Metrobolist: David Bowie still rocks 50 years later

METROBOLIST (THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD 2020 remix) (1970)

 

I don’t subscribe to the notion of the unfathomable, ever mutating genius of Bowie. I only like the Seventies rock albums, from The Man Who Sold the Word to Diamond Dogs (1974), and Low and “Heroes” (both released in 1977). Anything other than these leave me cold.

 

In the late Seventies, 1978 or 1979, NME published a version of Bowie: The Illustrated Record, which covered his career probably up to Heroes and it was illuminating to read of the earlier albums, before Aladdin Sane (1973),  such as Hunky Dory (1971) and The Man Who Sold the World,  so much so that I bought the latter album, before even listening to it, in Port Elizabeth in late 1979 when I visited family friends there and saw the record, not with the original “Bowie in a dress” sleeve though, in a record store. The argument that persuaded me was the description of the music as doomy heavy rock, with “The Width of a Circle” apparently featuring riffing that almost outdid Led Zeppelin.

 

I must confess, when I bought TMWSTW, that I’d not listened to any of the Bowie albums I mentioned above but was familiar only with the Bowie singles that received airplay on local radio stations and TMWSTW  was my first exposure to full Bowie. 

 

At the time I was baffled by songs with lyrics I thought of as rather immature, puerile and simplistic even if the riffing was indeed quite heavy for the most part. The authors of The Illustrated Record raved about Bowie’s skills as lyricist and this album didn’t seem to be much more than bog standard rock song writing, the kind of thing one would expect from most heavy bands of the era.  I think the apt, derogatory expression is “Sixth form poetry.”  However, I still liked the album at the time but once I’d immersed myself into Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, I concluded that TMWSTW was no more than an ambitious work by an aspirant rock star who was still  a bit clueless.

 

This remixed version of the album sounds impressively heavy, with the prominent bass being given even more bottom  and fits right in with so much of its peer group from that time, to the extent,  judged on its own merits, one would never have thought that this David Bowie would achieve any more fame than, say, Leaf Hound.  

 

I’d always thought that “Black Country Rock” was the odd track our,  too simplistic and silly even for a collection of simplistic, sometimes pretentious, rock but now, I hear Bowie either mocking or honouring Mark Bolan on the outro to the track, and perhaps that was the point.  The track is not written by Bowie, has really stupid lyrics and could almost be a heavy metal parody song.

 

“The Width of a Circle” and “She Shook Me Cold” are the textbook heavy tracks but the title track and “The Supermen”  are by far the best things on the album, with the best music and atmosphere of all the tracks. The lyrics still aren’t impressive and smack too much of teenage would-be poet trying too hard. The power is in the music, as in the rest of the album, and one can gloss over the imperfections if you don’t pay close attention to the singing and just enjoy the heaviness of the performances.

 

I don’t blame David Bowie for his ever evolving and changing musical styles; that’s his prerogative as creative soul. On the other hand, I like what I like and disliked his foray in to blue eyed soul/disco with Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1975) and the continuation of that strain, Low and “Heroes”excepted.  Let’s Dance (1983) baffled me as much as, in a way, TMWSTW did, as the huge hit of a title track had, to my mind, particularly stupid and unimaginative lyrics and the music didn’t move me either. My initial dislike of the post Ziggy music could’ve been ascribed to my youth and immaturity at the time but when I listened to the albums roughly 30 years later my original opinions were re-affirmed.  How on earth any of this stuff could be classified under genius is still beyond my ken.  Yes, it seems that Bowie kept evolving, never rested on his laurels, but, like Neil Young’s similar restless creativity, hot all change was good and not all inventiveness was interesting and captivating.   

 

Bowie was perhaps contractually forced to continue releasing new music, and had the nous, time and money to experiment (Tin Machine comes to mind as flawed result) so that arrangements and  sonic tonality were the instruments to make nis music sound contemporary, and even ahead of the curve, but most of it is just running on empty to me.  The albums Bowie released over the last 30 years of his life just blurred into one another as non-essential, anodyne product with high production values.

 

I guess I will stick to and keep on listening to my core Bowie collection of albums up to roughly 1974, with those two exceptions from 1977, and enjoy them as visceral rock and roll to the max, with some intellibenet, quirky lyrics to make things interesting, and ignore the rest of the oeuvre as if it didn’t happen.

 

This latest version of The Man Who Sold the World  reminded me of why I love this type of artless early ‘70s hard rock in general, and why I love Bowie’s take on rock in particular. 

 

 

 

 

A partial reconsideration of Uriah Heep

 

I’ve always thought of Uriah Heep as the poor man’s Deep Purple, mostly because of the very similar line up with prominent electronic organ, but with inferior songwriting.

 

A  schoolmate of mine owned The Best of Uriah Heep Pith the stark black cover and played it to me a few times to impress me, I guess.  He did better when he introduced me to Nazareth’s No Mean City. To me, Uriah Heep was ponderous pretentiousness to the max. I was into hard, loud and fast at the time and Heep wasn’t fast and definitely not hard enough.

 

Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble (1970) opens with the ponderous and, to me, pretentiously poetic “Gypsy,”  which sets out the stall of a semi-progressive heavy band that wants to elevate its hard rock to something that will achieve artistic acclaim, or at least enthral lonely teenagers who obsessively read deeper meanings into rock lyrics and want to feel as if they’re part of a music that’s more ambitious than being merely good time rock and roll. 

 

The rockers rock quite nicely but Uriah Heep always feel like a Second Division heavy band whose records should turn up on YouTube as obscurities and rarities dubbed from vinyl that only a few hundred people bought when the LPs were first released.

 

I’ve never listened to this album before, hell, I’ve never listened to any Uriah Heep albums except for The Best of Uriah Heep album owned by a Heep-loving schoolmate back in my high school years, and Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble doesn’t fill me with the deep regret that I missed out on something special when I was a teenager. This is dire, dreary hard rock.

