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TheDailyBuzzherd
Erik, I've come to enjoy that one too whether or not there's
Joujoukah / Jones influences ( if not the LP title ). And,
is it me, or does the music bury a goat bleeting that becomes
more audible by song's end, or is my monitor melting again?

I think the goat you are reffering to is the background vocalist, which sounds like Barry White. Don't know who it actually is.

Allthough....I think that those background vocals are actually speeded down to a great extent on the record, while it was recorded in "human voice pitch" in reality. So it could be Keith or Mick, for all I know.

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stupidguy2


But your missing what makes the album so charming. It doesn't have urgency maybe because the Stones were chilling out - they was no real angst, and that's not a bad thing.

I'm not missing this, I get that completely.

I'm only saying that it's a departure from the four most recent albums in a few significant ways. Does that make it a bad album? Not at all, at least not for me, but for some folks maybe.

It's almost like some folks going to see a James Bond film only to find that it doesn't begin with a slick opening sequence/ chase scene and that it doesn't have a Moneypenny or Q scene, and the villain is actually confronted 40 minutes before then end of the film and not in his subterranean lair where he and his hairless cat are plotting world domination, instead it all takes place at a baccarat table in The Bahamas while Bond is nursing his heroin addiction--some people would be upset that the film or album doesn't follow expectations. I think that might make an interesting Bond film.

Camper, explain this one though. What version of GHS do you have that has Angie as the LP opener? Because no one else has that version.

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camper88
GHS is the first album since Beggars without an epic opening song: Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter, Brown Sugar, and Rocks Off are all songs of the first order for the Stones and for any band. GHS breaks the pattern, with Angie.

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Glam Descendant
>do you mean the original reviews back in the '70s or other IORR posts or what?

I mean the review of GHS that appeared in "Rolling Stone" magazine in '73. I don't know if it's online; if I find it I'll post it.

It's weird seeing a 5-year old post/thread resurface.

Anyway I never posted a follow-up but I just found it:

By Bud Scoppa
November 8, 1973

History has proven it unwise to jump to conclusions about Rolling Stones albums. At first Sticky Fingers seemed merely a statement of doper hipness on which the Stones (in Greil Marcus' elegant phrase) "rattled drugs as if they were maracas." But drugs wound up serving a figurative as well as a literal purpose and the album became broader and more ambiguous with each repeated listening.

At first, Exile on Main Street seemed a terrible disappointment, with its murky, mindless mixes and concentration on the trivial. Over time, it emerged as a masterful study in poetic vulgarity. And if neither of the albums had eventually grown on me thematically, the music would have finally won me over anyway.

Now Goats Head Soup stands as the antithesis of Exile — the Stones never worry about contradicting themselves — and it is a wise move, for it would have been suicidal to take Exile's conceits any further. Compared to the piling on of one raunchy number on top of another, Soup is a romantic work, with an unmistakable thread of life-affirming pragmatisms running through it. It is set apart not only from Exile, but every past Stones' LP, by its emphasis on the ballad. Its three key songs — "Angie," "Comin' Down Again," and "Winter" — are suffused with melancholy. But of the five rockers, only "Star Star" ("@#$%&") rings out with classic Stones sass. The others exist either more as changes of pace or as commentary on the album's larger mood, rather than as autonomous works.

And yet for all its differences, Soup sustains some significant continuities with its immediate predecessors. With all its rocker energy, it was the personal, subjective songs on Sticky Fingers, like "Wild Horses" and "Moonlight Mile," that finally lingered in my mind. And for all its thunder, Exile contained in whatever lyrics were audible, a very personal sense of weariness and confusion. "Tumbling Dice," "Let It Loose" and "Torn And Frayed" were sung with such pent-up emotion that their powerful band tracks flew outward from the vocal, as if the direct result of inspiration drawn from it.

As usual, on Soup the Stones continue to work within existing frameworks, redefining and personalizing everything they touch. In this case, they make brilliant use of the styles of some proteges — Van Morrison on "Winter" and Gram Parsons on "Comin' Down Again" — while picking up a few things from groups as disparate as the Allman Brothers Band and War. The string arrangements are again close in texture to Elton John's. But they use all of their influences in a fashion superior to the current recordings of their originators. Other artists have built careers on modes the Stones have kicked away without a backward look.

