This might be politically incorrect on a fan site and I do admit I'm probably bonkers even having a wild idea like this one. But why haven't the Stones been able to crank out a single
in the vicinity of Start Me Up for four decades? Don't mind the album - just a single with real hit potentiality. AC/DC and Springsteen recently put out singles with hit potentiality
(at least you hear them often on the radio). I'm talking about "Shot in The Dark" and "Ghosts". Maybe not their best songs ever but in the vicinity of it.
Why aren't the Stones able to do anything like that? Just one song. I'm not just talking about now (I realize the difficult situation right now) but the latest decades or so.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 01:21 by Stoneage.

Isn't Living in a Ghost Town a bigger hit than Bruce Springsteen has had in the last 20 years or so?

I don't know? Is it? It's been a while since I heard it on the radio though. But maybe you're right?

As great as some of us fans think Living in a Ghost Town is, only time will tell if it ever ranks among the Stones classic hits such as Start Me Up, etc.
It's a different music world today, and what makes a "hit" isn't the same as it used to be, but something tells me Living in a Ghost Town won't have the same lasting stamina
as all the other Stones' big hits from back in their glory days. It's more like a novelty tune that will be relegated to a certain time period which is the pandemic of 2020/2021.
There's even fans right now on this board who have written it off as inferior, just as there are fans who think the Grohl Jagger tune is inferior - both will eventually be forgotten.
And the fact that Ghost Town will probably never be played live doesn't help it's cause which is a shame as it could have been a doozy in a live setting.

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 02:20 by Hairball.

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bleedingman

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Swayed1967

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schwonek

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Hairball

Old man Jagger dragging the much younger Grohl along to hopefully give it some credibility for much younger rock fans...hmmm...it's terrible...

Dude. We have enough negative energy on this planet. We all know about your opinions. Just take it down a notch on - at least on this forum. Thanks.

Like many, I agree. But you're wasting your time appealing to him. There’s nothing as self-satisfied as a Hairball post which means he's not about to change. Other people mean nothing to him. He’s truly a cancer on this forum.

The "cancer on this forum" is the escalating personal attacks and insults against members whose opinions don't align lock step with the mob here. Hairball can fight his own battles but he shouldn't have to. He doesn't agree with you and states his opinion, so that makes him a "cancer". No surprise as I've been told to kill myself by another know-it-all who disagreed with me in another thread. This forum pretty much reeks now. And I agree with Hairball. I don't care for this song or the video. Deal with it.

Just my opinion you understand but I’m afraid you’re a fool…Please don’t dumb it down to the point where well-intentioned but misguided people start to excuse his behavior with the old ‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinion’ fallacy. But just for the record I love all kinds of opinions - I even sprinkle them on my hamburgers. And I certainly don’t have to ‘deal’ with yours because I share it. I hate this song as I stated rather unequivocally on the preceding page. I guess you missed it but that’s perfectly understandable since I didn’t repost it 30 times like your pal Hairball. Do you see what I’m saying? Nobody denies his right to state his opinions (even though it’s obvious that he’s trolling half the time) - it’s that he floods threads with them. And sometimes (like now) I give in to my less noble instincts and react to the flood instead of the topic at hand. Call it human nature. I know I should ignore him – I usually do since the troll wins if I don’t - but sometimes I really want him to STFU…but after thousands and thousands of posts I know he won’t and it pisses me off. So from time to time it makes me feel better to let him know what a POS I think he is. Alright then, carry on.

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Swayed1967

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bleedingman

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Swayed1967

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schwonek

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Hairball

Old man Jagger dragging the much younger Grohl along to hopefully give it some credibility for much younger rock fans...hmmm...it's terrible...

Dude. We have enough negative energy on this planet. We all know about your opinions. Just take it down a notch on - at least on this forum. Thanks.

Like many, I agree. But you're wasting your time appealing to him. There’s nothing as self-satisfied as a Hairball post which means he's not about to change. Other people mean nothing to him. He’s truly a cancer on this forum.

The "cancer on this forum" is the escalating personal attacks and insults against members whose opinions don't align lock step with the mob here. Hairball can fight his own battles but he shouldn't have to. He doesn't agree with you and states his opinion, so that makes him a "cancer". No surprise as I've been told to kill myself by another know-it-all who disagreed with me in another thread. This forum pretty much reeks now. And I agree with Hairball. I don't care for this song or the video. Deal with it.