 

The first impression of second album, Salisbury (1971), is that the production values have vastly improved since the debut album.  The music is still heavy rock laced with prog elements and the lyrics still tend towards the risible.  “Lady in Black” is a good example of pretentious poetics set to a rollicking folk beat, and, sadly, quite catchy too.  “Salisbury” Is 16 minutes of rock meets symphonic orchestra (possibly inspired by Deep Purple’s Concerto for Orchestra and Group) and you can‘t beat it for grandiose bombast. It’s the best thing on the record, except for the customary dumb lyrics that spoil what would otherwise have been a grand, over the top, instrumental delight. 

 

“Look at Yourself” from Look at Yourself (1971) and “Easy LIvin’” from Demons and Wizards (1972) are two short, sharp, muscular rockers that have always been my favourite Heep tracks, mostly because they hit, git and split in simple, direct fashion and do not dwell on the pseudo philosophy and pretentious poetry of so much else the band did.

 

 “Look at Yourself” also has “meaningful” lyrics of deep philosophical importance but the hard rocking music (very much prime Deep Purple-esque, referencing pounding rockers like “Highway Star”) mitigates the pedantic life lesson.

 

“July Morning” a 10-minute epic from Look at Yourself, though, is from the same artistically delusional and ambitious template as “Gypsy” and “Lady in Black,”  and my mate used to  point to it as the validation for his deep and abiding love for the band.   Musically, it echoes Deep Purple again, this time “Child in Time,” and though the lyrics are just simple musings on the search for significant love, the music ain’t half bad and. much like “Salisbury,” the song would be highly impressive as a purely   instrumental track. 

 

Look at Yourself is quite enjoyable (weak lyrics apart) as a worthy, journeyman’s hard rock record, especially if you like electronic organ heavy rock with a singer who can shriek in tune when required.

 

Demons and Wizards (1972) features tracks called “The Wizard” and “Rainbow Demon,” not to mention “The Spell” and magic and myths seem to be the high concepts  here. “Easy Livin” is the most uncomplicated rocker and the rest are brooding, mid paced stompers leaning towards the prog rock aspirations of the band. Drummer Lee Kerslake and bassist Gary Thain have joined and the band sounds more powerful for it, and somehow more proficient too.  Obviously, Heep are still a heavy band yet this album levels out the heavy and amps up the tunes.

 

Uriah Heep persists with the occult on The Magician’s Birthday (1872), well, on the title track anyway, as well as the smoother rock of its predecessor with accomplished, but not inspired, song writing and more introspection than before. The title track is another elaborate 10 minute piece of pseudo-mythic storytelling divided into different “acts” of a mini rock opera. It’s nowhere near as interesting and engaging as “Salisbury” or “July Morning,” though. 

 

I’d intended to listen to all of the Seventies albums, even if only on cursory level, until I got to whatever album features “Free Me,” a rather uncharacteristically pop (I thought) radio hit for Uriah Heep in South Africa, but after finishing The Magician’s Birthday I lost the motivation. I realised that, if I didn’t like Heep much when I was a teenager, the passing of time brought no change. My musical tastes have, uh, matured, and certainly changed considerably over the last 50 years but the heavy, posturing bombast of Heep still has not gained in appeal and it’s not  even heavy enough for me. I don’t care for Jethro Tull and bands of that ilk, and I dislike prog rock, and, if push comes to shove, I don’t have much appreciation for Black Sabbath either.

 

In 1977 the UK punks used the term “boring old farts” and the hip music press used “dinosaurs,” when referring to the heavy and prog bands that held sway in die late Sixties and the pre-punk Seventies, and for me Uriah Heep fits the bill precisely with its ponderous, “serious” music and “meaningful” lyrics that now sound silly, and didn’t even impress me at the time. It’s almost comical, like a bunch of brickies’ ineptly executed concept of high art. Punk should’ve killed Uriah Heep stone dead but the band survived, and is surviving to this day, apparently featuring only Mick Box as the last link with the original version of the band. This longevity is not due to the artistic importance  of the band, which will always just be judged as  a Second Division band, but to the tenacity of someone like Mick Box whose career and life investment this band has been. It also again proves the point that so-called classic rock has survived because of hard work and the unfathomable devotion of a fan base that may no longer buy as many records but still support the gigs of their old favourites.

 

So, this is no definitive overview  and assessment of Heap’s oeuvre. I can’t bear to suffer this much for my art. They were moderately successful, have a bit of a “name,” yet will never move me.  I can hardly believe anyone would place their albums on a list of the 500 top rock albums of all time, much less a list of the best albums of all time period.

The van der Mentals release their debut album.

 THE VAN DER MENTALS                                    CITY MONSTER (2020)

 

At the moment this album, the Van der Mentals’ debut, is available only on Bandcamp but a CD release is promised too.

 

Rob Nagel is the only name I recognise on the band roster and I’d guess this is his side hustle when he’s not gigging with the Blues Broers. Simon Orange, also from the Blues Broers, plays keyboards. I’ve no clue who the other guys in the band are.

 

According to the blurb this recording is kind of home-made and, of course, independent of any record label.

 

The music is laid back, tuneful, bluesy (with a hint of country) rock and the two immediate impressions are (a) that production values are high and the musicianship excellent; and (b) that the vocals are the weakest link and kind of let down the side. The songs are well written, and quite literate, but three (or two?) vocalists have distressingly colourless voices that may be able to carry a tune, but lack character and impact. They sound too damn polite and cautious. For this reason the tracks sound like demos, albeit well-produced demos, with guide vocals.

