One of my favourites too - I was hooked from the first time I heard the opening of Mr D, and I love that hypnotic vibe that runs through it (yes, I know it's supposed to be a weak opening, but it worked for me!) Angie and Heartbreaker aren't among my favourite Stones songs, but the rest... It does feel like the band becoming just that bit more laid-back, reflective, lazy if you want to be unkind about it, after the huge effort of Exile, but it's an album I come back to again and again - and if Star Star is a joke, it's a good one!

This and "Decembers Children" are my favourite Stones albums.

"The wonder of Jimi Hendrix was that he could stand up at all he was so pumped full of drugs." Patsy, Patsy Stone

The slide on Silver Train is splendid! One of MT's finest moments.

A superb album and something of a departure from anything they'd done before, even though it's 'under-production' took a bit of time to get used to.

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Silver Dagger
I love how this album keeps gaining momentum as a fans' favourite. For many years lots of Stones fans I know derided it as the beginning of the end of their classic years. I disagree. They just moved into new territory, perhaps influenced a little bit by the singer-songwriter genre that was so popular back then. I have to agree with Gazza though on Star Star being not up to scratch. .

Er..I dont think I said that (although I dont think its anything special)! I said there was a good reason why it didnt get airplay - ie because Mick says "starfúcker" a lot!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-02 03:18 by Gazza.

There's something about this album I can not describe. I love GHS to death. Fantastic album!!

Lovely album I absolutely adore "100 years ago".

as a song and opener Mr D is really weak.

I some what agree but the live version of Mr. D is one of my all time favorites

Its to bad they couldn't of used that version for the Album

A great album,i think it suffered from following exile
i agree with britney a 100 years ago is a gem
dancing with mr D is just to murky,i wished it had a clearer sharper sound
not a good choice for the opening track

Finally, others who recognise the beauty and glory of "Goats' Head Soup", surely one of THE most unerrated Rolling Stones albums.

"Ragged, decadent and quite lazily glorious" is how one reviewer brilliantly and memorably put it.

With 'Dancing With Mr. D' arguably being the only true weak link, though the riff is good, the lyrics for one of the first times are true parody, a silly comic book version of 'Sympathy'. However, the album soars into greatness with the next few tracks, four differing, varied understated stones gems. The excellent '100 Years Ago', the way it roars into an irresisitible funk juggernaut with Mick Taylor firing off wonderful solos. Keith's druggy, hazy but beautiful "Coming Down Again". Funk beats and a great arrangement on 'Heartbreaker', and of course, the beautiful balladry of 'Angie'.

'Winter' is my tops though, the shining light, with one of Jaggers' greatest vocal performances, this atmospheric, evocative track is pure stones gold. 'Hide Your Love' and 'Can You Hear the Music' may not reach the same heights as other tracks on show here, but there is just something so good about them. The mood, the vibe, a band under the influece of heavy substances making some delirious sounds.

And 'StarF*cker' - Chuck Berry with a thousand volts down his pants^ Mick's enthusiastic yelps at the end surely the best yelps on record^


Love this record -- and it's outtakes, long live GHS.

what really is the problem with "Dancing With Mr. D"? I like it... sure, it's no "Paint It, Black," "Brown Sugar," or "Rocks Off," but... Is it just the lyrics, as IrelandCalling says? Bad lyrics don't often bother so many people. And some of those lines ain't bad... "drinkin' belladonna on a toussaint night..." I couldn't have come up with that!

Yes there are some cool lines there, and the mood of the song is great... I guess it's just the comparision with the live 1973 versions; added with the comparision to the "really classic Jagger/Richards lyrics" - that makes people pick on Dancing With Mr D.....even I seem to mention that Dancing With Mr D and Heartbreaker really didn't came into bloom before September 1973, during every discussion I get into, dealing with Goats Head Soup.....which is not very often, in real life....
So I guess from a Stones-academic point of view, Dancing With Mr D is something one are supposed to like....but I never skip that one, I love it



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-01 21:29 by Erik_Snow.

I compare it with Between the Buttons or Their Satanic Majesties'. They dropped all albums to play live soon after their release with rare exceptions. Even Angie is no "war horse"?!
Plus: I don't regard it as a collection of A-sides plus elder material as December's Children is.
GHS has some strange compositions like BtB (no, it is not Bridges to Babylon, you "abbreviators", you!) but both have some weird sounds: BtB is Brian at his best (listen to the castagnettes on Back Street Girl!) and GHS has a lot of keyboard sounds we hardly heard since: clavinets, e-pianos, synthesizers.

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JJHMick
I compare it with Between the Buttons or Their Satanic Majesties'. They dropped all albums to play live soon after their release with rare exceptions. Even Angie is no "war horse"?!

Eh well, you could make the same statement for Aftermath, Between The Buttons, It's Only Rock'n Roll, Black & Blue, Emotional Rescue, Tattoo You (with the exception of Start Me Up), Undercover....and all albums that followed
btw Angie and Star Star was played quite a lot the untill the break in the mid 80s...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-01 22:47 by Erik_Snow.

