The Rolling Stones: 1968 to 1982

I recently wrapped up a deep-ish dive on the Stones '68 to '82. Deep-ish because an unqualified deep dive would include any peripheral material, biographies, interviews or documentaries from the period. Whereas I only listened to the ten albums in this time frame - ten or eleven times a piece and did all my usual spreadsheet yadda-yadda - for the below. Beyond what I gleamed from the liner notes or general rock biography out there in the ether, I mean. It's the Rolling Stones - everybody knows something about them, and everyone knows dozens of their songs without even trying. 

I kept the band at arm's length for years. For two reasons: (1) As a Beatles fanatic in the early to mid-nineties, for too long I viewed the band through John Lennon's rather condescending view of them. And (2) the classic rock station I grew up with overplayed the living hell out of them. Yours, too, I bet. Eventually I stopped resisting, and what do you know: they're great. 

This won't be the most surprising take on the albums below. I pretty much rank them the way most people do - with one exception, which was such a glaring deviation from conventional wisdom that I had to check and re-check all my scores a dozen times. Many spins later, my final score for it was even higher. So, I guess I like that one way more than most people. Which one? Read on for the answer, but hint: its title track is being played right now on some classic rock station out there, somewhere. 

10.

Black and Blue
(1976)

Hint number two: it ain't this one. Black and Blue was recorded at the nadir of Keith's heroin days, and I don't respond to much going on here. A lot of people find "Hey Negrita" and "Hand of Fate" to be hidden classics, but they just don't do much for me. It's the only album on this list I find mostly skippable. The very end of it - that ascending keyboard riff that repeats at the close of "Crazy Mama" - is pretty cool, though. 

"Melody" is an exception. It's not exactly a great song - although it very well might be - but it's weird and wonderful as hell. Like Jeff Blehar on Political Beats mentions, Mick's vocal is almost like he's chewing on a piece of the world's most succulent steak at the same time he's singing. It's (by some if not most) accounts a Billy Preston song, though it's attributed to Jagger/ Richards. This sort of thing (credits-stealing) comes up here and there, it must be said. They've been quick to litigate, too, when their own stuff is swiped, such as the whole "Bittersweet Symphony" debacle with the Verve. I don't know if they ever spoke to Sade's people about swiping the little guitar lick from "Melody," but there's one little flourish high up on the neck after the "It was her second name"s that sounds just like the similar motif from "Cherry Pie." 

Marvel comics advertisement and inner sleeve.

Speaking of that "It was her second name," it took me awhile to look up the lyrics to this one, and I kept thinking they were singing "It was a Saturday" in some kind of Edward G. Robinson "Yeah, see" sort of voice. Which was disorienting to say the least. I still kinda hear that when I listen to this song. 

9.

Emotional Rescue
(1980)

Now, Emotional Rescue is a pretty cool record. My two favorites are"Dance, pt. 1" - did they ever do a pt. 2? I'll have to look it up. (Result: they did, later released on Sucking in the Seventies.) I love this one. Putting the capper on that whole end-of-70s disco/NY scene. Also? Franz Ferdinand owes more than a little bit of debt to this track for their big hit "Take Me Out." Did they, too, get the "Bittersweet Symphony" treatment? I could look this up, too, but moving on - and "Where the Boys Go", my favorite track on the album. Spoiler alert: I like big dumb rock songs, and this one is what I imagine it sounds like inside a Duff Beer commercial. 

As for the rest, "Summer Romance" - Not a fave. "Send It To Me" - Not bad. Fun lyrics. Ironically, it was recorded just to perform live, but then they never performed it live. It reminds me of an E Street song but without the E Street. "Let Me Go" - Kind of an underperformed vocal. But there's a great song in here somewhere, they just didn't quite find it. "Indian Girl" - Nope. "Down in the Hole," not bad. I prefer the Alice in Chains version. (Kidding. I do prefer the AIC song, but they're not the same. Sheesh.) "Emotional Rescue" is great - love that middle eight. "All About You" is a worthy closer/ fun RS-bio. 

As for "She's So Cold," you tell me. You know that one: "I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, she's so cold." Yeah, that one. Voting closes at midnight. 

8.