 

A couple of tracks have sassy blues riffs, reminiscent of Hubert Sumlin with Howlin’ Wolf (both “There’s No Change” and “Bad Day” sound like “Smokestack Lightnin” re-imagined), but the basic mode is grooving, mid-tempo rock and roll, with tasteful guitar solos, with blues harp here and some jumping, raucous saxophone there. 

 

Two of the songs perpetuate the misogynistic, trad blues view of women, a rather glaring failure in the “me too” era. Never mind stealing a Madonna song title, “Material Girl” is a well-worn trope that offers no new insights and “If I’d Have Shot Her When I Should” repeats a tired joke that wasn’t funny in the first place. I know that traditional blues lyrics treat women as low down and bad, or objectify their sexuality, but this doesn’t mean that modern bluesmen should repeat that error. Not many relationships are perfect, and it’s usually both sides that are at fault, and there must be enough material there that can be used to sing the blues without automatically blaming the woman.

 

Musically, though, “Material Girl” is a groovy little number with driving bass, rasping sax and some lovely slide guitar.

 

The other songs are, as I’ve said, well-written and it’s apparent that thought and care have gone into the lyrics. “Don’t Tune Me ‘Huh’ ” (I’m guessing it’s a Rob Nagel composition) perpetuates another wretched South African stereotype but it’s funny. “Sing in the Rain”  is the lovelorn ballad and “I Don’t Want Your Body” is the sly country shot, or would be if the singer had a twang.

 

The album is a worthy effort and the guys must be commended for putting it out, but I can’t say it’s a record I’ll be listening to more than once, mostly because of the uninspiring vocals. I’d suggest that the band gets a vocalist with a more powerful, interesting voice to elevate the tunes.  I suppose it doesn’t matter much in a sweaty, smoke-filled barroom where the PA is so bad that the vocals are distorted and the musicians can carry the load but in the cold light of day, listening to these tracks on superior headphones, the abject vocals are extremely disappointing when contrasted with the confident, vigorous music underneath.

Van Halen reconsidered

 

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020)

 

Accolades, plaudits and praises are being heaped on the late Eddie  van Halen, founder guitarist of Van Halen, with his brother Alex on drums, vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.  Over the years the brothers were the core members and both Roth and Anthony were eventually replaced.  The Van Halen career can be divided into the David Lee Roth period and the Sammy Hagar period, much as the career of AC/DC can be separated into the Bon Scott years and the Brian Robertson years.  in the same way I prefer Bon Scott with AC/DC, I prefer the Roth version of Van Halen, for much the same reason: they brought an insouciance to the vocals that their successors flacked, regardless of how successful the respective bands still were.

 

Anyhow, the claim is that Eddie van Halen is one of those guys, like Hendrix, who changed the sound of rock guitar, especially hard rock guitar, forever and was not only technically brilliant and an innovator but also played with immense emotion, mostly happiness and inspired countless young guitarists and apparently caused unease in older guitarists.

 

As I understand the story, Van Halen was one of those bands that struggled to achieve success, with a debut album, Van Halen (1978),  that eventually sold millions, on the back of a cover of “You Really Got Me,” and became a truly influential record, not only for Eddie personally but for the new hard rock sound pioneered by the young upstarts in the hey days of punk and in the wake of the first generation of heavy bands that were morphing into dinosaurs.  Van Halen kicked open the door and let fresh air into the increasingly stodgy metal and hard rock scene.

 

The hard rock jocks of Radio 5 played some Van Halen tracks and “Jump” from 1984 became a big radio hit in South Africa too, but they hardly released top 40 radio fodder  and one had to buy the records to get the whole kahuna. I never did buy them.

 

If I were to make a list of my top hard and heavy rock bands of the period preceding Van Halen’s ascendancy (i.e. before the  release of Van Halen), the list would include, in no particular order, Led Zeppelin, early Kiss, Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult and the trio version of Grand Funk Railroad.  Of course, all of them were essentially guitar based and the guitarists were technically proficient  but none of them traded on the kind of overweening virtuosity that seemed to be the trademark of Eddie van Halen and so many “shredders” that followed. Like the punks, I eventually grew tired of lengthy, facile guitar solos and could dig where the insult “guitar wank” came from.  Soloing, even  at length, isn’t the difficult part. The challenge is to play solos that engage the audience and are viscerally thrilling beyond mere expertise and speed.  Eric Clapton with Cream, Jimmy Page, Donald Roeser, and Joe Perry and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith are some of my favourite guitarists because their guitar playing, solos specifically, cause a gut reaction that I don’t just appreciate for the technical mastery, as I kind of do in the case of  Eddie van Halen.

 

On listening to Van Halen again for the first time in many years, I’m reminded why I didn’t buy it or have much interest in it back in 1978.  It doesn’t sound particularly innovative, even “Eruption,” (just evidence of hours of practice) and the rhythm section Is far too stolid for my taste. There’s no doubting Eddie van Halen’s virtuosity but it doesn’t seem extraordinarily better than, or different to, any of his peers. The songs aren’t more than serviceable.  For me, the restrained, acoustic opening to the rocked up blues, “Ice Cream Man,” makes it the best tune on the record.

 

I guess, the band made its reputation and built an audience by touring and its stage presentation, with Roth’s classic front man exhibitionism and Eddie van Halen’s guitar solos. 

 

The debut was commercially successful but Van Halen II (1979) was less so. Here “You’re No Good” is the cover possibly intended to ensure the same interest as “You Really Got Me” engendered on its predecessor but it’s only a solid, stolid hard rock version of a tune much better served by, for example, Linda Ronstadt.

 

“Spanish Fly” is the acoustic guitar finger exercise counterpart to “Eruption” and the rest of the tracks are proficiently played hard rock tunes with nothing of interest that would make one want listen to the record more than once. 

