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funkydrummer
Oh yeah - and I am not a fussy audiophile type - but Blue and Lonesome CD was unlistenable. It was so compressed it gave me a headache listening to it and I have never listened to the whole thing to this day. While mastering is not the producers job - Was has some responsibility for how brickwalled that mess is.

I was just listening to B&L tracks yesterday...the songs themselves are extremely well played, but the mix is beyond atrocious.

The drums sounds terrible...the snare is so harsh and dry. It's just a dull, unpleasant thud.

Do Not Fire him Now. It's Easter. Have some compassion.
Tomorrow morning would be fine. He'll be loose and fat from the Holiday at Home.
he'd probably been to church or a freakin tech disco party church,
and be mellow; so tomorrow it is!!

...if they just have to have a "don," there's donnie osmond, i think Keith knows him.
Bill had a thing for Marie, but that was long ago. I don't think she'd mind.
Soneone should 'ring' him.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-22 09:14 by hopkins.

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24FPS
Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have).

I've said it before and I say it again: Bill was right. Almost nothing released after Bill's departure convinces me otherwise than that the creative well went dry. No producer can hide that simple fact.

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retired_dog

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24FPS
Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have).

I've said it before and I say it again: Bill was right. Almost nothing released after Bill's departure convinces me otherwise than that the creative well went dry. No producer can hide that simple fact.

Couldn't disagree more, and my bet is in a more current inquiry, Bill would as well. Whichever metric one wants to utilize, other than one's personal song preferences, Bill has already been proven wrong in many ways. Course, who leaves a great gig at the wrong time and then later admits they messed up.. not many.

Do like his burgers though.

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MisterDDDD

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retired_dog

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24FPS
Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have).

I've said it before and I say it again: Bill was right. Almost nothing released after Bill's departure convinces me otherwise than that the creative well went dry. No producer can hide that simple fact.

Couldn't disagree more, and my bet is in a more current inquiry, Bill would as well. Whichever metric one wants to utilize, other than one's personal song preferences, Bill has already been proven wrong in many ways. Course, who leaves a great gig at the wrong time and then later admits they messed up.. not many.

Do like his burgers though.

Rubbish. Bill never said anything according to "they messed up". By "repeating themselves" he obviously meant that creatively, everything's said and done. How much more proof do you want if only 3 new studio albums of original material in 30 years after Steel Wheels don't convince you that he was right?

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retired_dog

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24FPS
Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have).

I've said it before and I say it again: Bill was right. Almost nothing released after Bill's departure convinces me otherwise than that the creative well went dry. No producer can hide that simple fact.

There are also other reasons. Like Keith's creative imput turning to zero. In the older 'golden" days he could turn one of Jagger's song embryo into an instant classic ("Bitch" comes to mind). During the 90's he brought very few song ideas and he spent most of his time vetoing the song demos Jagger would bring.

Plus he started to develop some rather peculiar and mystical views about songwriting : in short you have to spread your antennas and the songs (that float in the air) will come to you.
Jagger otoh certainly views songwriting as a craft : the more time you spend time on your craft the more likely you might end with sth worthwhile.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-22 20:10 by dcba.

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dcba
Jagger otoh certainly views songwriting as a craft : the more time you spend time on your craft the more likely you might end with sth worthwhile.

A craft? Maybe so, but it's Keith who likes to work on an idea until something becomes of it - a form of art, while Mick writes very quickly and wants to be done with it (see Getta Grip).

Also, if you look at the credits of Jagger solo albums (Goddess is a good example), there's everything in there except the kitchen sink. including over two dozen extra musicians involved, yet it still sounds like it needs help.
Keith solo albums on the other hand resonate a certain quality with only a handful of extra input.

But this thread shouldn't be about Keith vs. Mick - it's all about Don Was and the steady decline and the well running dry. Bill leaving certainly didn't help matters, but even if he had stayed, the band's creativity was already a thing of the past. He's sorely missed when the band plays live no doubt about it, but even he couldn't "fix" some of the crap the band has released, although it would have been cool to hear him on Blue and Lonesome - he might have added something extra.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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Hairball

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dcba
Jagger otoh certainly views songwriting as a craft : the more time you spend time on your craft the more likely you might end with sth worthwhile.

A craft? Maybe so, but it's Keith who likes to work on an idea until something becomes of it - a form of art, while Mick writes very quickly and wants to be done with it (see Getta Grip).

