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matxil
A terrible terrible song. One of their worst. I guess they tried to imitate the lousy new-wave/grunge/indie type of rubbish rock we've been hearing since the eighties. (Lame chord progressions, lame rhythm, dull guitar sound, weak melodies).
It sort of confirms my theory that one of the reasons why the Stones haven't really made any great record after Tattoo You is because there is no other music around to be inspired by. In the 60s and 70s there were plenty of other bands with interesting sounds or approaches, but the last time they got inspired in a good way by what was going around was at the end of the 70s, ironically, both by disco and punk.
But since then, there's only been whining new-wave, even more whining grunge and even more more whining indie, all with a sauce of monotonous distortioned guitars and sad singers who seem to tired too sing.
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DoxaQuote
matxil
A terrible terrible song. One of their worst. I guess they tried to imitate the lousy new-wave/grunge/indie type of rubbish rock we've been hearing since the eighties. (Lame chord progressions, lame rhythm, dull guitar sound, weak melodies).
It sort of confirms my theory that one of the reasons why the Stones haven't really made any great record after Tattoo You is because there is no other music around to be inspired by. In the 60s and 70s there were plenty of other bands with interesting sounds or approaches, but the last time they got inspired in a good way by what was going around was at the end of the 70s, ironically, both by disco and punk.
But since then, there's only been whining new-wave, even more whining grunge and even more more whining indie, all with a sauce of monotonous distortioned guitars and sad singers who seem to tired too sing.
Good point. Be the contemporary music good or not, one reason can be that the Stones couldn't any longer convincingly adapt to the new trends, or update their own sound to fit to them (after disco and punk). Maybe there were certain natural limits in their musical scope, stemming from the rhythm and blues, which simply didn't allow them to cope with the new musical trends any longer. And the guys also got old...
I think one reason for Jagger's solo career (attempt) was that of being skeptical (or realistic) about the chances of the Stones being able to transform themselves enough to suit to the times. But Jagger couldn't do that convincingly alone either.
- Doxa
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matxil
Coming to think of it, if they want to be more contemporary, maybe they should listen a bit more to Frank Black. Although I suppose he falls into the "indie / post-punk" category, he is an interesting songwriter and his solo-albums (especially with the Catholics) are really fresh and fun to listen to (e.g. Pistolero or Dogs in the Sand).
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DandelionPowderman
I think SW is their last great album, Witness. I look past the production, and cherish the songs and the variety, as I'm sure you do with Undercover.
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DandelionPowderman
I think SW is their last great album, Witness. I look past the production, and cherish the songs and the variety, as I'm sure you do with Undercover.
However, in fact, I don't look past the production of UNDERCOVER, I appreciate it. I do like the sound. ("Should" I not?)
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Witness
And when the Stones might have become more reserved at assimilating newer impulses from the music scene outside, within which to develop own music ideas and thereby create new music of their own, my hypothesis is rather that this is due to the reception of especially UNDERCOVER among the Stones' customers and audiences. The band lost much of their incentives to work out their song ideas to full extent, even if they from time to time has anew tried to that in a lesser scale (first and foremost as to BRIDGES TO BABYLON).And I may allude to the problems with the band to work as a band in the studio.
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Witness
If they were to make a new studio album, I'd prefer them to assimilate new ideas once again. H
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DandelionPowderman
Don't have time to read everything, Doxa. But Winning Ugly and hard rock in the same sentence?
Waiting for your fellow countryman, Michael Monroe, to hit the stage here
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Witness
If they were to make a new studio album, I'd prefer them to assimilate new ideas once again. H
Me too. Because I honestly think that that's the only source of inspiration the band ever have had. It doesn't matter if the new ideas derive from latest hit record topping the charts or from a Robert Johnson album. To me the Stones are true artists in the sense that they naturally seek for new ways of self-description. The 'Stones-by-numbers' - albums like VOODOO LOUNGE and A BIGGER BANG - is not that - it's 'been there done that' for them. No real muse or drive. The dilemma is that it seems to be pretty hard for them assimilate new ideas; it looks like that their repertuare is complete by now. I mean, listening to, say, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry or Robert Johnson again does not inspire them any longer; they have milked out that musical source. With that they have perfected the whole idea of rock and roll. And the recent musical trends seem to be out of their reach - that seems to be the case since the days of UNDERCOVER and DIRTY WORK, as I argued above. Since the disco and punk days, it is hard for them to make convincing results by 'updating' their sound, like, for example, indie-sounding "Stealing My Heart" shows.
Let's say that I pretty well understand why they are not too keen on hitting studio these days.
- Doxa
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matxil
A terrible terrible song. One of their worst. I guess they tried to imitate the lousy new-wave/grunge/indie type of rubbish rock we've been hearing since the eighties. (Lame chord progressions, lame rhythm, dull guitar sound, weak melodies).