Just my opinion you understand but I’m afraid you’re a fool…Please don’t dumb it down to the point where well-intentioned but misguided people start to excuse his behavior with the old ‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinion’ fallacy. But just for the record I love all kinds of opinions - I even sprinkle them on my hamburgers. And I certainly don’t have to ‘deal’ with yours because I share it. I hate this song as I stated rather unequivocally on the preceding page. I guess you missed it but that’s perfectly understandable since I didn’t repost it 30 times like your pal Hairball. Do you see what I’m saying? Nobody denies his right to state his opinions (even though it’s obvious that he’s trolling half the time) - it’s that he floods threads with them. And sometimes (like now) I give in to my less noble instincts and react to the flood instead of the topic at hand. Call it human nature. I know I should ignore him – I usually do since the troll wins if I don’t - but sometimes I really want him to STFU…but after thousands and thousands of posts I know he won’t and it pisses me off. So from time to time it makes me feel better to let him know what a POS I think he is. Alright then, carry on.

Just for the record, I love this tune, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest that you guys don't. Who cares? But I also agree with the notion that you don't need to jump up and down and tell me you don't like it at every opportunity.

Got it the first 10 times.

Yeah I love it too .... its got energy ...



ROCKMAN

I promise you guys, this harmless little tune is definitely not worth all this.

.... Well its a million times better than Lavatory Lil .. HHHaaaa



ROCKMAN

....and its freeeeeeeeeee



ROCKMAN

So it's not worth anything!

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NilsHolgersson
Isn't Living in a Ghost Town a bigger hit than Bruce Springsteen has had in the last 20 years or so?

Yes, if memory serves it also charted #1 in a country (Germany?). You couldn't miss it on the radio last year, something Stoneage also pointed out back then?

FWIW, just heard Eazy Sleazy on Radio Helsinki again. So at least that radio station is playing it.

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Stoneage
This might be politically incorrect on a fan site and I do admit I'm probably bonkers even having a wild idea like this one. But why haven't the Stones been able to crank out a single
in the vicinity of Start Me Up for four decades? Don't mind the album - just a single with real hit potentiality. AC/DC and Springsteen recently put out singles with hit potentiality
(at least you hear them often on the radio). I'm talking about "Shot in The Dark" and "Ghosts". Maybe not their best songs ever but in the vicinity of it.
Why aren't the Stones able to do anything like that? Just one song. I'm not just talking about now (I realize the difficult situation right now) but the latest decades or so.

I don't see anything politically incorrect in this question.

A term' hit' is a relative notion. How do you count that? Back in the day we would have just looked at the charts and point out, say, top ten, and say 'those are hits'. You would have heard them on the radio too. Now to hear that correlation one needs to find a right radio channel or some other playlist based media to listen them. The songs making the charts are based on online services - what people listen at home by themselves. If I look at the top 40 in BIllboard now I have no idea how any of those songs sound like. Never heard them (and probably ever will).

Here are Spotify stats for the songs you mentioned:

"Shot In The Dark" ": 35 million streams
"Ghosts": 7 million streams
"Living In A Ghost Town": 35 million streams

Looking at those numbers all one can say is that (a) none of them are any real hits by the criterion of topping any major charts (except some special/artificial 'rock chart', like the one Dylan topped last year with "Murder Most Foul", etc.); their chart history tells that too; (b) AC/DC and Stones tunes are clearly more popular than Bruce's song.

The idea that a constant radio play is a criterion to recognize a 'hit' could be one criterion. But the problem is that there are so many radio channels out there aimed for different audiences that it starts to be pretty contingent which playlist one will end up listening. If one looks at the songs topping Billboard single charts most likely you will not hear those in the channels playing AC/DC or Bruce Springsteen (aimed to different age group and taste). It is pretty contingent - and says not much about 'objective' popularity - if your favourite radio channel ends up playing "Ghosts" instead of "Living In A Ghost Town", probably you might just contact them and ask them to play Stones as well. You are one of their few listeners, they will listen you...

However, just watching the charts can be tricky too. In Germany they don't count streams but just sold copies. And look what happened last year: The Stones made their first number one hit in Germany since "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with "Living In A Ghost Town"!

This could be pretty regional as well. If you were in Spain back in 2006 one might not have avoided hearing "Streets of Love" on the radio. There the charts at the time were based strongly on radio plays (the song lists set by record companies), so no wonder "Streets of Love" topped the charts there, no matter how much the people actually liked the song.

My opinion is that - as far as these catalogue artists that made rock history ages ago go - 'hit' nowadays is something you decide on your own mind whether you like it or not... The idea is to attract their own potential audience, the people attending to their concerts, etc. They - you and I, us - decide. I think all those artists you mentioned, AC/DC, The Stones and Bruce did nicely with their latest singles in that sense. Will people listen in 50 years still "Shot In The Dark", "Living In A Ghost Town" or "Ghosts" when all these artists - and us - are dead and gone, well... what does it really matter? We don't know if they listen "Highway To Hell", "Brown Sugar" or "Born To Run" either. Let us just enjoy while they (these artists) and we are here, while it still lasts.

