Revisiting classic records for the modern audience

 REVISITING CLASSIC RECORDS FOR THE MODERN AUDIENCE

 

Over the past few months, I’ve come across and watched several episodes of a YouTube channel called Vinyl Mondays, presented by one Abigail (Abby) Devoe who’s 25. I don’t subscribe to her channel; it just popped up on my YouTube timelines and most of the discussions I’ve checked out have been posted a year ago.  She’s still going though.

 

In her discussion of Layla and Oher Assorted Love Songs (1970) by Derek & The Dominos, an album she credits with changing her life, Abby, who admits to being 23 then, tells us that some guy gave her a literal truckload of records when she was 19 and I suppose this original motherlode represents the core of her collection though she’s obviously bought more since that momentous day, like multiple copies of Layla.

 

The cache of records mostly, if not exclusively, represent the ‘60s and ‘70s, if the various Vinyl Mondays are an accurate reflection and were therefore released way before Abby was born. I don’t know whether she buys contemporary vinyl releases too; I haven’t seen her discuss anything outside the “classic rock” genre.  I suppose the roots of her channel might lie in her desire to tell us about her record collection and that there are so many that she doesn’t have the capacity to go beyond that collection, given that she can discuss roughly 52 albums a year.

 

It's obviously intriguing that a Gen Z person has taken it on herself to discuss records that have not only been released well before her lifetime but that have also received their fair share of acclaim or criticism in appraisals that have become canon set in stone. There is probably a general tendency to re-appraise records after enough time has passed for critical viewpoints to shift according to contemporary understanding of artistic standards.  Some, once derided records have been re-evaluated as better than originally perceived, possibly masterpieces; for example, Don’t Stand Me Down (1985) by Dexys Midnight Runners, which was panned on release and was a commercial failure.  I can’t think of any record, hailed as a work of genius on first release that’s been downgraded, as such opinions tend to become received wisdom and are hardly challenged but there might be some and, as far as I’m concerned, there should be a wholesale reconsideration of many previously highly rated albums that, on sober reflection, aren’t anywhere as good as the first critics claimed.   

 

A contemporary record that might be a case in point, is The Rollings Stones’ latest studio effort Hackney Diamonds (2024) that sems to have received high praise from critics and fans alike but is, to me, just another pedestrian, turgid Stones album with high productions values where most of the praise is rooted in the fact that a bunch of old guys, who might not be able to do for much longer, wrote and recorded it.  I hardly think it’s going to stand the test of time.

 

Now, I don’t know whether Abby has listened to these records critically ear and with an open approach uncontaminated by received opinion and that she genuinely agrees with how these records have been rated, but it seems to me that her show is a tad pointless and gutless, not to mention ultimately uninteresting, because she seems to perpetuate the standard accepted reception of the records she discusses.

 

Abby is simply, even for a younger audience, repeating what we already know about the classic records she presents with little or no new or original critical insights. She does a lot of research on the subjects of each Vinyl Monday and is a fount of well-known and lesser-known facts and anecdotes, again, very informative for anyone around her age who’s never listened to the records but not so great for someone like me (and I can’t be alone), who knows the records and the histories already.

 

Even after listening to her chat about Layla, I still don’t really know why it changed her life (”there’s life before Layla and life after Layla”) and, except for a few references to lyrics and some microcosmic snippets of songs that enthral her, she doesn’t have much of value to say about the music and the musicians. 

 

Abby doesn’t offer any original insights regarding her records and that might be because she genuinely agrees with the canon and, as I’ve said, perhaps the concept and motivation is to expose her fellow Gen Z citizens to music they might otherwise not have known about but there seems to be hardly any point in regurgitating accepted evaluations of well-worn, classic albums that are integrally woven into the fabric of our popular cultural history. If you want to discuss those records, listen to them with fresh ears and offer a new perspective that doesn’t simply offer obeisance to that vanguard of rock critics from the late ‘60s and ‘70s who reviewed and rated the albums back in the day and whose opinions have not really been challenged since then.

 

I doubt that I’m the target audience and I doubt that I’ll spend much more time on Abby’s views of old records.  More power to her, though. I was also passionate about music and was collecting records when I was 23 but there was no way that I was as articulate as she is about music at that time of my life. YouTube wasn’t available then, neither did the Internet exist, and I only started writing about music, for my own pleasure and to pass the time, when I was 37 and began publishing my thoughts only much later (probably 10 years later) when I started this blog.