Also, if you look at the credits of Jagger solo albums (Goddess is a good example), there's everything in there except the kitchen sink. including over two dozen extra musicians involved, yet it still sounds like it needs help.
Keith solo albums on the other hand resonate a certain quality with only a handful of extra input.

But this thread shouldn't be about Keith vs. Mick - it's all about Don Was and the steady decline and the well running dry. Bill leaving certainly didn't help matters, but even if he had stayed, the band's creativity was already a thing of the past. He's sorely missed when the band plays live no doubt about it, but even he couldn't "fix" some of the crap the band has released, although it would have been cool to hear him on Blue and Lonesome - he might have added something extra.

That's exactly right -- it all depends on how you feel about the "something" that "becomes" of "it."

If you dig CROSSEYED HEART, for example, then the "it" "became" a "something" you might call art.

If you feel "Gotta Get a Grip" is crap, then that "it" "became" a "something" you might call craft.

In other words, there's nothing intrinsically true about pop music lingered/labored over being better than pop music being whipped up in an instant. Plenty of examples of both in the annals of history.

I think it's not about a well gone dry, but what tracks they choose to make an album. And at that point the producer might get an important role.

I love Voodoo Lounge, including all of those great outtakes, such as I'm gonna drive, The storm, Jump on top... Even Mean Disposition is kinda an outtake.
That album is great.

What if they had shorten it up and then gathered those cool tracks with some of BtB, discarding the crappy Saint of me, always suffering, etc, etc...?

And what if the Stones had fired those idiotic Cliffords and Leavells and for their next album chose to follow the rock/blues vibe of Not you, Back of my hand?

Add Blue and Lonesome. It's not about the employees. It's about three guys giving up their say.

In Voodoo Lounge I can hear the Stones. Same as Blue and Lonesome.

I think Don Was is not the issue.

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LazarusSmith

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Hairball

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dcba
Jagger otoh certainly views songwriting as a craft : the more time you spend time on your craft the more likely you might end with sth worthwhile.

A craft? Maybe so, but it's Keith who likes to work on an idea until something becomes of it - a form of art, while Mick writes very quickly and wants to be done with it (see Getta Grip).

Also, if you look at the credits of Jagger solo albums (Goddess is a good example), there's everything in there except the kitchen sink. including over two dozen extra musicians involved, yet it still sounds like it needs help.
Keith solo albums on the other hand resonate a certain quality with only a handful of extra input.

But this thread shouldn't be about Keith vs. Mick - it's all about Don Was and the steady decline and the well running dry. Bill leaving certainly didn't help matters, but even if he had stayed, the band's creativity was already a thing of the past. He's sorely missed when the band plays live no doubt about it, but even he couldn't "fix" some of the crap the band has released, although it would have been cool to hear him on Blue and Lonesome - he might have added something extra.

That's exactly right -- it all depends on how you feel about the "something" that "becomes" of "it."

If you dig CROSSEYED HEART, for example, then the "it" "became" a "something" you might call art.

If you feel "Gotta Get a Grip" is crap, then that "it" "became" a "something" you might call craft.

In other words, there's nothing intrinsically true about pop music lingered/labored over being better than pop music being whipped up in an instant. Plenty of examples of both in the annals of history.

True enough LazarusSmith, but the main point was in my first sentence really - Keith is the one the tends to work ad nauseum on something, while Mick tends to be impatient with that type of work.
I shouldn't have shown favoritism as both types of creativity have had both good and bad results from others in the past. Just so happens in this case, Keith being the slow roller taking his sweet time comes up with better material vs. quick Mick imo.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Myself I don't know too much about what Don Was can be blamed for and what not. But at least the contents of two quotes.

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lem motlow

MICK JAGGER:”there were a lot of things we wrote for Voodoo Lounge that Don steered us away from.groove songs,African influences and things like that.
And he steered us clear of all that and I think it was a mistake.”
(RS magazine 1995)

I find that there is only two songs that I really do like on VOODOO LOUNGE, "Love Is Strong" and, more controversially, "Sweethearts Together". The album as a whole, in my opinion, is at best "fair". Besides, I would have loved so dearly to have received songs that would have given new aspects of the band as indicated by Mick's saying.

The next quote from another thread also brings some Don Was influence, backing up Keith, not wishing more recording work on A BIGGER BANG, whereas Mick wanted that. I have to say that I consider A BIGGER BAND much more favourably than the following quote, but I do agree that the album could largely have profitted by more work in the studio.