 

My interest in Van Halen was really piqued by the third album, Women and Children First (1980), or at least the opening track “And the Cradle Will Rock” as well as the rollicking “Take Your Whiskey Home” and the jazzy “Could this Be Magic?”  Most of the tracks conform to the hard rock template of the first two albums but third time around, it seems that Van Halen finally found a more creative spark that inserted telling, intriguing, often acoustic guitar, details in the tracks to elevate them from the stolidness the band suffered from before. This is where Van Halen really found their mojo; this album is all killer, no filler.

 

I’m more ambivalent about Fair Warning (1981) which starts off  with material in a similar style to the first two albums, and therefore a relative disappointment after Women and Children First but is then redeemed by the edgy synthesiser swirls of the last two tracks “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” segueing into “One Foot Out the Door.” The previous tracks are just standard hard rock, but the album finale is almost alone worth the price of entry and a heart-warming indication of a change in direction away from stodgy hard rock.

 

Diver Down (1982) has so many cover versions one could think that the band found it difficult to write  new material. There’s another Ray Davies tune (“Where Have All the Good Times Gone?”), a sizzling version of Roy Orbison’s (Oh) Pretty Woman,” a terrible version of “Dancing in the Street” and acoustic and fun takes on “Big Bad Bill (is Sweet William Now)” and “Happy Trails” on either side of a great original “The Full Bug.”

 

On this album Van Halen fully embraces synths and quirky elements to embellish and enhance, and somewhat lighten, the trad hard rock of earlier albums, and it’s better for it.

 

For me, the pinnacle of early Van Halen, is represented by 1984 (1984), also the swam song of David Lee Roth, who went off pursue  a solo career after its release. The opening tracks “1984,” “Jump” (a big pop hit), “Panama” (another big hit) and “Top Jimmy” are as good as it gets, with good tunes, solid riffs and pop smarts that elevate the hard rock underpinning, and the rest of the album, though not nearly as strong, is pretty good and evidences the same innovation and freshness.

 

Between 1980 and 1984 Van Halen progressively upped their game and went from being a common or garden hard rock band, albeit with a genius guitarist and sassy vocalist, to a genuinely exciting, inventive, entertaining rock band. 

 

Sammy Hagar is introduced as the new vocalist on 5150 (1986.) Hagar was the lead vocalist for Montrose and also followed a solo career  before joining Van Halen, with albums like Standing Hampton (1981) and Three Lock Box (1982), and his music was of the hard rock type where I admire the sound rather than love it, and only “Heavy Metal” from Standing Hampton is the kind of visceral rocker I rate highly. The rest is just workmanlike, crafted unimaginative rock played by studio professionals. To me, Hagar is a journeyman vocalist and songwriter whose success is due to hard work rather than major talent.

 

“Why Can’t This Be Love?”   “Dreams”  and “Love Walks In” fit the template of so many ‘80s rock ballads and the rockers feature intricate guitar riffs and fills, and the arrangements are intricate, but the feeling is that the band has reverted to the stolidness, and lacklustre song writing,  of the first two records and Hagar’s voice is a powerful but inflexible and unsubtle instrument and the overall effect is of listening to a Hagar solo album, rather than  a Van Halen album, as typified by their best work in the 1980 – 1984 period. It’s noteworthy, at 43 minutes, that it’s the longest Van Halen album to date too and the extra minutes don’t offer extra quality.

 

On OU812 (1988) Van Halen embraces that recognisable highly polished late ‘80s production style that was deemed  necessary for commercial success, and might have succeeded with the goal, but diminished the power of so many rock bands by smoothing out the exciting sharp edges and rawness and reducing previously  thrilling hard rock to pablum.  It’s  no wonder that the raw edginess of Guns ‘N Roses, whose debut would be released in 1989, spoke  so much more powerfully to a younger generation of hard rock fans, but for the time being bands like Def Leppard and Aerosmith reaped the commercial benefits of being groomed into radio friendly acts.

 

The best one can say for OU812 is that it’s well produced, sounds great (if you like that style of music) and that the songs are well arranged and proficiently played but it I’ve ever heard AOR hard rock, this is it.  it’s even longer than 5150 and no better for it.

 

Curiously, a cover of Lowell George’s “A Apolitical Blues” is a bonus track on the CD and streaming versions of the album. it’s arguably the best song on the album.

 

Full Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991) is a knowing, childish smirk of an album title and opening track “Poundcake” is in that same juvenile, hard rock macho cliché vein. Hard rock is not particularly mature, or aimed at mature males, but if you realise that this album, and this kind of lyrical japes, competed with Metallica and Use Your Illusion I and II, it does seem like an unfortunate misjudgement.

 

The major plus of this record is that the unfortunate ‘80s production has been relegated to the dust bin of history and the new sound is beefy, solid, powerful and, though still polished, has some serious heft. All the strengths of Van Halen are present and correct, but songs are never more than functional, with instrumental arrangements designed to impress and deflect attention from the weak lyrics and lack of tunes.

 

Sammy Hagar left the band after recording, and presumably touring, Balance (1995.) Once again the production emphasises the brute instrumental strength of the band and Eddie van Halen’s virtuosity. As with Full Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, the songs tend to open with intricate, strong and energetic riffs that are generally more interesting and far better than the songs they introduce.

 

“Big Fat Money” (influenced by “Too Much Monkey Business”) is a nice loud, fast track for a change and not the type of enervating mid-paced stomp the band usually plays. “Not Enough” is an endearing, big, piano driven ballad (the synths seemed to have disappeared from the Van Halen colour palate), “Doin’ Time” is an Alex van Halen drumming masterclass, and the other tracks are the usual mix of acoustic guitar on slower tunes and  intricate hard rock riffs on the tougher tracks.  Nothing very distinguished here and perhaps these are the signs that the band is slowly grinding to a halt.

