rebelrebel Wrote:
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> Other than the ones you mention I'd give 10 stars
> to Dancing With Mr D, Heartbreaker and @#$%&.

Oh yes...me too, though Dancing With Mr D didn't really bloom before the 1973 tour got started, I think



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-07 23:28 by Erik_Snow.

Nikolai Wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------
>
> Now, please help me out here, Mr WTD. I loathed
> BTB with a passion when it first came out. And I
> never play it. What am I missing?

Off the top of my head (must admit I haven't played it
in a while) :

- The two best songs they have done in the last 15 years
(Out of control and Saint of me)
- Flip the switch, Low down and Gunface all have a "bite"
I do not hear anywhere on ABB
- Although not a great melody, Might as well get juiced is
still an interesting experiment
- Anybody seen my baby is better than Streets of love
- The rest is just so-so. The ballads are quite boring,
except a decent guitar solo here and there. Too tight
is Stones-by-the-numbers again.

I find the general or maybe sooner average meaning on GHS here
aint too negative. I'm glad for that. For once I agree fully with Erik_Snow.

everything the stones done in the 70,s was good.

black and blue had a good sound to its mix but had too few songs and few that were considered really good, if it had another 2 ballads and another 2 rockers it would maybe be considered a better album than goats head soup and its only rock and roll.

so black and blue was the weakest 70,s album for me.

goats head soup and its only rock and roll along with some girls were really good albums and often underrated.

probably cos it was impossible to compete with sticky fingers and exile on main street.

wee bobby lennox Wrote:
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>
>
> probably cos it was impossible to compete with
> sticky fingers and exile on main street.


Yes, they did set the bar quite high for themselves!

MOJO Special Edition - Rolling Stones 40th Anniversary Edition - 2003



ROCKMAN

if you can get ahold of the mickboy version of GHS it sounds alot better than the released cd version



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-08 02:22 by ghostryder13.

IORR by a long margin for me. I love Luxury, but no other song on the record rises above okay for, including the title song

rooster Wrote:
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> You know what!!?? ( while makin Indian food
> ...roti!!) I just love ''Can you hear the
> music''!! I bet no one likes it!

.... i like it alot....... that 'heaven' song too

I love GHS. These posts remind me when my youngest son (now 19) was about four and said "let's listen to Lazy Bones Daddy"

I'd like to be able to argue that GHS is perhaps the Stones' greatest album, but alas, poor production (in parts) won't allow me to.

Dancing With Mr D and Heartbreaker both suffer from too much of Billy Preston's influence (and Bill Wyman's absence), and these shortcomings are highlighted by the contrasting brilliance of their live performances, where MT is allowed to shine. The same could also be said of Angie, where even the promo cuts of this single were far superior to that which made it on to the album.

Perhaps the biggest culprit of all however is Starf**ker, with it's dreadful vocal and timid, weedy sound. Always a live show-stopper but nothing short of an embarassment here. More time could also have been spent on fattening up Silver Train, a great track that is well-worthy of a ball-busting, uncompromising production.

However, any album that has Winter (their greatest ever track?), Coming Down Again and 100 Years Ago deserves to be right up there with the best of them.

My own personal gripe is that with more effort, it could have been at the very top.

...shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Yeah, Winter is also one of my favorites. Mick's voice, there's surely something in the air on that one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-09 15:49 by Greenblues.

walkingthedog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Too
> tight
> is Stones-by-the-numbers again.


Maybe, but it has one of their greatest lyric lines in the latter days. Case in point:

"Don't try to reel me in with all your charm school looks. I've seen it all a thousand times. I sung that song, I wrote that f***ing book" (Followed by a sterling solo I might add).

JumpingKentFlash

Rockman Wrote:
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> [i9.photobucket.com]
> IMMERBOY%205/GOAT1.jpghttp://i9.photobucket.com/al
> bums/a66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERBOY%205/GOAT2.jpghttp:/
> /i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERB
> OY%205/GOAT3.jpghttp://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a
> 66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERBOY%205/GOAT4.jpg
>
> MOJO Special Edition - Rolling Stones 40th
> Anniversary Edition - 2003


Thanks for posting this.