Let It Bleed
(1969)

This is a lot of people's favorite all-time Stones record. I get it. I mean, "Gimme Shelter"? "Midnight Rambler"? "Monkey Man"? "You Can't Always Get What You Want"? All fantastic. (Although the latter's one I've heard too many times. I can't fault it as a song, just one of those "So This Is Christmas" or "Long and Winding Road" tunes I probably can go an awful long time without hearing and be fine with it.) 

Mainly it's on account of the other songs that we find it down here at number eight, although I do love Let It Bleed. I love Emotional Rescue, too - let's be clear, this is a great bunch of albums. Back to Let It Bleed. Jagger has a southern accent affectation that can grate. And "Live With Me" is probably great, too, but it's just kind of a Frankenstein-blues sort of song. Nothing against such a thing, and as spirited an entry in that genre as any. But not the first thing I'd point to as why the Stones were great. See the paragraph above for plenty of that, though.

7.

Goats Head Soup

(1973)

Man, do I hate that album cover. Holy moley. There's a reason few have used "tasteful" in their description of the Stones over the years. 

I'll get this out of the way up front: I'm not an "Angie" fan. Of all the big Stones songs, that's one that I've never softened on. I just can't get past the vocal. It's my least favorite here. Second-to-last is "Coming Down Again," but I kind of love that one. That's the thing with Goats Head Soup; outside of "Angie," every song lands with me. Sure, "Hide Your Love" and "Can You Hear the Music" might be a bit indulgent, but the old mixmaker within me would have found space for both. They break things up nicely.

The song separating them on side two might be my favorite: "Winter." Either that or "Dancing with Mister D." Or "100 years Ago." Or "Silver Train." (The Black Crowes do a nice cover of that.) And it all ends with "Star Star," for which they had to secure permission from the actor for the line "Ali McGraw got mad at you / for giving head to Steve McQueen." (Permission granted.) There's a lot to love here.

And I didn't even mention "Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)". A deserved classic.

6.

Exile on Main Street
(1972)

The most notorious Stones record? Possibly. Maybe probably. It's one that sailed over my head when I got around to it in my informal survey of classic rock, probably back around Y2k but I don't remember exactly when. I'd read so much about it, but when I first heard it I was underwhelmed. I've always loved "Tumbling Dice" and "Rocks Off" but the album just seemed part of some indistinguishable Stones aural mass in my head. It had a Ramones sort of quality to it that I liked, but nothing stuck.

Can't remember when that changed, but now I love it more each time I hear it. Outside of the songs already mentioned, my favorites are "Ventilator Blues" and "Stop Breaking Down" and either captures part of the not-wholly-capturable quality of Exile on Main Street. Taken on their own, they perhaps do not communicate the album's appeal, but taken as part of the overall album experience, they communicate it perfectly. 

The making-of this record is well-documented in a number of places. It's pretty epic reading, but it's worth mentioning it's ultimately a pretty dark tale. Beyond the myth of it all - rock and roll brought back from the edge of madness and heroin, where it otherwise would have remained, unexpressed, unrecorded - is the usual array of Stygian details that appear in any old junkies-grouped-together-with-too-much-but-always-dwindling-money-and-one-step-ahead-of-the-French-authorities tale.

5.

Beggar's Banquet

(1968)

The first Jimmy Miller-produced album and the first, chronologically, of the albums under review here. For some context, the police had busted the Stones for drugs the year before, they released the always-cool "Jumping Jack Flash" in April 1968, and Brian Jones drowned in July, leading to all the events of the second volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century. 

If this album only lopped off the last two songs, it'd be pretty much perfect. (Maybe swap out "Jigsaw Puzzle" too, while we're hindsight-ing. Too Dylan-y. But those were the times.) "Factory Girl" is just cringeworthy. This was their big Maoist period, though, when such was the virtue-signalling of its day. I tried to find a copy of Ian Svenonius's amazing "Beatles vs. Stones" essay to quote for any discussion of this album (particularly its most famous track, "Sympathy for the Devil") but my copy of The Psychic Soviet is packed away somewhere and I couldn't find it. Too bad. 

Equally as famous as "Sympathy for the Devil" is "Street Fighting Man," I suppose, but the sitar throughout that one has always annoyed me. I learned from the liner notes that this was a result of Brian's growing disenchantment with recording with the band and how he'd just sort of wander through the studio, pick up whatever instrument was lying around, and decide to contribute something on the spot. I think it's the wrong approach for this song. I haven't read Keith's memoir, but I bet he agrees with me. 

