'Steel Wheels' -- a much maligned Rolling stones record, but, it is absolutely saved by 4 of 5 true gems

'Slipping Away' with a touching Keef vocal & sentiment, and the gorgeous 'Almost Hear You Sigh' are startlingly good. Who would've though that 27 years into their career the stones would have written two of their most beautiful & affecting ballads, magical songs both.

'Break The Spell' is another gem -- the mood, the mysterious sound, the absolutely swinging bass lines, and, best of all, Mick's wailing harmonica. Simply love this track.

'Continental Drift' methinks is spectacular, the starting point of the magic-four that round off the album.

And the fifth gem, for me anyway, is the slinky & saucy 'Terrifying' - addictive stuff, wonderfully paced and written, with a killer last minute-or-so jam.


ANY album that has 5 magical songs like those is something special indeed. True, the rest of album falls a wee bit short, though 'Sad, Sad, Sad' & 'Mixed Emotions' are fine, groovy rockers, if a little uninspired.

I think if you took the five gems from the album, added the great B-Sides "Wish I'd Never Met You" & "Cook Cook Blues", and added a scintillating dose of pure soul in the form of "For Your Precious Love" -- you'd have had an 8-song Rolling Stones Killer!

It's not that bad. SSS, ME, Terrifying, CD, CBS, AHYS, BTS and SA are all good songs.

My beef with it is that Jagger plays too much guitar. His playing ruins songs like HOTYH IMO.

X



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-20 15:41 by UrbanSteel.

As Hendrix used to enlighten his audience when they kept screaming for his old hits up until the end: "Damn, you´re living in the past"!

Great album from a maturing band. Poorly mixed so it lost some of its edge. Quality songs IMHO

Bridges is one of the worst....maybe 3 good songs...

1. ABB - by a HUGE margin

2. Voodoo

3. Dirty Work

4. Steel Wheels

5. B2B

Steel wheels for me has not aged well with time. The outtakes cd is a revelation though, and as is often the case with the stones, I am left wondering what the hell they were thinking when you compare the watered down official album to what they had in the can.Current example of this being UNDER THE RADAR being left off BB!

When SW first came out I thought it was pretty good, but maybe I was just so pleased to see the band back AT ALL as I felt DW marked the end at the time. Perhaps I was 'blinded by love'!

Slipping way - a beautiful song and I like Mixed emtions, continental drift, break the spell, and love for sale. And thats it. Dirty work is for me a slightly more enjoyable listen despite all its negative reputation I still quite like the sound of the guitars on it.

Bridges to Babylon is to me the great example of under-rated Stone albums - the more I listen, the better it gets - the Kieth Tracks in particular are superb.

A Rock and A Hard Place is my least favorite of all their songs; but others on SW are pretty good [ones already mentioned]

average album - perhaps as good as ABB....probably better...only just

This was my first Stones CD!

I don't think that SW can be defined "great", because the inspiration is not the one of the best days, but it is not at all a bad album.

For sure it also suffers a bit the production. It's not all crap, most instruments are recorded well, and when cranked up loud it sounds great, but i can't get used to the sound of those keyboards ... You can notice it if you compare the alternate mixes with the official. One sounds better but is slighly unfocused, the other is sharp and powerful.

For once I don't really like Jagger's vocals approach on certain numbers, it is a tiny little bit forced.

On the other hand, the musicanship of the whole band is truly A class on this go. Very sophisticated as opposed to the usual all gust sound. Which I like, for a change.


C

Anyone who thinks SW is better than ABB must be (fill in the blank).

