from She's The Boss sessions "Winning Ugly" & "Back To Zero"...

Where was the focus?...we all know the stories.

The question I want to know is...who is responsible for "HOLD BACK"...is it Mick or Keith?...I can usually tell but this one throws me for a loop...it lacks so much and I can't imagine either of the two coming up with that song.

Anyone?

Pecman

I'm guessing that it was mainly Mick, not so much Steve Lillywhite, that added/approved the drum effects and synth sounds that so terribly ruined Dirty Work. Mick was obviously trying to keep up with the times. Just listen to She's the Boss. Never has a Stones album sounded so dated. In comparison, all of their albums sound timeless compared to this 80's production. It is hard to listen to this album because of this alone.

I will say that there are some good songs on it though:
- One Hit (To the Body)
- Sleep Tonight
- Too Rude
- Harlem Shuffle
- and yes, I enjoy Back To Zero (always have for some reason, especially the outtake version with no drum effects)
- and even Fight, I feel, has merit in the Stones catalogue.

The Dirty Work outtakes have some great music as well, such as:
- What Am I Gonna Do With You
- Deep Love (Keith)
- Baby You're Too Much (Keith)
- Strictly Memphis

It could have been a much stronger album, no doubt, with the addition of these songs and the lack of the slick 80's production.

Pecman: "Steve Lillywhite ruined Dirty Work with Charlie Watts drum sounds".
...Maybe; but we can´t blame Mr. Lillywhite for the 80s.

Pecman Wrote:
>
> The question I want to know is...who is
> responsible for "HOLD BACK"...is it Mick or
> Keith?...I can usually tell but this one throws me
> for a loop...it lacks so much and I can't imagine
> either of the two coming up with that song.
>
> Anyone?


OK, I'll bite. Here's my weekly "I love Hold Back and Dirty Work" post. I sometimes think that I must have a unique copy of this album.

What are you all on about with the drum sound? Are you sure you're not thinking about Undercover? Other than a little bit of reverb, I don't hear any "80s drum effects" on Hold Back. And..I really don't understand why everybody slags the drumming on this song. Charlie drives the song and his beat is deep in the "pocket". HB, to me, is a classic Stones song. Is this not a perfect Keith riff? Jagger spits out the lyrics like a man possessed. IMHO this is better than anything on ABB. Not that I dislike ABB, I just think HB is exactly what I want to hear from the Stones: Mean, rude, pounding, angry, tight, pissy, rough, loud,....ROCKING!

Karl

thats right! the ending is so shaking

I was listening to it again yesterday as I finally got around to buying the Virgin remaster as it was goin' cheap

Pecman - you're singing from the same hymn sheet as me on this one, mate.

The production and mix is a disaster. Charlie may as well have been playing on a different continent on some of those songs - it just doesnt sound like he's in the same room or playing the same tune as the rest of the band. (Listen to Fight - which is otherwise a good song - and the tuneless cacophony that is Hold Back to see what I mean). Lillywhite did what no one could have thought possible. He makes Charlie Watts sound like a crap drummer. Mick's contribution is relatively minimal and his singing was never worse

There are some highlights though - One Hit is a great song and Sleep Tonight is a beautiful piece that deserves to be better known. The outtakes are great fun and as they dont have that horrible overproduction, theyre actually more enjoyable.

That said, a bad Rolling Stones album is still a lot better than what most acts would call a good album.

guys---remember all the f-ing crap music back in 85/86?! Tears For Fears, Madonna, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys etc, etc....even Back To Zero kicks the living hell out of those awful bands/ "artists".

to me, Dirty Work LP has much the same fury in numbers like Fight/Hold Back/Had It With You/One Hit To the Body as the Undercover LP (a highly underrated album), or even Some Girls.

I think if the mixing had been different, it would have held up better over time. Lillywhite made "Dirty Work" sound very "80s". Back To Zero, as well as Winning Ugly are Jagger (and Leavell) numbers aimed at a younger, more trendy market....numbers included for business reasons. The rest of the album is Keith, giving us "Ye Olde famous Rolling Stones Sound". (I think thats a quote from Keith, describing the LP, out of 'Guitar Player" magazine in '86.)

If you get ahold of Dirty Work outtakes, take a listen to Strictly Memphis. This track would have been more succesful than Harlem Shuffle.

"...I'm a junk, I'm a suicide!"--from Fight

I think the album as a whole isn't that bad. Winning Ugly and Back to Zero are the only songs which I usually skip but even Winning Ugly has some cool guitar licks. I actually like the song Hold Back. My favorites on the album are One Hit, Dirty Work and Had It With You. To me this and Undercover are very similar with that horrible 80's sound. I probably play Undercover the least among all my Stones cds. Steel Wheels also had that 80's sound but it was a more slick production sound, very crisp to the ears..