If I would name one it would be Steel Wheels. I think its the production, maybe the lack of a real good solid hit, the lack of a dirty, sexy tune that one could discover later etc. Not a stinking bad album just pointless.

What's your choice if you have to name one or two, and it downt have to be a bad album, but one that made you really disappointed at first listenings?

(Exile was a let down in 1972 and then grew to be a milestone in rock history.)

Dirty Work
Exile, although I like some of the songs on it.

Probably Exile. I got it when I was 12 and it just confused the hell out of me - I don't think I got past Side 1 for years. Then one day when I was about 16 I put it on and everything finally clicked.

Funny you mention Steel Wheels - when it came out, I loved it. Now it's probably the one album I listen to the least. Definitely hasn't stood the test of time well for me at all.

Not a Stones album but,Primitive Cool was disappointing.Two good songs,three decent songs,and five garbage songs.It was surprising to me for a guy with so much talent to release an album that was at least half total junk.

I agree LA Forum, SW was absolute crap, and was really dissapointed when I first heard it and it did not get better with age. I almosy gave up on them at that point because I didn't like DW either and I was dissapointed with the 89 tour, Thank god they came back with Voodoo and regained their form.

Steel Wheels is alright.Bad,dated sound but,some good songs.

dirty work, beggars banquet

A Bigger Bang, closely followed by Voodoo Lounge.

(SW is one of their best 'recent' works).

Wow, I am really surprised at how bad the Steel Wheels album has been getting ripped apart as of late on this board...

I gotta tell ya, I happen to really like this album...but it was the 1st Stones album I ever bought physically by going to a store to pick it up. I was 14 years old at the time...

The only songs I dont really care for on this album are Cant Be Seen, Continental Drift, and Blinded By Love. But everything else for me on this album is either pretty good, great, or just an all around classic!

I really like the songs: Sad Sad sad, Mixed Emotions, Hold On To Your Hat, Rock In A Hard Place, Almost Hear You Sigh, and Slipping Away.

I dont know man, I think Dirty Work is worse off than Steel Wheels, but that is just my 2 cents....Steel Wheels definitely has some BIGTIME sentimental value for me...

JuanTCB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Probably Exile. I got it when I was 12 and it
> just confused the hell out of me - I don't think I
> got past Side 1 for years. Then one day when I
> was about 16 I put it on and everything finally
> clicked.
>
> Funny you mention Steel Wheels - when it came out,
> I loved it. Now it's probably the one album I
> listen to the least. Definitely hasn't stood the
> test of time well for me at all.
>


I know what you mean about Exile. It's definitely an acquired taste. I prefer to listen to it in groups of 4 or 5 songs. (I think that was the original intent - 4 sides of vinyl.)

"Jump Back"

It's just another boring compilation. By far the worst. It offers nothing new unlike any of the other compilations that came out.

Charles Baudelaire
1821-1867

Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Live Licks

Bridges to Babylon

"Stripped" has always annoyed me on several accounts.

The production is unforgivable. Wimpy, glossy, and synthetic sounding. "Spongy keyboards" as someone once said. Awful, awful.

Then, the choice of material. Inferior versions of great old songs: "Let It Bleed" and "Dead Flowers" are simply too fast, "Angie" is pointless as is "Sweet Virgina" and even "Love In Vain." "Like A Rolling Stone?" Ha!

Imagine if they had reworked "Gimme Shelter" or "Midnight Rambler" as a nasty, distorted acoustic blues? Or tried "Sympathy" along the original folk-blues lines? Or thrown in some not-so-obvious stuff? "Till The Next Goodbye?" "The Storm?" Any number of blues or country covers...

That album was such an incredible and such a missed opportunity. When I listen to the intimacy of the "Hurricane" single, it just shows off how bad "Stripped" sounds. The low point of the Don Was era.

Dirty Work , Undercover. The only Stones albums I never get into and never listen.

i have to say Steel Wheels and although not a popular opinion...A Bigger Bang.

i'm really dsiappointed with the '8 years in the making' set...i thought they may do something really special this time but it's a hodgepodge of mick jagger solo outtakes (streets of love, biggest mistake), keith being lazy (infamy), pointless tracks( dangerous beauty, it won't take long) plain stupid (sweet neocon).

the songs that are 'good' on the record (this place is empty, oh no not you again, rough justice, driving too fast) are lost amidst the blandness of the lp..only 'laugh i nearly died' is up to the gold standard..

i don't know why people seem to love it so much..perhaps they were hungry for product...i don't think it's the stones themselves as much as it is their producer, mr. was...i think his major contribution to the sessions was sitting in the floor and bopping his head back and forth like a stoned hippy...and making sure to laugh at all of keith's jokes...the same jokes that are wearing thin...like his hair.

to the rolling stones:

please get a new producer that will pull out of you what you are capable of...don't go out on a track like infamy or streets of love...it wouldn't suit you and it's a disgrace to 44 years of being the poster boys for being @#$%& and setting the standard for everyone else to follow.

stroll on gentlemen.

Satanic Majesties. The only album I made fun of when I heard some of the utter crap on it.Sing this song together-come on -what were they thinking?????

I useta feel the same way about Satanic Majesties, but now it seems a psychedelic classic...

The one I cant take is Bridges to Babylon...cold as frozen dung

anything post Tatto You.....

Undercover. Other than the title track, I never listen to any of it.

Second place would be Emotional Rescue, other than She's So Cold (one of my all-time Stones faves), All About You (nice Keith ballad) and the title track (for the bass line and the campiness factor).

smile: the Rolling Stones get everybody's goat sooner or later.
they got mine with Angie, and i reckon that explains the title of that album. :E

i forgave them, as you see - and also learned not to get *too* het up over things like ...
oh for example like that hilariously WTF first release off ABB.
kick me like you kicked before - it's the Rolling Stones, alright! :E


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

Black & Blue. I guess we were just so psyched up for it at the time and it was like, "what?". Oddly now it's one of my favorites. I can't explain it.

"Tattoo You" - I was 14 years old, it was the first Stones' album I ever bought and at first I didn't see why the band was so praised. I was into prog-rock at the time and found the Stones too "simple" and "commercial" for my taste. It took me about five more listens to finally "get" what were the Stones about, and then my life was changed...

from Undercover through Steel Wheels...........dust collectors for me

I'd probably say Bridges To Babylon. Some good songs on it, some not IMO.

Dirty Work--God awful.

Voodoo Lounge--awfully close, but the strange thing is that the songs
I like are among some of my all-time favoreite Stones tunes.

No Security--The first pointless Stones record.

Undercover
Dirty Work
Bridges
Live Licks

DGA35 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Undercover
> Dirty Work
> Bridges
> Live Licks


I forgot Live Licks--another pointless release. The video was cool but the disc
was unnecessary.

Munster 1976 and Rotterdam Tapes 1973

I like them all. If you don't expect them all to be equal to the best, there are good parts to all of their albums.
I never got into B2B. I have listened to it more in recent months then I did when it was new.
I admit I did not listen to ABB for at least 2 weeks after it came out because I was afraid to be disappointed. I liked it right off and still like it.