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wesley
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This album compares to Bob Dylan's two modern classics from the 2000s; Modern Times and Time out of Mind, at least I still play them continuously.
hahaha – joke of the year.
The biggest difference between Hackney Diamonds and Time Out Of Mind as well as Love & Theft is that Hackney Diamonds in in the vein with a lot of things the Stones done before while Time Out Of Mind as well as Love & Theft break away from almost everything Dylan has done before. Those two Dylan albums offer a complete new sound and feeling while Hackney Diamonds is a rather typical Stones/Jagger album. That doesn't mean it's bad, of course.
Why a joke? Those two Dylan albums are modern classics - well, at least TIME OUT OF MIND non-disputed is, released 26 years ago - but not because Dylan, once again, re-invented himself, but because those are great albums. Like HACKNEY DIAMONDS is.
Re-inventing oneself is not a guarantee of greatness in itself or even a value of its own. It is the quality of the results that matter.
- Doxa
you're surely right – re-invention oneself and/or taking new directions is no guarantee for anything.
But I still think it's a joke to compare Hackney Diamonds to TOOM.
1. As I said before TOOM added something fresh to Dylan's works. I don't think that can be said of Hackney Diamonds.
2. it is way too early to tell if Hackney Diamonds will stand the test of time. I completely understand that anyone (including me) tends to overrate new albums by their favorite artists when they are first released. As far as I remember quite a few Stones albums were hailed as the best since Some Girls (just as new Dylan albums tend to be hailed as the best since Blood On The Tracks (or – nowadays – the best since TOOM). So it's a kind of joke to me compare a new album on it's release day with stuff that has surely stood the test of time.
So is the point that if one has something negative to say in its release day it is more valid than saying something positive about it? So one can be more objective about seeing the crap than the gold there? The former observation will stand the test of time better?
In my book, feeling at the moment like HACKNEY DIAMONDS is OUT OF MY MIND caliber masterpiece is as valid as feeling it is not. My stance is Carpe Diem: who cares about what one feels like about the album some day in future, if it feels wonderful now. We might not live then. Be wesley's instinct impression whatever, I don't find much point in trying 'objectively' to prove why a 1997 Dylan album must be superior in the very release day of a new Stones album. What's the point really? Personally, I don't give a flying fvck about how TODAY RELEASED new Stones album compares to an old Dylan album (that, by the way, happens to be one of my personal all-time favourites).
- Doxa
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LondonLee
Not a great album, in fact far from it, and feels very much like a mixture of a Mick solo album with a mixture of Stones tracks that weren't released because they weren't deemed decent enough to be put on a B side.
4 excellent tracks - Angry, Sweet sounds... , Tell me Straight and Rolling Stones Blues but for me the rest I'm happy to have listened to and will do so every now and again but seldomly.
I know we couldn't expect something akin to them at their best and should be amazed that men in or near their 80s can still make an album like that but it's not even as good as being a 'Stones by Numbers album'.
Far from being the best output since Some Girls, for me this is the worst record since Dirty Work and, whisper it quietly, I probably prefer that to be honest.
So you listen to Whole Wide World and you think 'mmmm, that's mediocre'?
Mathijs
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
Genuine and unloaded question: Does that also apply to those who are praising the album?
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
Genuine and unloaded question: Does that also apply to those who are praising the album?
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
Genuine and unloaded question: Does that also apply to those who are praising the album?
Yes it does ...though I always feel that any cerebral analysis of music is pointless .
Music is something that you feel the quality of when you listen.
For each of us the true arbiter of quality can only be how much we enjoy it .
None of us can speak for others and our views are all true for ourselves.
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
Genuine and unloaded question: Does that also apply to those who are praising the album?
That's a fair point, Lee. I've yet to only skim through the Hackney Diamond tracks, so cannot say much. However, thinking back to Blue & Lonesome: I loved it very much upon the first few listens; I was genuinely impressed. I haven't listened to said album since the month of it's release. What I'm getting at, is that it should take a while to really form an opinion. Some are already hailing Hackney Diamonds, whilst some, such as you, are more dismissive. Either way, it'll take time. My initial enthusiasm for Blue & Lonesome didn't evolve into an enduring appreciation; you're reservations over Hackney Diamonds may turn into an enduring love for itLet's all give it a little longer... from both sides of the fence!
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
Genuine and unloaded question: Does that also apply to those who are praising the album?