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lem motlow

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KRiffhard
"Only Mick still thinks you have to take things into "real" recording studios to really make a real record. He got proved totally wrong on our latest - at the time of writing - album, A Bigger Bang, especially, because we did it all in his little château in France. We had got the stuff worked up, and he said, Now we'll take it into a real recording studio. And Don Was and I looked at each other, and Charlie looked at me... @#$%& this shit. We've already got it down right here. Why do you want to spring for all that bread? So you can say it was cut in so-and-so studio, the glass wall and the control room? We ain't going nowhere, pal. So finally he relented"
KR, 2010

"There's some good stuff on ABB, but I don't know... There's something about the way it holds together, for me. I don't know if we got the tracks in the right order or something like that. Sometimes, it can make the difference on a record, the way it flows. But I enjoyed making it very much"
KR, 2015

yes,i agree.thank you for those qoutes.when i read Witness's post i was thinking of that exact keith article that you have here.

this is basically keith admitting the bigger bang we got is exactly what we thought it was-a bunch of half finished,not well thought out outtakes that were never made into a proper album.
and then he goes on to admit that jagger wanted to go into an actual studio and make a record with these outtakes but keith,don was and charlie were too lazy to keep working and too cheap to pay for a studio.

this isn't keith being honest of course-he's being a wise ass,acting like he did something great by stopping work on the record.when it gets comical is the second qoute from a few years later when it's apparent the record is a piece of shit-instead of saying "yeah,mick was right we should've kept working on that until we had something worthwhile" he actually says "i don't know if we got the tracks in the right order?"

yeah,keith-you released an 18 song record with 10 songs that weren't good enough to see the light of day and the other 8 were half baked ideas that had no business being in the stones music catalogue -but it was the running order of the songs.

its been 11 years hopefully we'll at least get a finished product this time.

In my judgement, it means that Don Was had bad influence on two of their three latest studio albums.

I didn't even check out "Blue and Lonesome." I'll have to do that. I thought it was a predictable idea with a predictable song list, but it could be better or worse (at least in terms of Don Was, according to this thread).

We’ll get to Bigger Bang later-

The glaring reason Don Fagenson is the problem is that Mick and Keith had just put out two really good albums in the year or so before.
Really good Stones style riffs,great lyrics and most of all THE SOUND.

Voodoo stew disc two

Track 2 - this is YGMRs beginning,it’s just Keith alone hammering the basic riff it’s got a good swing to it and sounds like something from Talk is cheap.

Track 3- The band is on it now,Charlie is laying down a wicked beat and Ronnie is coming in with some really good slide.
No lyrics yet but it’s the Stones kicking some serious ass.

Now to Voodoo Stew disc one

Track 2 they’ve slowed it down really slow and Keith is on vocals.hes just making it up as he goes “hey baby we gotta get away”,when they hit the chorus Jagger appears and him and Keith are singing the chorus.these guys are so fckng good..
They jam for awhile longer then Mick sings a verse, they carry jamming CYHMKn style then back to Keith.
This sounds like an old Stones album,it was RIGHT THERE.

It’s such an easy call,go back to the fast version,use Mick And Keith singing the chorus together keep that guitar out front and it literally Is a classic Stones song.


And of course you follow Love is Strong and You Got Me Rockin with The Storm.

What a damn shame ..

I listened to "Blue and Lonesome," and it's okay. It was also co-produced by Jagger/Richards. It sounds like most modern albums, minus obvious use of autotune (if anything like that was used, it's subtle). It's a good performance by Mick. The rest of the band sounds like something you'd hear at any bluesfest, though competent. It doesn't have much character. That's not Don's fault.

I don't think Don is to blame for whatever VL lacks between the demos/outtakes and final mix. The band has final say. They must have hired him for a reason after producing themselves.

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marianna
I didn't even check out "Blue and Lonesome." I'll have to do that. I thought it was a predictable idea with a predictable song list, but it could be better or worse (at least in terms of Don Was, according to this thread).

Predictable song list? Really? So these are the songs you probably knew they would do. Give me a break

predictable …. Yeah like how many would
know Taylor's Ride 'Em On Down or Lighnin' Slim's Hoo Doo Blues



ROCKMAN

As much as I like Voodoo Lounge, I agree that Stew/Brew/outtakes got a little more esmówin. So let's enjoy the fact that we got them all available.