While we're here, who sang it better: the Black Crowes or Oasis?

Favorites: "Parachute Woman" (Mick seems to be skipping some syllables on his vocal - this confused me on a few listens, when I didn't have the song titles in front of me), "Prodigal Son" (This reminds me of Led Zep's "Bron Y'Ar Stomp" and I kept expecting someone to come in with that "BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!" bit. Good stuff.) And "Stray Cat Blues," which seems to have imprinted something of late-60s London into its vinyl grooves. The lyrics are appropriately reprehensible. I love the fade-out caterwauling. 

4.

Tattoo You

(1981)

In case you were wondering why this is called "1968 to 1982" instead of "1968 to 1981," the year of the release of Tattoo You, it's because the Tattoo tour extended in 1982, ending in Europe, and in Leeds, specifically, resulting in a live album capturing the last live performance of Ian Stewart, Stones co-founder but only one of their retinue of keyboardists over the years. It's pretty good, and I found myself listening to it a lot over the past month. (Skipping "Angie" each time, of course.) I know nothing about Leeds except live albums seem to get recorded there, and there was a movie about their soccer team with Chief O'Brien at some point. 

This is a fun album. It's cobbled together from never-released songs or outtakes from the Emotional Rescue sessions. Which is uncanny, as it contains two absolutely essential Stones tracks: the ubiquitous "Start Me Up" (although they always seem to stop the song before the "you make a dead man come" line at football games or on the radio) and "Waiting For a Friend," with Sonny Rollins on saxophone. Just about as perfect a song and recording as anyone could hope for. 

Let's bullet-point the rest, shall we?

- "Hang Fire." I usually like old-school sort of arrangements, but this isn't a fave. Not bad.

- "Slave." Awesome. The original title was "Vagina." The Stones really did write the whole book on cock rock, something the cover to the top album in our countdown makes fairly explicit. Had this been included on Black and Blue, which is what it was intended for, it would be that album's best and whole-album-justifying track. 

- "Little T & A." I don't know about this one. Mainly Keith's just never my favorite vocalist. The Bigger Bang version is probably better.

- "Black Limousine." - Although one of the few Ron Wood co-credits, I bet it'd have sounded better in the Mick Taylor era. Not that Ron's solo here isn't perfectly rock-god-y; it is. His solo lifts the whole song into a whole new energy level.

- "Neighbours." This seems like it was meant to play over the credits of an 80s film, doesn't it? The lyrics are kind of fun, as is the music video. It was never played much, but they pulled it out of the closet for the No Filter tour.

- "Worried About You." The vocal is eccentric, but there's some truly wonderful guitar throughout this one. Another where had it appeared where it was meant to (Black and Blue) it'd be the second best track on that, behind "Slave." 

- "Tops" and "No Use in Crying" are both fine but not faves. "Heaven" is pretty cool, though. More atmosphere than proper song, I guess, but one I'd have put on a lot of mixes back in the day had I known it existed. 

3.

It's Only Rock and Roll

(1974)

Here's the one I seem to like way more than everyone else. Really, I should swap this with Exile, as far as which album I probably want to throw on more than the other, but I'm a believer in math, and my mathematical average of songs is: Exile (3.73), Tattoo (3.78), and IORR (3.8). So what am I going to do? Throw math and all the things in civilization that depend on it under the bus? No, sir and/or ma'am, not on my watch. 

It starts off a little sluggishly with "If You Can't Rock Me" and "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," but the title track swoops in with all the force of history after that. I used to hate this song, believe it or not. But especially during the past four of five spins, it's steadily revealed itself to me to be a staple of the age. It out-Faces the Faces, out-T-Rexes T-Rex. The Stones were always wearing the musical trends around them like clothes, and they always seemed to fit. (Thankfully they never tried an 80s rap or anything like that, to my knowledge anyway.) 

"Luxury" has been criticized, but I kind of love it. Similarly, "Dance Little Sister" has been called "agreeable filler," and/or in bad taste, which as always is a weird charge to throw at the Stones; they live in bad taste, it's on their passports. But that one has a guttural groove to it I absolutely love. (This from the wiki amuses me: "The lyrics suggest Jagger is asking girls in high heels and tight skirts to dance for him all night." The horrors! Most of it seems to refer to his and then-wife Bianca Jagger's cavorting in Trinidad, watching cricket by day and partying by night.) 