 

Hagar was replaced by Gary Cherone (ex Extreme) for one album, Van Halen III (1998), the last studio release for the next 14 years. Surprisingly, the album opens with a ruminative  keyboard and acoustic guitar instrumental before the normal  hard rock service resumes. Kind of. Not only is there yet another different voice, the musical style is also less bombastic  and less mega-riff driven than on previous records with a greater range of guitar sounds and textures and what was described as a prog rock approach.  Perhaps, it’s just Van Halen’s Led Zeppelin III.

 

“Fire in the Hole” is probably the most recognisably “Van Halen-esque” rocker on the album and it might shine brighter for being so alone as standard bearer for the old days.

 

If I were a die-hard Van Halen fan, from the first album onward, I would probably have been utterly baffled by the “progressive” music here, which might’ve satisfied the inner creative artist in the band members, who relished an opportunity to break away from a stereotype but I can’t see how a hard rock audience would’ve embraced the band going so far out on a limb. The thing is, though the songs are well crafted and the arrangements stellar, they carry little emotional weight and fail to engage the listener deeply and this, for me, is why the record fails.

 

At 65 minutes, Van Halen III is by far the longest of the studio albums.

 

I didn’t bother listening to the 2012 “comeback album.”  For me, the albums from Van Halen to Van Halen IIIrepresent the canon even if it’s perhaps unfortunate that the band went out on a downer.

 

I never much cared for Van Halen, from first to last, and binge listening to the albums hasn’t made me change my mind. Women and Children First is still the best, most worthwhile, album and perhaps one can fillet the others to make a decent compilation but even so, the heavy, almost ponderous style of Van Halen’s take on hard rock doesn’t move me, and I don’t care if Eddie van Halen changed rock guitar for ever. Musicians and fans might love his technical ability and ingenuity but his style of virtuoso guitar playing, the so-called “shredding” style that seems to emphasise technique and knowledge of weird chords over emotional, groove playing,  is a style I’ve never much liked and have grown to abhor the older I get.

 

Van Halen must’ve been great fun on stage where loudness and bombast  are fundamental elements of the heavy metal show, combined with guitar wizardry, but the  studio albums don’t bear close scrutiny, beyond the craft of record making. The songs are ordinary, and the arrangements and intricate instrumental interplay bear the entire weight. Van Halen reached enormous commercial success without ever penning a classic heavy song that’s become  a standard, a tune with legs.  

 

 

 

 

 

The Rolling Stones in the Sixties

 THE ROLLING STONES IN THE SIXTIES

 

The Rolling Stones came from London and were bluesmen compared to the Beatles Liverpool beat group origins and were hyped as the hairier, more offensive competitors to the clean cut Beatles who became the public’s darlings where the Stones became the bane of the public, ostensibly anyway. If one listens to the records, the Stones were as much interested in commercial pop success as the Beatles and if Jagger / Richard started off in the shadow of Lennon / McCartney as a songwriter partnership,  they soon came up to speed and, arguably, soon wrote songs that were as good as any from the Beatles’ stable ad, in my view, in many cases, better.

 

At the start of his career, Mick Jagger had difficulty comprehending that he, or the other guys, could still be in the pop music industry after turning thirty and yet, almost 50 years later, the Stones, dropping a few members along the way, are still regarded as the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

 

The records I discuss here are only the UK releases.

 

THE ROLLING STONES (1964)

 

The young, fresh, wide eyed Rolling Stones performing a mix of blues, current R & B hits and three original compositions, two of them credited to the group and one, the quite awesome “Tell Me,” to Jagger  / Richards. One imagines that this studio set is also pretty much the live set of the time and on this evidence the Stones weren’t that different in approach and repertoire to their peers. The album followed some singles, not collected on the record, and was a chart topper but it hardly  gives us any clue that the band would become as massive as they did, even if one can point to the presence of Jagger and Richards. Brian Jones is fully integrated into the sound, as befits the erstwhile leader of the band, and Charlies Watts drums magisterially and Bill Wyman holds down his end with authority, yet the set list and thin sound aren’t particularly impressive.  

 

It’s an enjoyable album with spirited performances but one can’t say much more about it than that.

 

I’d bet that the singles (the best ones were “Come On,” I Wanna Be Your Man,” Not Fade Away,” “It’s All Over Now,” “Time Is On My Side,” “Little Red Rooster” and “Heart of Stone”), aimed at commercial success are the true reflection of the power of the Stones even this early in their career.

 

 

The formula is the same as with the debut album, with three Jagger / Richards compositions in a lightweight pop vein.  The productions values are higher, which means that the tunes sound less tinny than on the debut album but there’s still a sense that the covers are merely earnest interpretations of the music the band loved, despite the vigour of the performances.  For example, the musical performance of “I Can’t be Satisfied” is stellar but Jagger sounds awfully young and  British.  The band’s own songs are far better.

 

Once again the singles tell the story much better than the album tracks do. “The Last Time,” “Play with Fire,“ “Time Is On My Side,”  “ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Get Off of My Cloud,” amongst the others, are viscerally exciting, energetic and full of the creative ingenuity that pushed the Stones to the head of their peer group class. “Satisfaction” was the monster international hit that propelled them to success and huge status in the USA, after which they never looked back.

 

 

OUT OF OUR HEADS (1965)

 

Surprisingly, still more of the same, with three Jager / Richards  songs and one group composition.  If it wasn’t necessarily true for the debut album, by the time of The Rolling Stones No 2, it seems that the covers are little more than filler because of the then practice of not including singles on albums. If the Stones could have included their strongest material, the singles, on their albums, these would have been far stronger and more cohesive.

 

This is probably where the strategy of different track listings for the UK and US albums works in favour of the latter because these records could happily discard the covers in favour of UK singles. It’s surprising how much the Stones relied on cover versions to  populate their albums. I suppose, not only was the advice to save the Jagger / Richards compositions for singles but that the pressure to release albums (in those days usually at least two a year) was so intense that the songwriting partnership just couldn’t keep up.