The Stones succeed because they rarely forget their purpose — the creation of rock & roll drama. It is for that reason that they can move from the snow-white Americana of "Comin' Down Again" into the urban R&B of "Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" without the batting of an eyelash — theirs or ours. When they are uncertain of their purpose — as on "Dancin' With Mr. D." — they can be hopelessly silly. That track is the weakest opener ever so positioned on one of their albums, and they've never performed with less conviction.

But it is strictly one of a kind, for after it Soup emerges as a consistent piece of work, even if its classic moments are confined to four songs. "100 Years Ago" is the album's real introduction and contains in equal portions the two basic strains of the album: the churning, repetitive R&B of the fast songs and the solemn melancholy of the ballads. In the song's linear structure, each element is consecutively isolated and focused on. The strains, like the album's songs, coexist without blending. The R&B eventually suggests violence and irrationality while the slow music suggests reason and vulnerability. In the process of juxtaposing opposites, the Stones make a partly practical and partly moral choice — one of survival over dissipation.

The first ballad, "Comin' Down Again," is closely related to "Wild Horses," from Keith's frayed but loving vocal to the Burritos-related broad metaphor at its center:



Comin' down again (sky fallin' down again)
Comin' down again (sky fallin' down again)
Where are all my friends?
Comin' down again,
On the ground again.

If there's a moment on the album in which sadness outweighs hope, it's in Keith's voice. This feeling, combined with the fact that his distinctive rhythm guitar — one of the seven wonders of rock & roll — is subdued, disguised or inaudible through much of the album, makes me uneasy.

Between "Comin' Down Again" and "Angie" sits "Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)," a broadly drawn third-person narrative in dramatic juxtaposition to the songs surrounding it. It relates an incident of big-city violence hardly uncommon in the real world, but jarring in this context. It works as both thematic and stylistic counterpoint. The agony resulting from a failed love relationship is still ultimately affirmative, and it's relatively easy to bear compared to the agony incurred by some random violent act emanating from a stranger.

There is a crucial substitution of vocal chorus for horn parts (although the latter are used in a different context) that is both an explicit rejection of Exile's mode and an attempt on the album's fiercest song to rehumanize the band through the substitution of voice for the mechanical force of instruments. As on several of the other fast songs, the lead is a Leslie-amplified wah-wah guitar (no track credits are offered — is it Mick Taylor?) that sounds both unearthly and more contemporary than classic Stones style and puts new stress on Mick T. He's not yet the master Richard is, but he can play in the traditional Stones manner ("Sway") and add a powerful new dimension to it (his solos on "Love In Vain" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" during the band's '72 concerts). On Soup, he relies more on discipline than imagination, except for his exquisite solo on "Winter." He is obviously coming into his own but I can't help missing Keith, even when I sense he must be around somewhere.

"Angie" will inevitably be the most durable and well-loved song on the album. There are several reasons for its significance: a vocal of practically unprecedented conviction by Jagger, the lovely interplay of strings and single electric guitar that dramatizes the romantic core of the song, and a consummate piano performance by Nicky Hopkins. But the key is in the tune itself, as emotionally complex as it is lyrically straightforward.

It contrasts the traditional view of romance (and its mystical principal of adoration), with the more recently conceived notion of pragmatism in relationships. The singer has a simultaneous and irreconcilable investment in both values, and they're at war within him. Haunted by Angie's image, he tells the mystic in him that the conditions for romance are still present. But reason patiently answers that despite their efforts, it won't work. It wins the struggle, but every so often the voice burns through the velvet lining.

The singer's lingering belief in mystery is manifested in brief moments of passion and in a sense of guilt that can't be rationalized. Thus, all his statements seem to come out questions and he asks them as much of himself as of Angie. The one stand he takes is shaky, indeed: "They can't say we never tried," is inevitably followed by the understood "Can they?"

The song's depth of feeling is enhanced by a barely audible second vocal that may have been a reference track they couldn't get rid of or purely intentional. It seems to come from a great void completely cut off from the rest of the song. The sense of separation it so subtly suggests is a perfectly apt comment on the theme. And every facet of the song is like that, making it one of the most completely satisfying of all Rolling Stones performances.