- Doxa



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 12:01 by Doxa.

Well put, Doxa.

And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

I used to watch MTV a lot, and the Sympathy for the Devil remix by The Neptunes was played a lot in 2003.. I consider it a hit

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DandelionPowderman


And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

Oh yes! Still warm recollections of the girls at my school who couldn't care less about the Stones were dancing to it on a dance floor, and saying it was a cool song.

It was a classical hit song: a flavor of the month kind of thing - made just for the people back at then to enjoy and with no intention to write rock history or figure out how it will stand the test of time. Most of the songs on charts are like that - and of course, we serious rock fans would despise that - we think every new record should be an artistic statement to be judged among Platonic ideas... It is a part of our sub culture in popular music to be that artistically-oriented and serious...

I guess for a 'serious' rock journalism "Harlem Shuffle" was a good choice as well - I mean, we are here talking about not a Michael Jackson or Grandmaster Flash cover but a bit forgotten gem from from the supposed golden age of black music (you know, before they started discoing and rapping too much), a kind of move the Stones have history with. Wasn't it even Keith's idea (an ultimate authority in credibility)? Surely, some of them were quick to point out that are the Stones washed up that they cannot even write A-sides of their singles any longer...

But to me "Harlem Shuffle" basically still means looking at the girls moving their sweet asses to it... (not the politically most correct expression, but pardon me here).

- Doxa



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 12:53 by Doxa.

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DandelionPowderman
Well put, Doxa.

And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

Well, Start Me Up was their last global hit, surely? They've had numerous top-ten placing's in select nations, including the U.S., where I suspect their last 'hit' was Mixed Emotions.

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Big Al

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DandelionPowderman
Well put, Doxa.

And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

Well, Start Me Up was their last global hit, surely? They've had numerous top-ten placing's in select nations, including the U.S., where I suspect their last 'hit' was Mixed Emotions.

I don't think Mixed Emotions made it to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the charts in New Zealand and got several second, third and fourth positions (Finland, Euopean single charts, Belgium) + several other top 10 positions (Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Spain, Ireland).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 13:08 by DandelionPowderman.

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Big Al

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DandelionPowderman
Well put, Doxa.

And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

Well, Start Me Up was their last global hit, surely? They've had numerous top-ten placing's in select nations, including the U.S., where I suspect their last 'hit' was Mixed Emotions.

I think "Start Me Up" is exceptional in many ways. I mean, nowadays it is even a bigger 'hit' than it was at the time - no other Stones song has probably aged so well; it was a hit song back then for sure (although not making number one either in UK or US charts, unlike many of their other big singles), but now it really is one of their signature songs, next to "Satisfaction". "Miss You", by contrast, was much bigger hit at the time, topping Billboard for four weeks (but which is not any longer even the most popular song from the album it is from - if we are to believe Spotify).

"Start Me Up" was an instant classic then for sure, but c'mon, could we - even those hooked by it to the band like me - have imagined that some day it will surpass in popularity songs like "Brown Sugar", "Honky Tonk Women", and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" - classical songs it was almost caricature- or pastishe-like based on? That's what the cruel facts of Spotify say: it belongs clearly to their top five songs of all-time, winning big time the above mentioned songs.

-----

Now, let's have some some fun. And what's more funnier than making categories. I do that in order to judge or make sense of their single hits after their gloriest days as a 60's singles band (when almost any single of theirs was topping the charts by nature). I discuss here only the leading singles of the albums here (not that there would be much any other candidates making top ten that I tentatively here use as a criterion of a 'hit'). One would also call this 'the leading singles from an albums era: hit comparison' or something.

1. Big Hits then and classics now

The first category contains "Brown Sugar", "Angie", "Miss You" and "Start Me Up" - huge chart toppers (I pardon "Start Me Up" there) at the time and eternal classics ever since. People (of certain age) immedeatily recognize them. Winners in concert (pl. some hardcore set list whiners).

2. 'Flavor of the month' hits

"Harlem Shuffle" belongs to the category of "Emotional Rescue" and "Fool To Cry": making easily top ten anywhere, but not probably leaving that much trace after their heyday. Probably we should add "Undercover Of The Night" and "Mixed Emotions" to the mix as well, both still somehow making top ten worldwide - something out of their scope since the 80's. Playing these songs live nowadays would be like playing an obscure rarity: makes hardcore fans satisfied, the rest looking for toilets (okay, not quite, but you get the idea).

