For information about how to use this forum please check out forum help and policies.
Quote
Mathijs
I love Sweet Sounds of Heaven, I like the track with Bill and Charlie, but for now really underwhelmed with all the other tracks. I know it always takes a while before I like new Stones material, but for now I just can't get over Jagger's nasal and gnarly voice, and I can't get through his mannerisms and over-pronunciation.
Let's hope it grows on me.
Mathijs
Quote
Mathijs
I love Sweet Sounds of Heaven, I like the track with Bill and Charlie, but for now really underwhelmed with all the other tracks. I know it always takes a while before I like new Stones material, but for now I just can't get over Jagger's nasal and gnarly voice, and I can't get through his mannerisms and over-pronunciation.
Let's hope it grows on me.
Mathijs
Quote
Barkerboy2
Page 131 and people are starting to turn on the album lol - 3 days before the release date!
Quote
jackflash27Quote
HardRiffinQuote
yeababyyea
Dagens Nyheter (Swedish newspaper) :
2/5
No rock'n'rollator in the world can help the Rolling Stones groove forward
"Hackney diamonds" could have been a last reminder of what once made The Rolling Stones the world's best band. Instead, producer Andrew Watt has gotten away with the cleaning agent and sterilized the entire soundscape, writes Mattias Dahlström.
"Hackney diamonds" is London slang for the pieces of glass you find on the ground after you have had your windscreen smashed in the London borough of Hackney. It's an album title that should signal a return - from being an arena rock band with real gems to trying to recreate the simple life, when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were just young British lads head over heels in love with American blues, soul, r 'n'b and country.
"Hackney diamonds" could also have been a final reminder of what is deep inside Jagger, Richards and Ron Wood, far beyond all the stadium fluff. A final discharge of the band that was the best in the world for fifteen years, from the mid-60s to the early 80s (and then lived on that reputation for another 40).
From a craft perspective, it's also the Rolling Stones' most focused collection of songs in a long time. With Charlie Watts - whose jazzy smooth drumming has been a central part of the band - death in 2021 hanging over the recordings, lyrics like "too young for dying/too old to lose" in "Depending on you" or the powerful single ballad with the telling title "Sweet sound of heaven” feel more meaningful. The guest artists are also true rock royalty – Paul McCartney, Stvie Wonder, Elton John and Lady Gaga – although it's really only the latter, whose soulful vocals lift the mentioned single, that really leaves any mark on the result.
Had someone in the Stones circle only called in, say, Rick Rubin as producer, the group's first self-titled album in eighteen years could have been a grandiose, if predictable, potential finale.
Now they chose the wooden goat Andrew Watt instead, the music industry's cherished answer to Killinggängets sound-fetishist therapist Uncle Barbro. And that is the main reason why the music on "Hackney diamonds" never lives up to the story of the album after all.
Watt is a perennial Grammy-winning producer who, whether he's producing Justin Bieber, Ozzy Osbourne, Camilla Cabello, Iggy Pop or the Stones, applies the same scrubbed filter to everything, with the sole aim of impressing the guys at the hi-fi store. Or possibly Patrick Bateman.
Stone's groove has always arisen because there is dirt and oil in the nooks and crannies, but Watt has dipped a tip in disinfectant and meticulously cleaned every single note. Large parts of the soundscape on "Hackney diamonds" are thus so clinically sterile, rigid and unimaginably unswinging that no rock'n'rollator in the world can help it move forward.
Best track: "Sweet sound of heaven"
Mattias Dahlström
I think you have serious hearing problems!!
Why? Because he does not agree with all mostly extreme positive reviews? Nothing wrong with having a different opinion I think. I was getting a little suspicious after all those flattering reports.
Quote
JumpingKentFlash
Give it time lads.
There was always going to be high praise from the beginning. I reckon they bought some reviewers out. The album is what it is, and from what I’ve heard, it’s the best album we could expect this late in the game.
You need to give it time. Lots of time…
Quote
MadMetaphoricalMaxQuote
JumpingKentFlash
Give it time lads.
There was always going to be high praise from the beginning. I reckon they bought some reviewers out. The album is what it is, and from what I’ve heard, it’s the best album we could expect this late in the game.
You need to give it time. Lots of time…
No one would ever bother to 'buy out' a reviewer! If they put money anywhere, it should be across the radio stations.
Reviewing may score higher because A: they got the album really early and before everyone else so they are in an exclusive club, and are appropriately thankful for it and have their rose-tinteds on; B: the magazine or paper really really wants the interview or whatever, so a good review serves that purpose as bait.
I have given this album a five star rating on The Arts Desk review, but that's because it's a great sounding record - what I say in that review is what I think and feel (though Mess It Up is getting better IMHO) - and it's really exciting to hear these new cuts after 18 years, and I've listened to it loads now, digging in to all the detail. There is a lot of detail, they have really paid attention to the job on this album. It's special, and not like any other album either. Which makes it double-plus special.
But the production is v 21st c, there are touches of autotune on the vocals here n there (ok for me, it's the digital version of shouting into a mic in a cupboard at PAthe Marconi...), and if those are issues, I can understand other fans saying 'naaah', I guess! But I am fairly sure most Stones fans will be in a state of joy.
Quote
bitusa2012
Hey, what about the dreaded “compression”, the loudness wars aspect?
Quote
IrixQuote
bitusa2012
Hey, what about the dreaded “compression”, the loudness wars aspect?
'Angry' has a Dynamic Range of DR6 and 'SSOH' has DR5. If the album was mastered by the same engineer (Matt Colton), the results for the other tracks could be similar.
Quote
bitusa2012
What was the Blue & Lonesome DR?
Quote
Koen
Everyone is talking about all the songs here, I thought the release date is the 20th?
Quote
glimmer0
Wasn't the Mess It Up single supposed to be released today?
Quote
CJFP
Why do people think Mess It Up would be released today?
Quote
MadMetaphoricalMax
I've had the stream, no physical copy, but it is pretty LOUD across the spectrum, but I don't know enough about all that to give a steer ....
Quote
PaintMonkeyManBlack
Another listen. More impressed. The keith song is gold. That man has soul.
Love this album. Time will tell how it ages for me. But very hyped