That's a fair point, Lee. I've yet to only skim through the Hackney Diamond tracks, so cannot say much. However, thinking back to Blue & Lonesome: I loved it very much upon the first few listens; I was genuinely impressed. I haven't listened to said album since the month of it's release. What I'm getting at, is that it should take a while to really form an opinion. Some are already hailing Hackney Diamonds, whilst some, such as you, are more dismissive. Either way, it'll take time. My initial enthusiasm for Blue & Lonesome didn't evolve into an enduring appreciation; you're reservations over Hackney Diamonds may turn into an enduring love for itLet's all give it a little longer... from both sides of the fence!
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Doxa
I guess there is not much better things in the world to do than listening to a new Rolling Stones album. No hurry to judge or evaluate anything, just let the music flow and do its magic. No reason to compare, no reason to analyse, no reason show its place in the history of the Stones or pop music in general. No, just to take it as an art piece of its own, The Rolling Stones presented here and now. Just keep one's ears and mind open. Let it grow on you, let its nuances and patterns, all those choices and ideas, little by little, after more and more listening, come to more and more familiar, to be grasped in their full glory.
So I don't feel like reviewing anything yet, nor sharing any of occasional impressions of its highs or lows here. Those days will come, but no hurry - I just enjoy the very process of where I am now. Feel privileged. And happy.
But while doing that, it is funny to reflect the impressions and feelings one goes through. I find myself in a dilemma that is based on following this band over forty years and knowing their music, legacy and everything thru and thru, way better than probably is reasonable for a sane person. The mountain of references from the past is out of this world and it affects on every observation. There is no way to avoid conservatism here. The conceptual scheme to interpret any new content shared by this band is heavy like hell, and there is no way of avoiding bias. One immediately recognizes the familiar elements (good or bad) and mind goes hastily making cozy but probably unfair comparisons. That is safe game, easy to do, happens by instinct. Pure conservatism. But at the same time are traits that are novel and odd - how to come in terms of them? How to interpret them? Mind is not ready for them. They might sound odd, since they conflict with the expectations (prejudices actually). And in each tune both of those two elements are present. Of course, in some tunes the other has a bigger role than the other.
So listening a new Stones song - any of them - is like trying to make sense of the confusion made by there the two elements - the mix of familiar and cozy content with something novel. It takes time to get grasp it, you know, how is the song like in its own terms. But it is, let me repeat, a lovely process, and I enjoy every sec of it.
- Doxa
You're right. I'm enjoying this album, but it's true, there are old references of “what a Stones album should sound like” and at the same time they have added some new ingredients, new melodies, etc.
My Rolling Stones fan mentality needs to adapt to these developments, but I appreciate the changes and the effort they have made.
Yeah, you put that better - lesser words, that is - than I did. I sometimes feel like if the fanbase - including myself - of the last decades, and each one having sort of an own idea 'how the ideal Stones should sound like' (a kind of conservative idea based on their past achievements), would never manage go through the 60's or the 70's now, since the band kept on evolving and changing all the time. People would be horrified. But that was their second nature at the time (and the fans, like the whole culture, were similar - but not all of them: ROLLING STONE review of STICKY FINGERS complained that they did not sound as 'real' as they did in, say, ROLLING STONES NOW!
). They still have something of it in themselves. Not much, but still a bit - and probably enough to make fans confused.
But that sort of conservatism of a fanbase is a result of all that history, and it is not a bad thing by any means; 60 years is a helluva long period and it amounts to something.
- Doxa
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Spud
Puzzles me how folks can listen to a new album a couple of times and feel able to fully assess it in the context of other albums they've been listening to for years.
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bitusa2012
I’m still very interested to know where on the album Keith plays the piano he’s credited with. Anyone have a clue/idea? Or better yet, KNOW?
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bitusa2012
I’m still very interested to know where on the album Keith plays the piano he’s credited with. Anyone have a clue/idea? Or better yet, KNOW?
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bitusa2012
I’m still very interested to know where on the album Keith plays the piano he’s credited with. Anyone have a clue/idea? Or better yet, KNOW?
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slewan
my point is not about saying anything postive or negative about new album. But I'd carefully to rate a new album shortly after it's release. It takes time to judge. Rating on the first day(s) is like judging things while (still) being drunk.
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bitusa2012
I’m still very interested to know where on the album Keith plays the piano he’s credited with. Anyone have a clue/idea? Or better yet, KNOW?
Sounds like him on Tell Me Straight (right channel on the «Everyone is asking questions-parts).
He is credited (along with Matt) on Driving Me Too Hard.