 

The production on this record is excellent and quite bottom heave, for the first time giving the Stones the literal weight to their sound that their music needed to make impact. Closing track, “I’m Free,” sounds like a defiant proto hippy anthem.

 

 

AFTERMATH (1966)

 

The tracks were recorded in the US and all songs were written by  Jagger / Richards.  At 11 minutes plus, “Going Home” is the longest track the Stones have released, and about only Bob Dylan had done something like that before. The Beatles were still dong three minute pop songs. Not that “Going Home” is a great song, being just a long, jamming groove with Jagger improvising vocals for most of the duration.

 

With “Stupid Girl,” “Under my Thumb”  and “Out of Time,”  another long song, the songwriters’  misogyny, which became a trademark during the following period, became openly apparent. 

 

Richards and Jones discover how powerful acoustic guitars can be if amplified correctly, and Jones spreads his instrumental horizons with sitar, marimba and dulcimer, though Richards played all of the standard guitar parts.

 

Though the best tracks on the album have become classic Stones songs, not all of the tracks are great, but at least this time around even the filler was composed by Jagger / Richards.

 

“!9^th Nervous Breakdown” and “Paint It, Black” were the contemporaneous singles. 

GOT LIVE IF YOU WANT IT!  (1966)

 

This album was originally released only in the US as a cash in on the popularity of the Stones. When I first listened to it, I was unimpressed by the performances and the sound.

 

The tracks is the expected mixture of hit singles and filler, representing the Stones live sets of the period.  Not very interesting to say the least except as some sort of concert memorabilia. Both the on-stage sound and repertoire would be infinitely better 10 years later with technological advances and with the core songs we have become over familiar with. 

 

 

BETWEEN THE BUTTONS (1967)

 

Surprisingly light, proto-psychedelic, Swinging London pop that seems an atypical release from the grungy rhythm and blues musicians the Stones were at the start of their career only a few years before, but Jagger and Richards were always as much pop song tunesmiths as they were blues fanciers and on Between the Buttons they show off their ability to write as good frothy confections as anybody else.

 

“Yesterday’s Papers” and “Back Street Girl” continue the misogyny.

 

The US version of the album contains the singles “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday”  in place of “Back Street Girl” and “Please Go Home.”  The singles add some heft to the album and perhaps losing the sneering misogyny of “Back Street Girl” is not a bad thing but the Diddley-esque romp (the Stones’ take on the Northwest Pacific punk rock scene which was influenced by the Stones in the first place) of “Please Go Home” is rather fun if utterly lightweight.  

 

The best I can say about this records is that the breadth and pop ambition of Jagger / Richards songwriting is quite intriguing and the album is enjoyable but is so bereft of gravitas that I see it mostly as an experimental curiosity and not one of the top Stones albums of all time.

THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST (1967)

 

Apparently, this was the Stones answer to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and maybe the Beach Boys’ Smiley Smile, in that this was their stab at high psychedelia.

 

It wasn’t very well received at the time of release and was seen as a poor imitation of the Beatles’ “masterpiece” but, when I listened to it for the first time, possibly 40 years after its release, I didn’t understand why contemporary  rock critics took such a dim view of it. I already knew some of the tracks from various Stones compilation albums, such as “2000 Light Years from Home,” “Citadel” and “She’s a Rainbow.” The latter could’ve fitted on Between the Buttons, “Citadel” has an excellent, post-Cream heavy riff and “2000 Light Years from Home” is deliriously, beautifully, gloomily psychedelic.

 

“In Another Land” is Bill Wyman’s debut composition on a Stones album and he sings it, a departure from the norm where Jagger sings most of the songs and Richards has one or perhaps two vocals per album and was never repeated. The song itself seems influenced by “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Wyman’s flat vocals let down what otherwise would have been a lovely little pop tune.

 

Jagger / Richard tries to imagine how middle aged people would see the new generations in “2000 man,” only 33 years away (I wonder how they felt about this song in the year 2000) and in this they seem to take a cue from the skewed views of Ray Davies of The Kinks.

 

“Sing This All Together (See What Happens)” seems to be a studio jam, perhaps cobbled together from various takes, and the methodology and a throwaway riff halfway through sounds very much an adumbration of Miles Davis’ On the Corner. Put it down to LSD inspired  experimentalism.

 

The best one can say for “The Lantern” and “Gomper” is that they’re different, off-kilter folky and psychedelic with respectively electronics and Indian instrumentation to tart up slight whisps of songs.

 

This album has only three good tracks, the ones that turn up on so many compilations and though none of the rest are bad, they’re just not very engaging. The Stones attempted to stretch the envelope, and perhaps they did, but to no great appeal or success. There’s so little visceral excitement here.

 

I would say that Their Satanic Majesties Request marks the end of the progression of Stones Mk I from grungy R& B band to Swinging Sixties psychedelic pop.  And although Brian Jones was still technically a member of the band for the making of Beggars Banquet, that album marks the genesis of Stones Mk II.   

 

 

BEGGARS BANQUET (1968)

 

The last Stones album recorded and released during the lifetime of founding member Brian Jones, though he was no longer much of a force in the band and contributed nothing to the recording. 

 

“Jumping Jack Flash,”  the non-album single, introduced the “new” Rolling Stones, on the cusp of becoming eh greatest rock and roll band in the world, with the innovation of acoustic guitars played through a cheap cassette tape recorder that distorted the sound to a degree that it became more powerful than roaring electric guitars.  On close listening it seems as if almost every track has a bedrock of acoustic guitars with electric guitar overlays and fills.  Regardless, it’s still a quite tough record and even the slighter songs benefit from this treatment.

 

Part of the sessions for the album, specifically the recording of “Sympathy for the Devil” was filmed by Jean Luc Godard for inclusion of one of his movies.