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dcba

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funkydrummer
Totally concur with the Don Was criticisms. He produced one of Dylan's worst Under the Red Sky...

Well to be fair Dylan sabotaged his own album with passion. He forced Was to record as many as 5 or 6 songs in one single day. With that frantic pace there's not much room for "producing".
And Dylan also sabotaged the trick Was used successfully on Iggy Pop's "Brick By Brick" : bringing a bunch of famous guests.
Read Slash's comments about working with Dylan on "Under the Red Sky"...

Some fair points...although all the guest stars on that album was just superfluous. Dylan's notorious for sabotaging his albums, and has always given his producers nightmares...some have managed to get results though. But yeah I guess Was can't take all the blame for Bob's shenanigans.

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keefriff99

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funkydrummer
Oh yeah - and I am not a fussy audiophile type - but Blue and Lonesome CD was unlistenable. It was so compressed it gave me a headache listening to it and I have never listened to the whole thing to this day. While mastering is not the producers job - Was has some responsibility for how brickwalled that mess is.

I was just listening to B&L tracks yesterday...the songs themselves are extremely well played, but the mix is beyond atrocious.

The drums sounds terrible...the snare is so harsh and dry. It's just a dull, unpleasant thud.

I found the thing harsh too...too harsh. They would have done well to listen back to some of the Chess stuff that influenced them. All these years later...those records more often than not still sound great.

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marianna
I didn't even check out "Blue and Lonesome." I'll have to do that. I thought it was a predictable idea with a predictable song list, but it could be better or worse (at least in terms of Don Was, according to this thread).

There is nothing predictable about the song list on BLUE AND LONESOME. In fact, it's unique.

And easily their best studio release since (for me, anyway), UNDERCOVER, and critically, TATTOO YOU.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-25 04:25 by GasLightStreet.

It's predictable in the sense it's blues. It's a cover version album that lacks strong Stones instumental style (compared to their early-days blues covers), though it's one of Mick's better recent singing performances. I will probably get the CD. It might be something that needs to be heard more than once to enjoy it. It also might be better listened to over speakers instead of headphones.

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marianna
It's predictable in the sense it's blues.

What if they'd taken any other form of music and made it a blues album?

This is obviously the week for ridiculous posts.

It's predictable because it's blues... from a band that are perhaps the biggest fans of blues on the planet in the history of music.

Wow. What an incredible assessment of The Rolling Stones, regardless of why, how or when BLUE AND LONESOME was released.

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marianna
It's a cover version album that lacks strong Stones instumental style (compared to their early-days blues covers), though it's one of Mick's better recent singing performances.

How odd. A lot of what they did in back then was a bit... agitated. No nuance. And quite dorky. BLUE AND LONESOME has all the makings of a band playing the songs appropriately. Cue up Cook Cook Blues, Fancy Man Blues, So Young and The Storm amongst the B&L tracks and, mastering aside, you'd most likely never know they're not from the B&L sessions.

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marianna
I will probably get the CD. It might be something that needs to be heard more than once to enjoy it. It also might be better listened to over speakers instead of headphones.

By all means, get the album and listen to it, loud, soft, however, but don't access the Stones' latest release in the regard as to how people strictly get their news by reading headlines and knowing absolutely nothing about what they opioninate on. It's not like you're buying a new car, it's just music.

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funkydrummer

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keefriff99

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funkydrummer
Oh yeah - and I am not a fussy audiophile type - but Blue and Lonesome CD was unlistenable. It was so compressed it gave me a headache listening to it and I have never listened to the whole thing to this day. While mastering is not the producers job - Was has some responsibility for how brickwalled that mess is.

I was just listening to B&L tracks yesterday...the songs themselves are extremely well played, but the mix is beyond atrocious.

The drums sounds terrible...the snare is so harsh and dry. It's just a dull, unpleasant thud.

I found the thing harsh too...too harsh. They would have done well to listen back to some of the Chess stuff that influenced them. All these years later...those records more often than not still sound great.

The problem with B&L is that ,like most modern releases, it's too loud & too compressed ... "Brick walled" .

I was disappointed that it wasn't re-mastered along with all the other 71-2016 albums in the recent box set . They just used the original metalwork.
I'd really like to know why it wasn't done..

Did they think it was OK as it is ? or did they not want to tread on still warm toes ?