Side two begins modestly with "Silver Train," a rock & roll song with a pre-rock flavor. The Stones' approach is like their treatment of "Stop Breaking Down," one of Exile's sleepers: lots of whiny slide guitar and harp. They also emphasize, with their ragged ensemble shouts, the song's appealing chorus. "Train" is the best of the album's secondary songs.

"Hide Your Love," dominated by Jagger's crude piano and blackest vocal, continues the rustic blues flavor of "Train." It is the descendant of "Prodigal Son" and "You've Gotta Move," while "Winter" is the offspring of the incandescent "Moonlight Mile," although it seems also influenced by Van Morrison's "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day." Morrison's ideas are in evidence in Jagger's vocal, which moves from a reading of patterned verses into improvisations. As he sings, the Oriental-styled guitar of "Moonlight" and an elegant string section swirl around him. And as Mick finds the crucial line to climax the piece with — "I'm gonna wrap my coat around you" — the surrounding track is blowing fierce, icy winds right across him.

After "Can You Hear the Music?," a philosophical song that expresses a belief in the mystical power of music from the Pipes of Pan right up to rock & roll, comes the fabulous "Star Star" as if to prove the point of its predecessor. "@#$%&"'s surface nastiness is belied by the sheer exultation with which it's played. The hallowed Chuck Berry riffs have never sounded fresher or more energetic. And those unswerving drums, ringing guitars and straining voices are all daring us to try and keep from moving to the music.

There are too many secondary songs on Goats Head Soup to rate it an ultimate Rolling Stones album. The content-defying title expresses the group's uncertainty about its performance. But those three great ballads place the album among their most intimate and emotionally absorbing work. At the same time, "@#$%&" maintains the stature of the Stones as grand masters of the rock & roll song. If they've played it safe this time, their caution has nevertheless reaped some rewards. Soup stands right next to Mott, the thematically similar LP of the Stones' brightest students, as the best album of 1973. For me, its deepening and unfolding over the coming months will no doubt rate as one of the year's richest musical experiences.



Read more: [www.rollingstone.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-20 07:58 by Glam Descendant.

Wow!
I still have this RS issue. (Japanese translation though.)
And I still remember this phrase:
"At the same time, "Starbucker" maintains the stature of the Stones as grand masters of the rock & roll song."

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Glam Descendant
That ghost vocal was noted in the original Rolling Stone review of GHS.

You can catch definitively Mick's ghost or guide vocal everywhere when you listen to GHS Shm-SACD edition.

That is funny Toru, on my Japanese import of Goats Head, the lyric sheet that comes with it says "starbucker" as well...

I love Goats Head Soup its in my Top 10 of Rolling Stones Albums.I love Dancing with Mr D,winter,can you hear the music.

Feel The Fear
And Do It Anyway

In terms of overall quality, I find this record to be just below the big four that preceded it. Yes it might seem a tad flawed but most songs are exceedingly well written and performed. Keith seems to be absent but Mick T is more prominent than on other records he got to play on. I just adore the general tone of the record which significantly departs from the preceding albums, having that sleazy cocaine-drenched sound. This is also one of those record where the contribution from the non-members of the band could be perceived as equal if not surpassing the contribution of some of the members and it does not suffer for it. On the contrary I find the playing to be highly inspired through out the record and there's nothing that tops a bunch of masterful musicians getting at it. I understand that the album was a huge disappointment following such staples as Sticky and Exile but with the hindsight this record proves to be not just one of The Stone's best but one of the finest of its era.How many 1973 records can you name that are actually superior?

I love Goats Head Soup; it is a personal favourite of mine, and it and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John are two of the finest albums of that era. I would also throw Holland by The Beach boys into that 1973 mix of fine albums.

I don't like Aladdin Sane all that much, as it is a bit dated.

For Jamaican Recording Lovers














All the photos taken by Koh Hasebe

One of the most underrated albums

................. Thanks for those shots Tora A .....great stuff
.....................And cool ta see the lads using the Australian made 71 HQ Holden ta get around in



ROCKMAN

One of the Best Stones albums ever. Love it.