 

“Jigsaw Puzzle,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Factory Girl” and “Salt of the Earth”  are the social commentary songs, “Stray Cat Blues”  is the misogyny song and “Prodigal Song” is the acoustic traditional blues, adumbrating “You Gotta Move” from Sticky Fingers.

 

The conceptual change here, seems to me to be that for the first time the Stones overtly embraced Americana, blues and country, in an amalgam that served them extremely well over the next five years and resulted in their best music, their most original music, the music that truly did make them that great rock band.

 

 

LET IT BLEED (1969)

 

Mick Taylor joins the Stones and the music changes subtly with less of the dual guitar interplay that characterised the Brian Jones period, with Keith Richard sticking more to rhythm and Taylor playing lead guitar. Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet are the first two instalments in a 4 album purple patch (Sticky Fingersand Exile on Main Street are the others) that straddle the end of the Sixties and the start of the Seventies, and arguably represent the Stones at their creative peak. 

 

The album opener, “Gimme Shelter,” is up there with “Sympathy for the Devil” as a kick off for arguably the most complete Stones album to date with possibly the highest ratio of classic Stones songs, that include “Midnight Rambler,” “Love in Vain,” “Live With Me” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

 

“Honky Tonk Women” was the monster single of the time, mirrored by “Country Honk,” a country tune played earnestly and not for laughs, as the band was wont to do in later.

 

Let It Bleed ended of the Sixties for the Stones, as much as the notorious Altamont concert in December 1969, meant to conclude the first Stones tour of the US in many years, ended the peace and love vibes of the late Sixties and proved, for all the rebellious stance, that the Rolling Stones were only people, powerless as individuals or band to influence badness around them even if they were building towards the satanic majesties peak of the early Seventies. Rock and roll is built on myth and the myth of the infallible superstar rocker is possibly the biggest.

 

What is also true, though, is that as band and as songwriters the Rolling Stones changed, mutated and improved radically between 1962 and 1969, from a rinky-dink English R & B group to a powerful, internationally famous and influential rock band. 

The Rolling Stones between 1990 and 2020

 

 

1990 is just off the halfway point in the life of the Rolling Stones and it seems safe to say that the music made in the 30 years between 1990 and 2020 is not the music most fans will cherish and treasure. The Stones remained a commercially viable brand, especially with their mega tours, and possibly became a “national treasure,” despite their rebellious roots and Keith Richards continued semi-outlaw stance.  No Stones album released in this 30 year period is of huge value and worth and, at best, one might make a half decent playlist of the best tracks, but it won’t be the mandatory Stones playlist that the public will listen to, not like the classic tracks from roughly the first 20 years.  The two Hot Rocks compilations or the Rolled Gold double album, though each stops  short of the best stuff from the late Seventies, are probably just about the only Rolling Stones albums you ever need own. Even the early studio records had their fair share of filler and also rans. The point is, when people think of the top Rolling Stones songs, and pick their favourites, it’s not likely to be anything released after 1980 (except maybe for “Start Me Up.”)

 

 

FLASHPOINT (1991)

 

These tracks were recorded on the Steel Wheels / Urban Jungle tour, the first Stones tour since the outing in support of Tattoo You in the early Eighties. It’s the final tour featuring bassist Bill Wyman who left the band afterwards.

 

The opening track is “Start Me Up,” which seems to have become the standard show opener for the Stones, and the rest are a mixture of some tracks from Steel Wheels (presumably deemed to be the most worthwhile performing live), some hoary old classics, “Miss You” from Some Girls and two brand new tracks, a clever, popular marketing ploy in the Nineties to persuade fans to buy live albums and greatest hits sets.

 

The first impression is of crystal-clear sound and lively, energetic playing, giving life to well-known studio tracks, which must’ve made this tour a pleasure to attend. On some later live recordings the Stones, especially Jagger, sound as if they’re playing to the gallery and going through the perfunctory stadium motions with crowd pleasing tunes and antics, but here the band seems fresh, eager and sharp, as if to exorcise the demons of the animosity between Jagger and Richards in  the late Eighties and of not touring for such a long time.

 

The only disappointment is the over blown, almost showbiz blues version of “Little Red Rooster,” originally a stark, angular, spooky take on the Howlin’ Wolf classic, but with guest star Eric Clapton, I guess they felt it needed that additional bluster.

 

I’d never heard this album until I wrote this and I must confess that I have a slight regret that I didn’t buy it at the time of release, but, having said that, and taking into account that this is a great live set, I don’t know whether I’ll ever want to listen to it again. There’s a lot of Stones live material out there and I prefer the looser, starker, more gnarly Seventies shows than the perfectly recorded, stadium version from the Nineties onward, when the band became less of a gritty, working rock and roll band, to my mind, and more just a smoothly operating, mega touring, nostalgia stage show.

 

The new studio tracks, “Highwire” and “Sex Drive,” are muscular grooves, the one in gleaming, power rock vein, the other  in Stones funk style familiar from the mid-Seventies onward, but neither are essential listening. 

 

VOODOO LOUNGE (1994)

 

There was a 5 year gap between Steel Wheels and Voodoo Lounge.

 

I bought the album because I was a member of a CD club at the time and it was one of the monthly hot picks they sent you by default, but I guess I wouldn’t otherwise have owned it.  By 1994 it was far less vital than ever before to buy any new Rolling Stones studio album. 

 

At 62 minutes it’s effectively a  double album LP-wise and though I thought it was an okay record it did drag towards the end, being just too long when the songs are much of a muchness, technically well produced and played yet without significant spark.

 

The rockers pound hard, the slow songs meander along smoothly, and they groove, but that’s about all you can say  for the album. It’s not bad but it’s not great either. 

 

It’s a pro job produced by pros. Proper visceral excitement is completely absent.