[the sound of ABB has benefitted greatly from a more skilled and sympathetic mastering .the Abbey Road remaster has much more natural dynamics and vocal/instrumental timbre.
B2B & VL are also better for it...but to my ears, and via my system, ABB is the most improved. Maybe because it was the most compressed ? ]

[Edited... [again !... for dyslexic fingers ]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-25 12:22 by Spud.

Is there a best-of the VL Outtakes CD anyone can recommend please?

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retired_dog

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24FPS
Bill was right. He was interviewed just a short few years after he left. He said they'd achieved everything there was to achieve. (He was right). He said they were just repeating themselves now. (They have).

I've said it before and I say it again: Bill was right. Almost nothing released after Bill's departure convinces me otherwise than that the creative well went dry. No producer can hide that simple fact.

Bill was right. On the other hand, he never proved to be much of a creative well on his own either (although he was perfect with the Stones).

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marianna
I didn't even check out "Blue and Lonesome." I'll have to do that. I thought it was a predictable idea with a predictable song list, but it could be better or worse (at least in terms of Don Was, according to this thread).

It's alright, but don't expect magic. Their first album is much more interesting: playing the blues and taking it somewhere else. B&L is just profesionally copying music that doesn't need no copying. The best thing to be said about it is that reminds one again of the existence of Little Walter (and hence, I bought a double album of all his songs, absolutely perfect). Mick Jagger is great on the harmonica, that's true.

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GasLightStreet

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marianna
It's predictable in the sense it's blues.

What if they'd taken any other form of music and made it a blues album?

This is obviously the week for ridiculous posts.

It's predictable because it's blues... from a band that are perhaps the biggest fans of blues on the planet in the history of music.

True, but they used to do *something* with the blues. Their first album wasn't just profesionally copying the originals. Neither was Stop Breaking Down or Love In Vain. You Gotta Move and Prodigal Son are closer to the originals, but they don't fill an entire album and are odd enough to make them special. But what's the point of all those 12 bar blues songs like Ride Em On Down on B&L? I agree with marianna: predicable, and pretty much the stuff you can hear live in any blues bar on a Friday night anywhere in the world. It's like listening to Eric Clapton, something which I avoid as much as I can. It's killing the blues.

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GasLightStreet

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marianna
It's a cover version album that lacks strong Stones instumental style (compared to their early-days blues covers), though it's one of Mick's better recent singing performances.

How odd. A lot of what they did in back then was a bit... agitated. No nuance. And quite dorky. BLUE AND LONESOME has all the makings of a band playing the songs appropriately.

Which is exactly the problem. If I want to hear Little Walter the way he should sound, I listen to Little Walter. Give me agitated, dorky, anything apart from just a copy of the original.

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GasLightStreet

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marianna
I will probably get the CD. It might be something that needs to be heard more than once to enjoy it. It also might be better listened to over speakers instead of headphones.

By all means, get the album and listen to it, loud, soft, however, but don't access the Stones' latest release in the regard as to how people strictly get their news by reading headlines and knowing absolutely nothing about what they opioninate on. It's not like you're buying a new car, it's just music.

I have listened to the album 5 or 6 times since it came out. It's fine. There are 2 original songs on it, and 2 other ones which are fun. The rest is just a Friday night in Maloe Melo or Bourbon Street in Amsterdam, and to be honest I prefer those when Terry Mann is on stage with his odd sense of humour.

If a lot of thought & planning had gone into B&L...it might have been a bit different .

But it was genuinely something of a chance decision to make it, which came out of the circumstances at the time .

Not everybody thinks it's great ...but I'm sure the vast majority of us would rather have it than not.

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Spud
If a lot of thought & planning had gone into B&L...it might have been a bit different .

But it was genuinely something of a chance decision to make it, which came out of the circumstances at the time .

Not everybody thinks it's great ...but I'm sure the vast majority of us would rather have it than not.

It's fun, but inconsequential. Mick is the only one who really shines...his harp playing is remarkable, and his voice is incredibly well-preserved. He hasn't lost a damn bit of range or power in the last 30 years at least.

The rest of the band plays well, but as someone else said...they sound like any competent bar band playing the blues. It's REALLY hard for me to get past the atrocious mastering...I'm not an audiophile by any stretch, but good god is it BRUTAL.

As far as those Abbey Road B2B and ABB remasters...are they only available on vinyl? I'd love to hear them.