Great post, Barn Owl. So GHS's problem is mainly one of production--when a band has great material and doesn't make a great album. Either Jimmy Miller broke down as the story goes and the band wasn't prepared, or he did finish the album and did an inferior job, which is worse. The question for me then is how did they produce Black and Blue so well, making IMO a better album from weaker material--weren't they still producing that themselves, or was Chris Kimsey along by then?

walkingthedog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nikolai Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> ---

> Too Tight
> is Stones-by-the-numbers again.


mmmmh, I dont agree. it has great great & surprising chord changes and a melodic quality thats more or less absent from true "Stones by numbers" tracks like Rough Justice - while rocking like hell at the same time. its a rocker, but a very interesting one. sounding like "Stones by numbers" must not mean that its a bad track. unlike "Too Tight", every ingredient of "Rough Justice" sounds like heard-a-thousand-times-before, but its surely not a bad track per se. theres a strange connection with Star Star here. Star Star also sounded immediately like a track one has heard (many) times before, but I did not care a shit because I loved it from the very first minute, or better very first second when the Berry-style lead guitar intro sets in. Star Star was great in function to balance the album a bit - so many new & unexpected sounds, it was good to have something that sounded really familiar.

thinking about this, they did the same with Black And Blue: many new and unusual sounds, rounded up by a classic Stones rocker Crazy Mama.

what Star Star and Crazy´Mama have in common for me is the feeling as if they have wanted to say: "well, that was our new album, hope you liked it, hope you like our new sound and excusrsions in unknown Stones territory, but now lets have some fun, lets have a party to finish this off!"

I might be very strange; but I cant see one single mistake in the production of Silvertrain.

<The same could also be said of Angie, where even the promo cuts of this single were far superior to that which made it on to the album.>

Why? The same backing tracks, only with poorer vocals from Mick.

> Too
> tight
> is Stones-by-the-numbers again.
Sometimes I don't get the people on the board. This is such a great straight forward rocker, t6ogether with low down my favourite number on the album. BTB would be one of their best albums if cut down to 10 songs.
For me out of the great 70s albums SG is the weakest just because I don't like too much the influences of punk and disco sounds. Anyway its a great album too.

Nikolai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rockman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> [i9.photobucket.com]
>
> >
> IMMERBOY%205/GOAT1.jpghttp://i9.photobucket.com/al
>
> >
> bums/a66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERBOY%205/GOAT2.jpghttp:/
>
> >
> /i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERB
>
> >
> OY%205/GOAT3.jpghttp://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a
>
> > 66/GLIMMERBOY/GLIMMERBOY%205/GOAT4.jpg
> >
> > MOJO Special Edition - Rolling Stones 40th
> > Anniversary Edition - 2003
>
>
> Thanks for posting this.


I HOPE ROCKMAN WILL POST IT ON ''SOME KIND OF CONECTIONS '' so it will be found easily....thanks ad cheers

DandelionPowderman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> Why? The same backing tracks, only with poorer
> vocals from Mick.


No, not quite!

At least one of those promo tracks is minus the MOR-sounding strings (Yuk!).

The production is not *that* bad on this record. It's got much more character and life than IORR.

While the swampy sound does contribute to the slightly undeveloped, lazy and hazy feel of Goats, it's mainly the songs and the performances that do it. A clear example is Charlie's drums on many tracks. Like when he comes in at the beginning of @#$%& or 100 Years Ago: just light and simple hits on the snare with no punch at all, and then the song continues at basically the same dynamic level. Even though I like the songs, they could have had more swing and thump. The sound is clear enough, and I still like Charlie's drumming on those songs, but it's so different from his intro to Rocks Off or his thunderous fills on Loving Cup (to name but two of all their scorching Jimmy Miller-produced gems from just a couple of years before). Production, yes, but mostly composition and approach.

BTW -- Thanks a million for your great news clippings, Rockman! You are very generous to scan so many and share them for fellow Stones fans over the world. So much more generous than those million dollar coffee table books that only a select few have money and access to.