3. Winners in the long run

Songs like "Tumbling Dice" and "It's Only Rock'n'Roll" didn't do that better in charts (well, in the case of the latter, worse) than the last category, but they achieved a classic status (like "Start Me Up"). They turned out to be winners in the long run. Their war horses status is a testimony of that.

Well, we could theoretically put "Miss You" into second category and "Start Me Up" to the third, since they seem to indicate that kind of tendency in changes of popularity. But I think that's not right, because "Miss You" still is very popular song, and "Start Me Up" was a huge hit initially.

-----

What all this has to do with Mick's new song? - nothing, but who cares....

- Doxa



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 15:11 by Doxa.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman


And by the old "hit-criteria", Harlem Shuffle was their last big hit, not Start Me Up

Oh yes! Still warm recollections of the girls at my school who couldn't care less about the Stones were dancing to it on a dance floor, and saying it was a cool song.

It was a classical hit song: a flavor of the month kind of thing - made just for the people back at then to enjoy and with no intention to write rock history or figure out how it will stand the test of time. Most of the songs on charts are like that - and of course, we serious rock fans would despise that - we think every new record should be an artistic statement to be judged among Platonic ideas... It is a part of our sub culture in popular music to be that artistically-oriented and serious...

I guess for a 'serious' rock journalism "Harlem Shuffle" was a good choice as well - I mean, we are here talking about not a Michael Jackson or Grandmaster Flash cover but a bit forgotten gem from from the supposed golden age of black music (you know, before they started discoing and rapping too much), a kind of move the Stones have history with. Wasn't it even Keith's idea (an ultimate authority in credibility)? Surely, some of them were quick to point out that are the Stones washed up that they cannot even write A-sides of their singles any longer...

But to me "Harlem Shuffle" basically still means looking at the girls moving their sweet asses to it... (not the politically most correct expression, but pardon me here).

- Doxa

If Mick and Keith (instead of Womack) had been able to agree to share the vocals on "Strictly Memphis" instead of bickering like 5 year olds it would have been a similarly styled Stones written single and who knows...

--------------
IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

My point about Start Me Up is that it was the last single that was a hit everywhere. That is still not reason alone for it's current status, however. It's become as 'big' as the likes of Brown Sugar and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. I suspect it's partly due to the song's exposure in commercials, film and television. That and it's near-permanent placing in their set-lists. It's become a - well-deserved - classic.

Thinking of SMU and 1981, it seems The Stones themselves consider this to be the end of their history. I'm thinking about the movie Crossfire Hurricane and some books that seem to end in 1981. Personally I like a lot of the stuff since then.

It is basically the end of them as a relevant band, after that they became a nostalgia act

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NilsHolgersson
It is basically the end of them as a relevant band, after that they became a nostalgia act

I'd say that occurred with the Steel Wheels and Urban Jungle Tours.

Heard it on the radio last night. A new Stones or Jagger single is always a novelty these days. Radio stations would be stupid not to play it. Sounded good. Which is a good sign.

The other debate about hit songs: I think SMU is genre Stones music. Instantly recognizable. In the same way as "Shot In The Dark" and "Ghosts" are genre AC/DC and Springsteen.
AC/DC and Bruce have never bothered with trends. They have stayed with the same recipe. It may seem cynical but that what most fans expect from them.
To me it's a bit strange that the Stones have never been able to, sort of, clone SMU into another hit or semi-hit. Although one may argue that "Don't Stop" is close to that.
It (Don't Stop) never really took off though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-04-28 19:04 by Stoneage.

There is a difference between Streets Of Philadelphia and Adam Raised A Cain... The former is ultra 1980s-sounding.

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Stoneage
Heard it on the radio last night. A new Stones or Jagger single is always a novelty these days. Radio stations would be stupid not to play it. Sounded good. Which is a good sign.

The other debate about hit songs: I think SMU is genre Stones music. Instantly recognizable. In the same way as "Shot In The Dark" and "Ghosts" are genre AC/DC and Springsteen.
AC/DC and Bruce have never bothered with trends. They have stayed with the same recipe. It may seem cynical but that what most fans expect from them.
To me it's a bit strange that the Stones have never been able to, sort of, clone SMU into another hit or semi-hit. Although one may argue that "Don't Stop" is close to that.
It (Don't Stop) never really took off though.

Don't Stop is an amazing example of trying to use the formula when creating. Generic, boring, formulaic (by design), completely uninspiring and uninteresting. Glad they generally haven't used this approach, though I agree would love to see an archetypal SMU-type song again, but only if it comes organically.

Well there's One More Shot