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keefriffhardsQuote
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keefgotsoul
Are the bridges the weakest parts of this album? I like the whole album but it seems like the bridges in some songs take the steam out of them. Like Sweet Sounds. The song keeps building and gaining momentum, then the bridge happens and it seems like a wrong turn.
In general, yes, they feel forced and unnecessary. Although in Sweet Sounds it's okay.
I think the bridges are great. Stevie's Moog on Sweet Sounds is the highlight of the song for me. The bridge on Live by the Sword could be directly from Undercover (All The Way Down) and the bridge on Dreamy Skies comes quite late at an unexpected point and helps to justify the rest of the development of the song.
My main gripe with the album are some of the choruses. Often the verses are great and raunchy and then the chorus comes around and makes it just a bit too clear that it wants to be a chorus. In Angry, Whole Wide World and Mess it Up the choruses are wayyy to poppy for my taste. Too clean, forced and early 2000's radio pop rock. Very cheesy. While at the same time the verses are inspired and driving. But on Depending on You the pop melody of the chorus works well and there's some great choruses in the other songs: Get Close and Live by the Sword.
Well, you might have a point there because I don't like All The Way Down either. One of the worst songs on Undercover, partly - indeed - because of the bridge.
I agree that the choruses, in general, are very pop. It's a pop album, it is what it is. On Angry and WWW it's alright, I think.
Get Close is something where I feel I'm in a different universe. The rest of the album I can listen to, but I find Get Close absolutely terrible. Third-rate pop, with no guitars to speak of.
How you hear Get Close is how i hear most of the Album, as a pop record it's okay, it's an old man trying to appear accessible and relevant to young listeners, from the standpoint of possibly the Stones final album to add to their legacy it's un listenable.
It's very much like Goddess In The Doorway, an average Mick solo album, which over the years I've grown to appreciate, Mick's solo albums were not really all that bad, perhaps in time i will look at HD that way but for now I'm shocked the way i was when ABB was released, shocked because i doubt i will want to play a Stones album again in a hurry.
How are people rating half the tracks on the album 10 out of 10, does that mean that posters think these tracks are as good as the best work ever including Exile etc.
Are people so desperate to fit in with others that they will give 10/10 for acceptance or fear of personal attacks, fascinating stuff, I'm learning more about our species on here than anywhere else..
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Idorh
According to Woody, these 12 from Hackney Diamonds are not even the best songs of the 23 recorded during the sessions. That bodes well, delightful enjoyment in my old age.
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Doxa
Hmm.. there is not even week since the release of a new Stones album, and people are already talking about the next album. Anybody already started THE counting? "5 days and counting..." (RIP Hairball).
But, in general, what the hell we know about the songs we have not heard. The experience shows that there'd been songs that weren't fitting or suitable for the album deriving from the sessions, but were used later. EXILE and TATTOO YOU are great exercises of that. I think in the case of, say, "Sweet Virginia" or "Loving Cup" it was not the case that they were not good songs, but for some reason there was not room for them before EXILE (I think, for example, "Dead Flowers" was the reason for leaving "Sweet Virginia" out - one pure country number per single album will do). Things like "Waiting On A Friend" or "Tops" were left out of GOATS HEAD SOUP because there already were so many similar melodic pieces. As was the case of "Worried About You" in regard to BLACK & BLUE - I guess "Memory Motel" and "Fool To Cry" were standing in its way. Probably having one more long soul ballad was simply too much. Probably "Slave" suffered the same fate due to other funky pieces like "Hot Stuff" and "Hey Negrita". And so on. (Then there are those out-takes from whatever sessions we die-hard fans are crazy for - until they are officially released. Probably the out-takes of DIRTY WORK will never see the light of the day, and thereby never lose their magic.)
Had the band and their producer had similar release philosophy as when making, say, A BIGGER BANG, it could be that we might have had a half dozen or so more tracks on the new album - stylistically over-lapping with the material released now. More variations of the same theme. But they decided against that in order the album being more coherent and avoiding repetition.