 

Alost all of my posts have also been about “classic rock” artists from my record collection but there’s also a bunch of reviews of contemporary release by those artists and by some South African artists. I know just about all the records Abby Devoe has discussed and have my own views of them, not always consistent with the accepted view about, for example, the genius of the Beatles as a group or of the individuals in their solo careers. I also don’t much care for most of the records Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones have released over the past 45 years, not to mention most of the acts who rose to fame and/or notoriety in the ‘60s and ‘70s and who managed to keep their career going over the decades. I very much subscribe to the belief that most musicians in the popular music field produce their best, most original work in the first 10 years of their careers when they’re young and think outside of the box.  After that they become professional, proficient craftsman or -women and lose the spark that engaged one in the first instance. Records are recorded and released for contractual reasons and not because the artist really has anything interesting to say anymore.

 

So, by all means concentrate on the imperial period of “classic rock” and the artists who reigned supreme then but there’s not much need to bother about their work after 1980. For that period, and onwards, look at and consider newer artists but also have a cut-off date of, say not more than 20 years, and then move on again.

 

The important thing though is always to listen to records with fresh, unbiased ears, uninfluenced by clichéd opinion. For example, Sgt Pepper might have been ground-breaking and enormously innovative in its day but when I listen to it now, and this goes for most Beatles albums, there is too much filler in there for it to be 10/10 a work of genius. There are many highly regarded albums that make me wonder what the fuss was, or is, all about yet I’m probably alone in my valuation. For me, Sgt Pepper is very much an example of “the Emperor’s new clothes” but to date nobody has called out the Beatles on it.  Hackney Diamonds is case of the same thing.

 

If there is one thing I’ve learnt about the study of history, is that it’s takes a long time, often hundreds of years, before one has a proper perspective of any event and that new information regularly appears that forces one to reconsider and re-evaluate one’s view on events. The same should apply to music. Don’t just accept a contemporary view of a record from, say 1870, as gospel.  Don’t just repeat the views of contemporary rock writers.

 

Listen critically and form your own view.

 

YouTube channels like Abby Devoe’s Vinyl Mondays are useful, informative and entertaining to a point, especially for the uninformed. Back in the day I used to have to buy books on the history of rock music, album ratings or biographies of individual artists for information; today, it’s all online and there’s probably a lot more than used to be available in print. Today, Abby Devoe will enlighten you at no cost to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rolling Stones reconsidered, again.

 ROLLING STONES RECONSIDERED, AGAIN

 

In mid-2024 the Rolling Stones, with octogenarians Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the not much younger Ron Wood and supporting musicians, are touring again, in support of Hackney Diamonds (2023). 

 

Many have hailed the latter as some kind of masterpiece; the strongest Stones album in years, well, it’s the first Stones album of original material since A Bigger Bang (2005.)  I don’t care for Hackney Diamonds.  The best I can say about it, is that it sounds sonically immense. Otherwise, the riffing is just rote, the songs are tuneless arrangements and the lyrics are from “professional songwriting craft” and, like basically all Stones songs since the late ‘70s, do not sound if thy come from inspiration or imagination and have no emotional resonance. Hackney Diamonds is no masterpiece and the likelihood is that most of those who acclaim it, do it simply because the guys who made it are so old that it’s likely there won’t be many more, especially if the gaps between studio albums remain as lengthy as they have been over the last 30 years.

 

In the meantime, the Stones remain a huge live draw (better see them now before it’s too late) and seem to be as energetic on stage as ever, despite their advanced years.  Presumably, they do perform a couple of tracks off the latest album but the reality is that the set list hasn’t changed materially over the past 40 years. The audience aren’t there for tunes off albums released since 1980 (although, of course “Start Me Up” is mandatory); they want to hear the classic canon of Stones music, the songs that made the Stones and the songs we automatically think of when we think Rolling Stones, like “The Last Time,” “satisfaction,”  “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Angie,”  “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” “Miss You”  and any of  the other songs that appear on all the compilations. The Stones have  a vast catalogue and the best of it, the memorable tunes that have become part of the cultural landscape of rock, were released before the end of the ‘70s, “Start Me Up” excepted. 

 

I’ve recently watched a thing on YouTube, which is called a review of the Rollings Stones over the period 1973 (Goats Head Soup) to 1983 (Undercover.). The participants are mostly music journalist talking heads and none of the Stones participate except for some brief clips from Keith Richards.

 

The accepted view is that Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972) are the last really good Stones albums, and the final instalments of the purple patch that started with Beggars Banquet (1968) and that after Exile, the ‘70s weren’t a good decade for Stones albums except for the brief phoenix of Some Girls(1978), though some people in the aforementioned review are very kind to Black and Blue (1976) as a brave, innovative musical change in direction for the band.

