Re: What's the Stones biggest comeback album?
Date: February 23, 2007 04:50
some points of view re Some girls
Some Girls
The Rolling Stones
Rolling Stones 39108
Released: June 1978
Chart Peak: #1
Weeks Charted: 82
Certified 4x Platinum: 10/30/84
Q: Do you think the music of the Rolling Stones has an overall theme?
A: Yeah. Women.
- Keith Richards
With Bob Dylan no longer bringing it all back home, Elvis Presley dead and the Beatles already harmlessly cloned in the wax-museum nostalgia of a Broadway musical, it's no wonder the Rolling Stones decided to make a serious record. Not particularly ambitious, mind you, but serious. These guys aren't dumb, and when the handwriting on the wall begins to smell like formaldehyde and that age-old claim, "the greatest rock & roll band in the world" suddenly sounds less laudatory than laughable, you'd better dredge up your leftover pride, bite the bullet and try like hell to sweat out some good music. Which is exactly what the Stones have done. Though time may not exactly be on their side, with Some Girls they've at lest managed to stop the clock for a while.
On the new album the Stones have stripped down to the archetypal sound of two or three guitars, bass and drums, and it's wonderful to hear the group blazing away again with little more than the basics to protect them. Everything's apparently been recorded as close to live as we'd want it, and the overdubbing and extra musicians have been kept to a minimum. "Respectable" takes a close look at the peculiar position of the Stones, circa 1978, and boasts lines like these:
We're talking heroin with the President
Yes it's a problem sir, but it can be bent...
You're a rag trade girl, you're the queen of porn
You're the easiest lay on the White House lawn...
before it inexplicably begins to lose interest in itself. "When the Whip Comes Down" and "Lies" are a neat combination of white heat and old hat, while "Miss You," "Imagination" and "Shattered" are a good deal better than that. And the title track is every bit as outrageous ("Black girls just want to get @#$%& all night/I just don't have that much jam") as everyone says. This song may be a sexist and racist horror, but it's also terrifically funny and strangely desperate in a manner that gets under your skin and makes you care. On "Some Girls," Mick Jagger sounds like he's not only singing like Bob Dylan, but about Bob Dylan: "I'll give you a house back in Zuma Beach/And give you half of what I owe."
"Before They Make Me Run" and "Beast of Burden," Some Girls' hardest-hitting songs, are sandwiched between "Respectable" and "Shattered" on side two. It's probably presumptuous to suggest that these four tracks are about the present predicament of this stormy band, but I think they are. When Keith Richards sings, "Well after all is said and done/Gotta move while it's still fun/But let me walk before they make me run," there's no doubt he's talking about the music, his drug bust and the possible end of the road, about which he writes brilliantly ("Watch my taillights fading/There ain't a dry eye in the house..."). And when Mick Jagger implores,
Ain't I rough enough
Ain't I tough enough
Ain't I rich enough
In love enough
Oooo, ooh please.
he's got to be thinking about himself and the Rolling Stones, among other things. It's too bad the answer to all his questions isn't an unqualified yes. In a better world, it should be.
- Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone, 8/10/78.
Bonus Reviews!
The Stones' best album since Exile on Main Street is also their easiest since Let It Bleed or before. They haven't gone for a knock-down uptempto classic, a "Brown Sugar" or "Jumping Jack Flash" -- just straight rock and roll unencumbered by horn sections or Billy Preston. Even Jagger takes a relatively direct approach, and if he retains any credibility for you after six years of dicking around, there should be no agonizing over whether you like this record, no waiting for tunes to kick in. Lyrically, there are some bad moments -- especially on the title cut, which is too @#$%& indirect to suit me -- but in general the abrasiveness seems personal, earned, unposed, and the vulnerability more genuine than ever. Also, the band is a really good one -- especially the drummer. A
- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.
Probably the last gasp of a once great band. They were playing tighter than ever, particularly Watts (drums) and Wyman (bass), but with this band that's not necessarily a virtue. This is stripped-down, straight-ahead Stones' rock & roll, and it still resonates with the echoes of their former dark grandeur (it was the group's best selling album ever), but the intensity has been replaced with something more commercially akin to the disco sensibility of the time. The CD's sound is punchy, crisp, and terribly overbright. B
- Bill Shapiro, Rock & Roll Review: A Guide to Good Rock on CD, 1991.
A nasty, hard-rocking album, Some Girls finds the Stones turing out an effortlessly brilliant and eclectic set of material, encompassing the disco pulse of "Miss You," the sleazy snarl of "When the Whip Comes Down," the campy country of "Far Away Eyes," the moving ballad of "Beast of Burden," and Keith's best outlaw song, "Before They Make Me Run." * * * * *
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.
Some Girls is the last gasp of the Stones' greatness, with Keith Richards' "Before They Make Me Run" serving as what should have been a fitting epitaph: "See my tail lights fading/ Not a dry eye in the house." * * * *
- Greg Kot, Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, 1996.
The Stones deflect punk's attack and show off their muscles in the middle of the Studio 54 era with this naughty rock comeback featuring Ron Wood on guitar. If the down and dirty lyrics of this homage to NYC don't detract from your listening pleasure, then you're in for a good time with such sly, slinky songs as the title track, "Miss You" (a disco-y attempt), "When the Whip Comes Down" (pure energy), "Far Away Eyes" (a larf) and "Shattered" (the best ever written about Manhattan). * * * * *
- Zagat Survey Music Guide - 1,000 Top Albums of All Time, 2003.
"Christ, Keith @#$%&' gets busted every year," Mick Jagger fumed. Keith Richards was lost in drug hell, and the Stones wre on the verge of destruction, but they bounced back with "Miss You," the sleazy "Shattered" and "When the Whip Comes Down." And Richards does his best song, "Before They Make Me Run."
Some Girls was chosen as the 269th greatest album of all time by the editors of Rolling Stone magazine in Dec. 2003.
- Rolling Stone, 12/11/03.
----------------and from our friends at wikipedia:
"Miss You"
Single by Rolling Stones
from the album Some Girls
Released May 19, 1978
Format 7"
Recorded October-December 1977
Genre Rock
Length 4:48
Label Rolling Stones/Virgin Records
Producer(s) The Glimmer Twins
Certification Gold (RIAA) July 6, 1978
Chart positions
* #3 (UK)
* #1 (US)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-02-23 04:57 by martingo.