ABB is fabulous. SW not even close

i knew DW was an anomoly on release, for me, it plain sucked except for HS...
i even hated the dang 'sound' the 'aural environment' was unfriendly for me...

the LAST thing i'd EVER expected from a stones album...they were nailing shit with perfection!!! on comparitively primitive recording setups and production techniques on two or three tracks right from london's newest sensations...

then the yank recorded stuff at rca and in the south and chicago and elsewhere with nitshe etc...that stuff KILLS it's so damn good...again, fairly primitive production, comparatively...
the recording ARTS have been mostly hurt by the digital revolution imho...

dw easily forgiven; the love affair had gone on too long for me to walk on out because of something pastel foolish and sonically dead...
only interesting because the idiots were in a non-stop cat fight, and not a very interesting one to me...
when john and paul were slagging each other with songs, at least the viciousness was visceral and sonically interesting...and the songwriting was better imo...(just speaking of dw in this regard)...
i usually don't like to rate one genius songwriting team against another genius song wrting team...why bother to do that,??? i always have thought...an embarassment of riches...(not giving the john/paul solo stuff especially high grades, just sayin' like 'how do you sleep' and stuff like that and macca's 'that was your first mistake, you took your lucky break, and broke it in two..." etc etc...i mean, they were bringing out some good stuff in THEIR idiot cat fight... i wanted to like one hit and those vids with the guys sneering at each other and all...dramarama kinda stuff....yawn...

...i knew the context of the sessions and the relationships at the time (dw)...was disappointed; even the cover was scary, and not in a good way...
... but did not ever really shake my faith in the band's albums...
by the time SW came out...i honestly stopped taking them seriously as meaningful recording artists...ze last straw...
probably missed some cool stuff, but i never bothered to listen with the same committment or expectations again...still always bought everything the day of release...for me many of the most loved latter stuff that is often really appreciated here, didn't move me much...
...at least at the time, undercover etc...were like nothing VERY much to me...nothing to take lou reed or mott the hoople or the kinks or several others off the jukebox for...
VL, despised by many here, was a reanaissance and revelation for me and i really enjoyed it, was delighted and surprised...a little too long...but fully 8 or more really held me, and still do...

a few on abb i adore...but SW...that was like a personal 'breaking point' somewhere inside of me...too many mediocre to kinda really bad albums in a row...

surprising to me cause that was bill's last stand in the studio...but there it is...imo...that's how it affected me...i think the thread title is really grasping at straws...again, jest an opinion...
and sometime soon i'll go back and try to listen fresh again...
thanx for the info about the less slick mixes available on boot and such Erik...
will connect with that...HOPE It's worth the trip. i realize it's a matter of individual taste and reaction; sometimes that changes with the years and perspective, but often it does not.

Can't promise that you'll like the Steel Wheels raw mixes, Beelyboy -
but: I never put on either DW or SW - in favour for the outtakes, which has a lot more pulse and breath

Yes it's interesting, to compare the Stones mid 80s crisis with McCartney/Lennon. Some of the best music ever has been written with heartaches, anger and nerves....in the jappy 80s - Jagger probably brought out the cabincruiser instead of his piano. Will fix you the SW recordings - soon

The production of the album was too slick, but there are some very good songs on it. Slipping away is good, I like the groove of Terryfying,some other gems are on it, it was apreciated when it came out, maybe it was underrated afterwards.

Steel Wheels is a very good album, marred a little by eighties production.Most of the songs are realy good but it lacks a killer song, a kinda song The Stones that becomes an instant classic as soon as you hear it.However I enjoy immensely listening to it.I wish they would play some of its tracks in concert.

It has two truly great songs which stand alongside the band at their best - Continental Drift and Almost Hear you Sigh - with a third ("Slipping Away") coming close.

Those three are the best songs on it by some distance.

A decent enough comeback but one which, like many slick-sounding records from that era, hasnt aged well



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-07-21 00:43 by Gazza.

One of my best Stones gigs memories was when they play Sad Sad Sad at Hampden Park Glasgow on the Urban Jungle Tour. Incredible performance by Bobby Keys.
As per previous posts agree Almost Hear You Sigh, Slipping Away, Continental Drift and Mixed Emotions are certainly great songs.