 

At some point in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, a writer for the NME made the point that the Stones hadn’t made a properly, full on good album for years.  Each record might have a few good songs on it but there are no albums with, say, 12 top quality songs anymore. As Barney Hoskyns said in the review show, if you cherry pick the ‘70s albums after Exile you can put together a very good compilation and will have no need to listen to the parent albums again.

 

I think Exile is truly excellent and incomparable but don’t quite have the same feeling about Sticky Fingers.

 

Of the rest, I have a very soft spot for It’s Only Rock and Roll (1974), probably because it was the first Stones album I bought that wasn’t a compilation and definitely because the “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” was my radio song of 1974, with the title track just behind, and ahead of J Geils Band’s  “I Must of Got Lost.”

 

At first, I liked only the fast rock songs on It’s Only Rock and Roll and it took repeated plays and becoming older and marginally more mature before I got into the longer, slower tracks “ ’Till the Next Goodbye,”  “Time Waits for No-One” and “If You Really Want to be my Friend” but once I was hooked on them, some of the faster tracks, like “Dance Little Sister” and “If You Can’t Rock Me” paled.

 

“Angie” off Goats Head Soup was a monster hit and almost the only track of that album I like.  For the rest the record just seems too slow, ballad-y, slick and mature, unlike the apparently rough and ready, organic rock and blues of Exile, which seems to come from inspiration, probably because of lengthy jamming, whereas Goat Head Soup seems more calculated, sophisticated and carefully constructed.

 

With Black and Blue, the change in direction, which some see as brave, irked me because these songs, other than “Memory Motel” and “Fool to Cry” just sounded like lightweight throwaways and from this point on, the songwriting really started to sound contrived and professional rather than inspired.  Of course, the band is hot and proficient but still sounded overproduced.

 

I also bought Some Girls (1978) when it came out and, like It’s Only Rock and Roll, it took some time for me to really appreciate and love the record.   Where “Miss You” is genius and viscerally exciting, each time, “Far Away Eyes” is the weakest link on the record and grates but for the rest, the music sounds tough, urgent and vital and if the lyrics still seem to be the product of hard works rather than inspiration, the combination of music and lyrics appeal a lot more than the lyrics would on their own.  Some Girls  is the last Stones album, other the blues record Blue and Lonesome (2016) that I unequivocally like and still play often.

 

Emotional Rescue (1979) is just so poor, weak and silly.   The Stones want to do disco (title track and “Dance, Pt 1”) and  twee power pop, all of the rest other than “Indian Girl” and “Down in the Hole” (the sole worthwhile rock tune), and released a nothing of an album. By the time you get to the end of side two, you barely remember any of the previous songs and, though the title track and “Down in the Hole” have merit, this is the least essential Stones album to date, and perhaps of all time.   It’s a piss poor farewell to the ‘70s. 

 

I would’ve liked to be fonder of Tattoo You (1981) than I am and I don’t care for Undercover (1983) at all, even if  the title track and “Too Much Blood” (in a remixed, club version) received lots of airplay on South African rock radio.  

 

Tattoo You’s fast songs lacked power and the slow songs suffer from early ‘80s production. Undercover’s peak ‘80s production and rock funk style simply grates.   If Emotional Rescue sounds like a contractual obligation, the following albums don’t do much better, especially if you consider that Tattoo You is essentially a compilation of older, uncompleted tracks and Undiscover sounds like a band trying too hard to be contemporary, in a scene they don’t really resonate with, instead of just being the Rolling Stones.

 

Anyway, Steel Wheels (1989) was the first Stones album I bought after Emotional Rescue because the other ‘80s records didn’t seem worthwhile, and still really don’t, and after that the only studio albums I bought were Voodoo Lounge (1994) (I belonged to a record club at the time), A Bigger Bang (the positive reviews motivated me) and Blue & Lonesome (because it seemed that the Stones had returned to their roots) and only the latter is an album that I value and play regularly.  The other  studio records are simply well-produced works of professional craft on which the band rocks out with, paradoxically, no visceral excitement.  The albums are far too long and nothing stands out.  

 

Hackney Diamonds is just one more of the same; a good record for a bunch of old guys but no more than that. It may be revisionist but the Stones would’ve been better served to return to their looser, jamming, blues inspired late ‘60s and very early ‘70s  approach than to try to remain relevant and contemporary in a musical climate where they’ve had no relevance other than as a nostalgic live act with some truly stupendous classic songs.