Greath Album . Fans Always forget this One,also The Stones 1973 one of the best records. ><

Dear Eric, I wanted to emphasize the weirdness of the compositions of Buttons and Goats. Out of your list probably Emotional Rescue has the widest range of "styles" but not in the sense of composing. (if you want to we can continue that via e-mail song by song what i/you mean - I'm even a big fan of Flowers and see a necessity in that album!)
I remember one of those war horses discussions on this board and then mentioned the tour after Aftermath and it had the same "percentage" of war horses as today plus a few album tracks of Aftermath...

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JJHMick
Dear Eric, I wanted to emphasize the weirdness of the compositions of Buttons and Goats.

Oh yes, I thought about that a brief moment later. I see your point - both Satanic and Goats Head Soup features a Rolling Stones that aren.t afraid of taking chances....and a lot of the tracks would be impossible for them to play in other eras....imagine Dancing WIth Mr D in 1981 for instance...

I'm not a fan of Satanic - save for 3 tracks; which is why I...reacted...in wild anger to your post.....he he....thought it was a dissing of GHS; putting nextside with Satanic....

IOW - thought your post compared the 2 albums - by saying that Rolling Stones realised how poor both GHS and TSMR within a year after their release
My bad....your post above makes sense



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-01 22:59 by Erik_Snow.

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 was afforded more license to embelish and elaborate. 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 with fantastic slide that is nevertheless well-worthy of a ball-busting, uncompromising production.

However, any album that has Winter (their greatest ever track?), Coming Down Again, Hide Your Love 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.

Yes, Eric, imagine they do a new Video Rewind with the band walking through Ulli Schroeder's museum in Luechow (near Hamburg) in Germany in the near future and there would be a Mick saying: "Hey, there's Stu's piano! Remember Blackpool 1964, the Scotish co's and cu's on Labour Day? They glued his piano together!" Then he sits down and starts playing and singing: Why do you hide, why do you hide your love...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-02 09:45 by JJHMick.

I don´t think the production is that poor, at least on the remastered cd. I´d say Exile had a muddy sound with Jagger way down in the mix.

one of the GREAT albums. Forget the critics. It is NOT about the golden years.

How about topping this??!!! Beggars - Bleed - Ya yas - Sticky - Exile - GHS - IORR - B & B- Some Girls


ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, TOP THAT!!!!

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aslecs
one of the GREAT albums. Forget the critics. It is NOT about the golden years.

How about topping this??!!! Beggars - Bleed - Ya yas - Sticky - Exile - GHS - IORR - B & B- Some Girls


ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, TOP THAT!!!!

JJFlash Beggars - Bleed - Ya yas - Sticky - Exile

Done.

My favourite Stones album, fits my personality very well.
100 Years Ago got me hooked and Can You Hear the Music is simply awesome.

Also my favourite album!

I absolutely hated GHS the first time I heard it. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to react, upon the dropping the needle down for the first time on it, "What the hell is this?! This doesn't sound like the f'ing Rolling Stones!" (to be fair, I was thirteen and more or less clueless about most everything.) Like most of the Stones albums, GHS had to grow on me, which it did.

I'm sorry...'underproduced'? GHS? I'd venture to say, typically 'dead' sounding 70's production aside (I still think it's got one of the wimpiest drum sounds on record), the arrangements are some of their best. Clearly a hell of a lot of work went into the album, and it shows. IMO "Hide Your Love" is the only weak track; they passed over "Through The Lonely Nights" for that?!

One of my exes, GHS was her favourite Stones album...years ago, I remember her saying something along the lines of, "'Goats Head Soup' picks up where 'Sticky Fingers' left off almost as though 'Exile On Main Street' didn't exist at all." I can see that (she was very perceptive when it came to music)- production and arrangement wise, SF and GHS are probably the 'lushest'.

Not to mention GHS is probably Taylor's finest hour on record with The Stones. The solo in "Winter" is one of the great Stones guitar solos, and IMO MT's best on record. And, bass guitar wise, it's probably my favourite Stones album. So funky...and ironically, as I pointed out in another thread, the majority of it isn't Bill Wyman! "Can You Hear The Music" is my favourite...Mick Taylor on bass, I believe.

It's got a lazy heavy tired eyes sheen to it. It's a sleazy sounding album and it's excellent. With Exile being not so highly received back then, how could this one be compared when at that the time they were just making another album? It's easy to line them up and say whatever about them now.

I've always loved it. And why does everything have to be as good as Beggars-Exile? They can be good on their own.

This album has always been one of my favourites. I love every moment of it. I often listen to it when I'm down so I've not really listened to it much recently.

Due to this thread, I listened to GHS yesterday on the way home from work. It reminded me of the time when I first listened to it and didn't know the entire Stones catalogue (up to that point). It was great.

GHS was the first Stones album I bought. (The first I got was SF but that was in a trade with a friend).
It was in prime time of life, when I were 15 years old (young).....wooow , guess how much memories one have to that album!
I love all the songs on GHS.
I remember that I was a little bit confused when I heard it the first time becasue I compared it to Get yer ya yas and Exile but after a little while I just LOVED IT!!!