Great album, even if it had too much Dolby...

Ah, the live vocal bleed through. Somehow a mystery for some people, yet quite evident on Let It Bleed, Miss You and, well, quite a few songs.

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WeLoveToPlayTheBlues
Ah, the live vocal bleed through. Somehow a mystery for some people, yet quite evident on Let It Bleed, Miss You and, well, quite a few songs.

Maybe so... However, the beauty of Winter cannot be denied..Mick & Mick are outstanding in this composition!!

'Dancing With Mr. D.' was not a great studio recording, but it really came to life on the Brussels recording. There are songs like that, especially for the Stones, that can use a little stage stretching. I don't like 'Black Limousine' on the album but I'm knocked out by it on Hampton.

I seem to be one of the few that can't stand Winter.

Coming Down Again is about the only track I feel any connection to from this album.

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Erik_Snow
Count me in in the minority who really appreciate Can You Hear The Music

Not in the minority atou, it's a big world out there.

I've always loved that tune, especially loud.

Maybe could used more guitar but still a great tune w/ a Moroccon rock feel.

Some would call it, their first Continental Drift.

Love the bells and whistles too.

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Toru A
For Jamaican Recording Lovers














All the photos taken by Koh Hasebe

Fantastic! Is Taylor playing a recorder there in addition to drums?

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rebelrebel

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LeonidP

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rooster
I have a weak heart foo Goat....In love with that album I even love''Can you Hear the music'' damm right I love that to!!!

Don't know why, but I just love this track - the way mick sings to the music - um ... is like music to my ears!

Is it considered odd to love Can You Hear The Music? I'm astonished; I love that track ....

I thought so. I recall a thread where it was heavily bashed but many seem to be saying they like it in this thread. Maybe my memory is ... umm, can't think of the word...

Wow those are some photos of that session I have been looking for for a LONG time. Much much thanks for that post Toru A! Amazing photos of Taylor swimming and KR and Stu eyeing a guitar on the bench. Just awesome.... peace

Very nice photos. Never seem em before. GHS was a record that got lots of play wherever I lived in those years. Brings back memories of Paris where I hung out from October till early Dec. I bought a copy of GHS cuz the flat I stayed had a phonograph. The mix on this album was kind of murky but in a mystical sense. My god, we used to just crank up Starfu$%er till our ears bled. What a way to go...

Amazing how much better the GHS stuff is live on Brussels. They smoke on "Heartbreaker" and "Dancing With Mr. D" has a menace to it that the studio version lacked. I think though that it's the wistful ballads like "CDA" and "100 years Ago" that are my favorite thing about the record. And Jagger singing "Love is a mystery I can't demystify" in "Can You her The Music". He never wrote better lyrics than on this album and Exile, imo, or at least as emotionally honest ones.

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His Majesty
I seem to be one of the few that can't stand Winter.

Coming Down Again is about the only track I feel any connection to from this album.

What do you think of Can You Hear The Music? I like that one as well.

I love "Winter". It has the same wistful vibe that "Coming Down Again" and "100 Years Ago" has. One of Jagger's best efforts, imo. Great guitars, especially Taylor.

One oftheir best

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tomcasagranda
I love Goats Head Soup; it is a personal favourite of mine, and it and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John are two of the finest albums of that era. I would also throw Holland by The Beach boys into that 1973 mix of fine albums.

I don't like Aladdin Sane all that much, as it is a bit dated.

Tom , I thought you would post a nod to the elegant writing in the Rolling Stone piece. I mean, they almost had me believing that stuff like you are apt to do sometimes. Didn't Elton put out two or three albums that year? What a wonderfully prolific time for them all. peace

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DandelionPowderman

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His Majesty
I seem to be one of the few that can't stand Winter.

Coming Down Again is about the only track I feel any connection to from this album.

What do you think of Can You Hear The Music? I like that one as well.

I like it as a piece of music, but I think the lyrics are annoying because some of them are amazing, but followed by cheap crap. I find the "oh yeah" and "I don't care" parts a bit of a let down after hearing the great and potent lines like "Love is a mystery I can't demystify".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-21 03:49 by His Majesty.