I've seen "Short and Curlies" described similarly, (generic, etc.) but that one's a winner with me as well. The album's essential tracks, however, are "Time Waits For No One" (Mick Taylor's finest song for the band, even if Mick and Keith have the writing credit) and "Fingerprint File," which I can't believe people don't talk about more. It's like the ultimate high point of whatever the hell permutations 60s rock went through up to this point in 1974, ending with the burgeoning Surveillance State which is still with us. Not just the album's essential tracks, but two of the band's overall. 

2.

Some Girls

(1978)

I was born in 1974 and have no memory of this album coming out, but I guess it was a pretty big deal at the time. I do remember seeing the SNL performances a lot when I was a teenager, because I always had SNL reruns on. The three big songs ("Miss You," "Beast of Burden," and "Shattered") are still in heavy rotation, as recently as yesterday when I left the classic rock station on for a few hours. The Stones do not get enough credit, perhaps, for having some of their biggest songs relatively late in their career. Most bands whose big songs were in the 60s were a) not together anymore by 1982, or if they were, b) not still cranking out huge radio staples, but there's these three tunes, and hell, "Start Me Up" was still a few years in the future from Some Girls, and that one remains bigger than them all. 

Anyway, all that late seventies blend of opulence and grime, center of the world/ bowery of New York City is all over this record. And wonderfully so. The cover of "Imagination" is fantastic - nowhere is a 60s band's reaction to the punk explosion of the 70s captured better, and it remains a Stones song despite wearing punk clothes and being a cover of a Motown standard, as far from punk as you can get. The title track is similarly thwacked-out and sleazy, but my favorite is "Lies." You've heard everything here a hundred times in a hundred ways, but I defy you to get through it without steadily cranking it louder and louder, or, if you can resist doing that, while remaining perfectly still. Like "Where the Boys Go," it's mainly just a vehicle for going over the waterfall with wild abandon with the Rolling Stones. Have fun - there will be a crash at the bottom, but it's worth it. 

Had they released this with the set of songs they included as a bonus disc in the deluxe version years later, this would be holding the top spot, no question. Fantastic stuff from start to finish, even if "So Young" is a bit too far on the pedo-creepy side. A band where one of the members had an actual child bride should probably stay away from pedo-creepy songs. Or underage girls altogether. 

1.

Sticky Fingers

(1971)

Was there any question which would top the charts here? Putting the cock in cock rock since 1971.

I first heard "Brown Sugar" back when it was used in Nighthawks, which I watched all the time in the 80s, but I was definitely one of those people lampooned in The Wire who somehow never noticed all the slave ship / master of the house/ plantation rape going on. What the hell? Of course, it's using such taboo imagery to mainly sing about heroin, which is what every song the Stones did in this period seemed to really be about. Nevertheless, the lyrics are most certainly (and gleefully) "problematic" these days. Here's where I say "it rocks anyway" and you say "says the white guy" or something, and fair enough. I should say, though, my pronouncement on the tune is not to wave away the problematic nature of it, only to say perhaps the problematic nature of it adds to it. It's not meant for polite society, and it's not meant to be approved of. And, unlike something like Guns n' Roses "One in a Million," there's no angry intention/ real murkiness here; just hey, you shoulda' heard, just around mid-night. 

How about the rest of things? "Sway" is awesome. Have the Black Crowes ever covered this one? I don't think so. The Rich Robinson Band has, but they've covered a lot of Stones, haven't they? One thing the last two months of heavy Stones listening has taught me: so much of the rock scene of the 90s and early 00s, from the Black Crowes all the way to the Libertines, are playing in mansions the Stones built long ago. "Wild Horses," everyone knows that one, or one of its many cover versions. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," probably my all-time favorite Stones song (followed by "Brown Sugar"), "Bitch", "Dead Flowers" (why Mick's country-voice affectation doesn't bother me here whereas it bothers me pretty much everywhere else, I don't know) and "Moonlight Mile" are all 5 stars apiece. If side two isn't as good as side one, how could it be? That it even comes close is a miracle.

The whole album's great - don't ask, just crank it. 

~