The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

General music discussion.
BostonBeaneater
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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by BostonBeaneater »

I might try to curate a new wardrobe for myself with this album cover as a style guide.

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matedog
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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by matedog »

BostonBeaneater wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 2:06pm
I might try to curate a new wardrobe for myself with this album cover as a style guide.

Image
I'm using mid-80s Dylan for my style:
Image
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

matedog wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 2:16pm
BostonBeaneater wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 2:06pm
I might try to curate a new wardrobe for myself with this album cover as a style guide.

Image
I'm using mid-80s Dylan for my style:
Image
God, that jacket, it's like BD ate at a family restaurant and admired the fabric and design on the bench seating.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Flex »

matedog wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 2:16pm
I'm using mid-80s Dylan for my style:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... lesque.jpg
Empire is a wild album. An incredible pedigree of musicians on the record (Sly & Robbie, members of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor, Al Kooper, and more. All mixed by Arthur Baker!) with Bob bringing a bunch of legit songs (listening to stripped down versions and live takes of the album cuts shows these are legit tunes). And the result is one of the worst, most unlistenable albums of his career. A bit like CtC, it's not helped by the lead track absolutely barfing all over the listener from the moment the record starts playing.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:20pm
matedog wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 2:16pm
I'm using mid-80s Dylan for my style:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... lesque.jpg
Empire is a wild album. An incredible pedigree of musicians on the record (Sly & Robbie, members of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor, Al Kooper, and more. All mixed by Arthur Baker!) with Bob bringing a bunch of legit songs (listening to stripped down versions and live takes of the album cuts shows these are legit tunes). And the result is one of the worst, most unlistenable albums of his career. A bit like CtC, it's not helped by the lead track absolutely barfing all over the listener from the moment the record starts playing.
Yikes. So I'm guessing Rolling Stone only gave it 4/5 stars?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:38pm
Yikes. So I'm guessing Rolling Stone only gave it 4/5 stars?
Yeah, it was pretty well reviewed initially I think, but definitely the rare Bob Dylan album where the critical assessment gets revised downward over time. In this case, quite a bit downward.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:41pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:38pm
Yikes. So I'm guessing Rolling Stone only gave it 4/5 stars?
Yeah, it was pretty well reviewed initially I think, but definitely the rare Bob Dylan album where the critical assessment gets revised downward over time. In this case, quite a bit downward.
I'm curious whether that's part of a revisionist pattern—of significant artists from the 60s whose 80s releases were initially praised but have subsequently been considered bad trend chasing. Because my rough impression is that established artists really looked foolish in the 80s while seeking to be contemporary.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 4:14pm
I'm curious whether that's part of a revisionist pattern—of significant artists from the 60s whose 80s releases were initially praised but have subsequently been considered bad trend chasing. Because my rough impression is that established artists really looked foolish in the 80s while seeking to be contemporary.
Yeah, I think there's something to that. A fair few artists released albums at the time that seemed "relevant" only to date worse than one of Wolter's sidewalk hams on a hot day at Wrigley. I mean, 85/86 is a peak This Is Dated sound for popular music anyways, and while so much dreck has been forgotten people still check out the stuff by legacy acts every once in a while. Woe be to the person discovering Empire Burlesque or Bowie's Tonight or whatever for the first time.

(Funnily enough, I think the Beach Boys more-or-less escaped the circa '85 sound. A track or two here or there, maybe, but their by-that-time particular brand of soft, limp nostalgia-vomit didn't really try to go New Wave at least)
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Dr. Medulla
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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 4:21pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 4:14pm
I'm curious whether that's part of a revisionist pattern—of significant artists from the 60s whose 80s releases were initially praised but have subsequently been considered bad trend chasing. Because my rough impression is that established artists really looked foolish in the 80s while seeking to be contemporary.
Yeah, I think there's something to that. A fair few artists released albums at the time that seemed "relevant" only to date worse than one of Wolter's sidewalk hams on a hot day at Wrigley. I mean, 85/86 is a peak This Is Dated sound for popular music anyways, and while so much dreck has been forgotten people still check out the stuff by legacy acts every once in a while. Woe be to the person discovering Empire Burlesque or Bowie's Tonight or whatever for the first time.