This Mojo story about Goats was a blast. But I have to question the credibility behind the statement that Keith's friend supposedly found "5000 used syringes" in Keith's hideout in Switzerland. That is roughly five shots a day with a new needle every time for about three years, or one or more shots with one new syringe each day for over 13 years... Perhaps that friend said something like "It was insane, like five thousand needles in there" without any serious claims, but Mojo makes it sound like they believed it... typical rock journalism. Anyway, I liked the article.

Fanks LieB .... Guess I'm just one of those
select few generous sorta bastards with a big coffee table...



ROCKMAN

LieB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The production is not *that* bad on this record.
> It's got much more character and life than IORR.
>
> While the swampy sound does contribute to the
> slightly undeveloped, lazy and hazy feel of Goats,
> it's mainly the songs and the performances that do
> it. A clear example is Charlie's drums on many
> tracks. Like when he comes in at the beginning of
> @#$%& or 100 Years Ago: just light and simple
> hits on the snare with no punch at all, and then
> the song continues at basically the same dynamic
> level. Even though I like the songs, they could
> have had more swing and thump. The sound is clear
> enough, and I still like Charlie's drumming on
> those songs, but it's so different from his intro
> to Rocks Off or his thunderous fills on Loving Cup
> (to name but two of all their scorching Jimmy
> Miller-produced gems from just a couple of years
> before). Production, yes, but mostly composition
> and approach.

I would include what you're talking about under production, which at least back then, did not simply mean recording--that's what engineers did. Granted, in the Oldham days the Stones in large part seemed to have produced themselves--as he was more of a manager/publicist--at least while recording in the UK without Chess's Ron Malo or RCA's Dave Hassinger. And the tracks done there generally don't sound as good until Miller comes on board with "JJF." The producer would make recommendations for composition and approach (aka, arrangement). I don't get the sense that Miller was a wiz at the recording desk, so his skills were probably more in this more conceptual area.

The Stones' production approach seems to have been to re-mix an original gem of a performance thousands of times, and I think for this album, they lost patience, got unlucky, or were slightly let down by their producers as well as engineers. IORR sounds a little brighter but mostly flimsier with worse results from basically the same arrangement ideas (compare "Angie" to "Til the Next Goodbye").

.........GHS/IORR/BB.........that so many great songs are found on these records is a testament to their talent.....I mean lets face it...most if not all of them were either junkies or almost junkies during this period.......there's nothing weak about these albums.....some songs are just great and others mediocre...(as set by their previous standards which were unbeleivable)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-09 06:55 by Rip This.

I slowly learned to appreciate GHS. I think it's a fantastic Mick Taylor's Stones album. Slightly better than B&B and (IMHO) Some Girls. And definitely much better than IORR.

I think we often tend to think of GHS as too much of a Mick Taylor/Jagger album. The fact is that Keith plays a lot on the album, and clearly wrote some wonderful stuff. He plays guitar on vital songs like Angie, Can You Hear The Music, Star Star, Dancing With Mr. D, Silver Train and Coming Down Again, as well as bass on certain tunes. Yes, Taylor plays brilliantly on 100 years ago, Winter, Silver Train, Can You Hear The Music and Hide Your Love, but so does Keith on the songs he's on.

BTW, my favourites on this album are 100 Years Ago, Angie and Can You Hear The Music. IMO, the problem this album suffers from is the muddy and lame production and the collection of songs, which IMO is not a unity, but rather a mish-mash of different styles tossed together. Exiciting enough, but too uneven on a 10 song-album. Just my two cents...

It's not the music that lacks anyting on GHS, It's more the production and vibe.
It's almost as though the music is behind the same veils in the cover art.
It's like it's behind a mist and you can't quite see through it.
Contrast this with Exile. A murky thick smog...but you can walk through it and touch what's inside, the more you listen, the more it drops into focus.
This just doesn't happen with GHS...despite the many excellent songs on it.

Hope this makes sense...because reading it back, it looks like total bollocks ;^)

Well said, Spud!