 

 

STRIPPED (1995)

 

This conceptually stripped-to-the-bone version of the Stones, with “Like a Rolling Stone,”  “Street Fighting Man,”  mostly songs from the Sixties and some from the early Seventies, plus a blues to end off, is my favourite Stones album of the Nineties and, with Voodoo Lounge, one of the only two albums from this decade that I was willing to pay good money for at the time of release.

 

Most of the tracks seemed to be acoustic based and/or are played with what sounds like minimal amplification and effects, as if the band were playing in their lounge, almost like rehearsals, and it’s some of the most unaffected vocals by Mick Jagger one could hope to hear.

 

The songs show that the Stones do not have to rely on bluster and bombast and that the songs can stand the low key, acoustic treatment and still shine.

 

For my money, this is not only the best and most entertaining Stones’ live album since Love You Live, but just a damn fine record.

 

 

BRIDGES TO BABYLON (1997)

 

Never bought this record and never listened to it until I wrote this.

 

The first impression is that the production is quite excellent. The sound is beefy, sharp and clear and the music positively booms from the speakers.   Where the positive is that the album sound great, one is still left with the feeling that the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts and that the parts, though each may be individually worthy, don’t quite register in the mind as well as they could or should.  It’s the quintessential issue with Rolling Stones albums since the Eighties that they sound good, even exciting, when one listens but fade pretty quickly from one’s memory once the music stops.  They’re no longer truly “Stones records” in the way we came to know and love them but simply, and regrettably, generic rock albums.

 

 

NO SECURITY (1998) 

 

By now the Stones had firmly established the routine of record releases with each studio album followed by a tour and live album, and this set is taken from performances on the Bridges to Babylon tour.

 

The mix is a nice compromise between new music, lesser known songs, over familiar songs, one stone classic in “Gimme Shelter,” and the omission of “Start Me Up.”

 

 

LIVE LICKS (2004)

 

The tracks form this live set were recorded on the tour supporting the Forty Licks  compilation album and this album seems quite redundant seeing as it’s just another live set of songs we know well, though, I suppose, the avid fan can point to the inclusion of  tracks like “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” “Rock Me, Baby” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” that do deviate from the norm. Otherwise, though, one might as well just stick with Forty Licks, or any of the other good compilations of the best of the Stones.

 

The band plays well, the sound is good, and the material is generally exemplary. By this time, though, nobody went to a Stones concert for any reason other than just the event. The music is not transcendent or even viscerally exciting, or only so because of the huge sound the sound guys achieve.

 

 

 

A BIGGER BANG (2005)

 

This is the first Stones studio album I bought since Voodoo  Lounge, because the reviews were so highly positive.

 

This album clocks in at 64 minutes and is also a tad overlong. Having said that, the guitars are rougher and tougher, almost fiercely ragged, than they’ve been in a while and the drum and bass grooves are feet tappingly energised. The problem always is, though, as proficient as the musicians are, are as excellent as the production is and as well-crafted as the songs may be, there’s little here to retain in the memory as classic Stones stuff.

 

A straight blues like “Back of My Hand”  is by far the hardest hitting track on the album mostly because it does seem less tooled and geared than the rest.

 

A Bigger Bang is an admirable project and enjoyable to listen to, much like Voodoo Lounge or Bridges to Babylon, and as quicky and easily forgettable as those albums too.  Instead of putting a lengthy album every five or six (or more) years, the Stones would perhaps have better off releasing short albums more frequently. 

 

 

SHINE A LIGHT (2008)

 

Taken from performances at a charity concert for Bill Clinton and also preserved for posterity by a Martin Scorsese concert movie. There are umpteen official DVDs of various Stones tours from 1978 onward and it therefore seems as if most of our visual record of the band reflects the old guys, preponderantly more so than the far younger Stones of the Sixties or Seventies, but perhaps that’s just my perception but the period between 1969 (Altamont) and the mid-Seventies seems to be covered by only Gimme Shelter and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones, the 30 years between 1990 and 2020 is oversupplied with concert videos.

 

This one is almost as much a Martin Scorsese event as it is a Stones show. The stage is perfectly lit, and the sound is awesome, both far easier to accomplish in a theatre rather than a stadium, and the band plays tough, loud and with apparent enthusiasm. The Stones on stage is clearly the proverbial well-oiled machine. 

 

Only three of the songs were released after 1980 and the rest are the usual, over familiar crowd pleasers. Buddy Guy is the guest artist on “Champagne & Reefer” and Christina Aguilera sings along on “Live With Me.”

 

Going to the theatre to experience the movie is like being at the show and it’s good fun, but no more.

 

 

BLUE & LONESOME (2016)

 

The Stones started out as bluesmen wannabes, with Jagger declining to be in the pop music lark after the age of 30, then reconsidering when he did turn 30 and realised that the bluesmen the Stones had been emulating were still forces to be reckoned with well into middle age and after.  Here, when the core band members are in their Seventies, they give us a set of, presumably, favourite blues numbers, and do quite well at it.

 

I wonder why it took them so long to release a pure blues set, given that their music, especially up to Exile on Main Street, was so heavily informed by blues and they often threw in a nice little blues number to nestle brightly amongst the rock tracks of their various albums.  Whatever the reason,  whether as a stopgap because they didn’t have original material and needed to issue a studio album or simply wanted to show off their blues chops while they still could, it’s a very enjoyable set and the band sounds like they’re having unadulterated, unpressurised fun.

 

From the get-go, apart from perhaps “Little Red Rooster,” the Stones weren’t a purist blues band, fusing too many different genres into their musical stew but their R & B roots were always on show in their rock ‘n roll, and they rocked the R & B with brio and swagger. Here, they sound like a dynamite club band, good for accompanying drinking and dancing in a smoky room. 

 

I reckon only Stripped and this album need be in any record collection to represent the Rolling Stones in the 30 year period from 1990 to 2020.