Then we have SOME GIRLS - that in terms of urgency is somehow similar case as HACKNEY DIAMONDS (this is nothing to do with comparing those albums in quality or all that 'best since' crap). They had a certain vision there they and they picked up suitable songs to fill that vision. They wanted update the band sound and for that they would leave a helluva amount of material aside that didn't fit to the statement. All that c&w stuff that the bonus album is full of. Whatever stylistically the same old, the same old was cruelly shown the boot. Even such a gem like "Start Me Up" was way too retro and pastiche sounding for them to use at the time.
So what history will teach us is that there might very well material there on the can that is quality-wise a dream come true to many fans.
But, but... Probably we could open a new thread for the speculations about the next album....
- Doxa
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DandelionPowderman
We know that HD isn't their last album, as they're 3/4 finished with the next one. Did you miss the press conference, Riffie?
No DP didn't miss a thing, but take into account this album has been coming for over 5 years and Mick and Keith are 80 I'm not holding my breath for the next album.
If it's tracks that weren't good enough for this album it might not be that fantastic.
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Idorh
According to Woody, these 12 from Hackney Diamonds are not even the best songs of the 23 recorded during the sessions. That bodes well, delightful enjoyment in my old age.
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Idorh
According to Woody, these 12 from Hackney Diamonds are not even the best songs of the 23 recorded during the sessions. That bodes well, delightful enjoyment in my old age.
Do you remember during which interview he said so?
Thanks!
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Idorh
According to Woody, these 12 from Hackney Diamonds are not even the best songs of the 23 recorded during the sessions. That bodes well, delightful enjoyment in my old age.
Do you remember during which interview he said so?
Thanks!
Honestly I really can't figure that out anymore. I did read and see so much on the internet in recent weeks, I just remember what stands out. I also read on a Dutch side that Mick says there are more sessions with Charlie, and might be used. But I don't save anything, that's beyond me now.
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Witness
Myself I don't know at all what to think about this album. It probably will be rather long before I know. I read some posts, but abstain from others that disturb my own experience too much in my humble approach to it.
All the same, there is one idea I read about that puzzles me. It is the suggested point of view that this is rather much a pop album. Myself I have used that term with the important qualification "progressive pop" about the sequence of albums made up of AFTERMATH, BETWEEN THE BUTTONS and THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST and the singles from, say (with some uncertainty), "Satisfaction" up to and including "We Love You"/ "Dandelion". Apart from that, not. Now I wonder in what sense some posters consider this album a pop album.
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Doxa
...So what history will teach us is that there might very well material there on the can that is quality-wise a dream come true to many fans.
But, but... Probably we could open a new thread for the speculations about the next album....
- Doxa
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Woz
Heart warming to see this reception in the year 2023!
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Big Al
I find Andrew Watt’s production to be popish and contemporary
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Doxa
Well, the pure country number "Dreamy Skies" was left out, but yeah, it is a breakaway song... one needs to have those...
- Doxa
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Big Al
I find Andrew Watt’s production to be popish and contemporary
Blame my daughters, but I am quite exposed to contemporary pop music. Well I can hardly remember any guitar driven pop songs charting on spotyfy, forget songs with bum notes, a real drummer, etc etc,
C
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DandelionPowderman
My main beef with the latter-day albums (VL, B2B and AB has been the lack of good melodies. They are certainly back on HD. It doesn't necessarily make the songs more pop, though, just more interesting, imo.
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Big Al
I find Andrew Watt’s production to be popish and contemporary
Blame my daughters, but I am quite exposed to contemporary pop music. Well I can hardly remember any guitar driven pop songs charting on spotyfy, forget songs with bum notes, a real drummer, etc etc,
C
HD is very meaty, bouncy and punchy. For lack of a better word, the production sounds cartoonish and exaggerated. Not a criticism, just an opinion.