(Funnily enough, I think the Beach Boys more-or-less escaped the circa '85 sound. A track or two here or there, maybe, but their by-that-time particular brand of soft, limp nostalgia-vomit didn't really try to go New Wave at least)
How many people pine for McCartney or Harrison's 80s records? Or any of the Who or the Rolling Stones or Clapton? Their Boomer core audience was no longer buying records like they used to, instead settling into vile yuppiedom, but the record industry—the Wenner types—still saw these people as major stars and encouraged them to appeal to the kids. Awful stuff on the whole.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by matedog »

Flex wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 4:21pm

(Funnily enough, I think the Beach Boys more-or-less escaped the circa '85 sound. A track or two here or there, maybe, but their by-that-time particular brand of soft, limp nostalgia-vomit didn't really try to go New Wave at least)
Huh?
Image

85 is all about mid 80s keys that completely disappeared by Kokomo. Produced by Steve Levine who had made his name doing Culture Club records.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Flex »

matedog wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 5:22pm
85 is all about mid 80s keys that completely disappeared by Kokomo. Produced by Steve Levine who had made his name doing Culture Club records.
I remember this being significantly more restrained than the likes of Empire, Tonight, Dirty Work or whatever. But yeah, sure, maybe there are more new wave'y keys on it than I recall (you've listened to it a lot more recently than I have). I don't really think there's anything on it that sounds like what Bob did on Tight Connection (To My Heart) to take the example I was really mentally comping.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Heston »

WestwayKid wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 1:40pm
Inspired by Matey's hard work on digging into the less than popular areas of the Beach Boys discography, I'm going to look at the less than popular areas of the Rolling Stones discography.

The worst of the Stones is nowhere near the worst of the Beach Boys, but they did hit a point where they started being less than brilliant.

First up, Undercover.

1. Undercover (Of the Night) - I like this song musically. Urgent drumming from Charlie, some funky bass from Bill. Keith's riff is pretty much Keith-by-numbers, but it works. Ronnie provides some nice playing on top of that. Mick's lyric is pretty lurid, but his delivery works. This is a good opoener. It's got a pulse. 8/10
2. She Was Hot - This sounds like a song they've done before, but better. It's not terrible. There is a grittiness to it, but it doesn't chart any new territory. 6/10
3. Tie You Up (The Pain of Love) - This is like some glitzed up 80's version of the blues. The tempo drags a bit too much. Jagger's vocal is overwrought. 4/10
4. I Wanna Hold You - Here we get to Keith's vocal spotlight. Again, it's Keith-by-numbers: a riff, a ragged vocal, a hard luck story. That said, it's got some power behind it. It's instrumentally quite basic, but Charlie's drumming is tight. 5/10
5. Feel On Baby - This track has an interesting dub quality to it. I kind of like the slow groove, that feels like it's being pulled through a taffy stretching machine. This is one that gets better the more you listen to it. It's nothing deep and it feels like they didn't put a ton of effort into it, but hey, you don't always have to put a ton of effort into everything. 6/10
6. Too Much Blood - I love this song. It's over the top. Charlie plays a cool, disco shuffle. The horns are just right. Jagger's lyric is again lurid, but so lurid you can't help but laugh. The guitars alternate between tight and edgy and chiming with a very 80's sound. The spoken word sections are goofy and fun (yes, I know they're violent - but again, so over the top, what else can you do). 7/10
7. Pretty Beat Up - This is an okay one, though a song that gets buy on groove more than substance. 4/10
8. Too Tough - This is a tough little rocker. I don't hate when they keep it simple, but like many tracks on this album, it's nothing new. 5/10
9. All The Way Down - I guess this song rocks, but it feels a bit too tepid. This isn't Keith-by-numbers, it's Stones-by-numbers. The bridge is kind of interesting where they slow it down with an interesting descending chord pattern. 4/10
10. It Must Be Hell - Keith's riff feels like it's lifted straight from Street Fighting Man. 4/10

This isn't a bad record, but it's also not that interesting. You can hear the two sides of the band: Mick's embrace of a more modern sound against Keith's meat and potatoes rock and roll. In my opinion, Mick's sound is more interesting on this album and I can dig his desire to move forward.
The only two songs I like on that album score the best from you. The title track and Too Much Blood.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

"She Was Hot" is moderately interesting because it was an example of MTV starting to flex its muscle in the biz. The video premiered on, I think, "Friday Night Videos" on NBC, so MTV retaliated by playing it for a week and then pulling it.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by WestwayKid »

The issue with the Stones in the 80s is that Keith was (mostly) clean and wanted to take his rightful place at the table. Mick had ruled the roost by default in the 70s because Keith was too out of his head. You can hear them moving apart on Undercover and by Dirty Work - they're more or less already operating as separate units.
"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble

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Re: The Rolling Stones song you're thinking about right now thread

Post by revbob »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 4:14pm
Flex wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:41pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
05 Apr 2023, 3:38pm
Yikes. So I'm guessing Rolling Stone only gave it 4/5 stars?
Yeah, it was pretty well reviewed initially I think, but definitely the rare Bob Dylan album where the critical assessment gets revised downward over time. In this case, quite a bit downward.
I'm curious whether that's part of a revisionist pattern—of significant artists from the 60s whose 80s releases were initially praised but have subsequently been considered bad trend chasing. Because my rough impression is that established artists really looked foolish in the 80s while seeking to be contemporary.
Image

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