It sort of confirms my theory that one of the reasons why the Stones haven't really made any great record after Tattoo You is because there is no other music around to be inspired by. In the 60s and 70s there were plenty of other bands with interesting sounds or approaches, but the last time they got inspired in a good way by what was going around was at the end of the 70s, ironically, both by disco and punk.
But since then, there's only been whining new-wave, even more whining grunge and even more more whining indie, all with a sauce of monotonous distortioned guitars and sad singers who seem to tired too sing.
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Witness
Now limited by solely having a mobile to write on, only this: I wonder if there might be some further kinds of "folk music" genres, broadly speaking, which they have not entered or not entered so much, that they might utilize. That is their expertise, and there might in case lie their possibility. To base some type of rock music on such genres as well as themselves make some songs within those genres. If so, they might be creative. With that as a core for an album and inspired by such, they might even add some songs from genres that they have used before, and the different context might make those songs emerge fresh, too.
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
LeonidPQuote
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LeonidPThanks for reminding me ... if there's any song worse than Stealing My Heart, it's Keys To Your Love. Losing My Touch is slightly better than both of those.Quote
DandelionPowderman
I really like Keys To Your Love. Should have been the single, imo. It's up there with No Use In Crying.
You like fake-garage, I like soul. Fair enough...
Okay, but we were discussingthesethat terrible songs...
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GasLightStreet
Where as UNDERCOVER was the proper follow up to EMOTIONAL RESCUE and found the band being inventive, creative and willing to do some new things with results that vary, to me anyway, from good to really cool, DIRTY WORK is the sound of an old band attempting to fit in with what was current - which a lot of older artists did with similar results - and failing brilliantly.
Why is it that the younger artists from that time don't sound as bad as the Stones do on DIRTY WORK, regardless of the songs? Maybe they didn't over do it or they totally over did it and made it work?
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GasLightStreet
Where as UNDERCOVER was the proper follow up to EMOTIONAL RESCUE and found the band being inventive, creative and willing to do some new things with results that vary, to me anyway, from good to really cool, DIRTY WORK is the sound of an old band attempting to fit in with what was current - which a lot of older artists did with similar results - and failing brilliantly.
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Witness
As one who happens to like very much some of the, originally, indie music from the '80s and early '90s, for instance the Pixies, what I have heard from Sonic Youth, or music from bands of the shoegazer scene, the point is not so good to me. (From reasons outside music, I completely stopped following that or other scene after the early '90s).
[....]
For who else is Frank Black, even if I did not follow up his career later on, than the Pixies' Black Francis!!! However, I am ready now to do that. I saw the Pixies when DOOLITTLE was new, but had later on for some period somewhat lesser possibility to use money and missed the opportunity to buy TROMPE LE MONDE, which I bought some months ago. Once again, that album was meant by me to be listened to this evening before I read this. (But thank you, matxil, for the reference to and recommendation of Black Frank's other releases.)
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Doxa
But had the Stones chance at all in the 80's? That is, whatever they had done, wouldn't have make it? I don't know. I tend to think that the tricks of the day started to be so far from their own roots in blues that it was impossible for these old dogs to learn them (Keith seemingly was more aware of that, Mick not so much). Perhaps that was a good thing.
- Doxa
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Witness
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I agree and disagree. ..................
Actually I don't even try to name the guilty ones here. My take simply is that the Stones lost the muse during the 80's - the one that had forced them to reinvent their sound, and create exciting music, through the 60's and the 70's. If they simply have done better music, everything might have been different. But they simply couldn't do that any longer, no matter how much they tried. And soon they even stopped trying. Thankfully for them, by the end of the 80's and in early 80's, the whole rock scene made a kind of 'nostalgic turn', and for the Stones - the "real thing", the biggest representative of the classic rock days - was enough just to be the classical sounding Stones. There was no any reason to 'reinvention'; the less of that, the better. There was a huge demand for them (to anything they represented from the legendary 60's and 70's). Especially VOODOO LOUNGE was a perfect album for to please that demand. And it sold more than any album since TATTOO YOU. That their potential audience was not so young any longer, that is, was rather wealthy by then, didn't hurt either. The big money was there, in touring, and pleasing those expectations, took the 'forced' conservatism into a new level altogether. Soon releasing any music, not even 'Stones-by-numbers' ones, was not such a big deal at all.
But had the Stones chance at all in the 80's? That is, whatever they had done, wouldn't have make it? I don't know. I tend to think that the tricks of the day started to be so far from their own roots in blues that it was impossible for these old dogs to learn them (Keith seemingly was more aware of that, Mick not so much). Perhaps that was a good thing.
- Doxa
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Witness
Now limited by solely having a mobile to write on, only this: I wonder if there might be some further kinds of "folk music" genres, broadly speaking, which they have not entered or not entered so much, that they might utilize. That is their expertise, and there might in case lie their possibility. To base some type of rock music on such genres as well as themselves make some songs within those genres. If so, they might be creative. With that as a core for an album and inspired by such, they might even add some songs from genres that they have used before, and the different context might make those songs emerge fresh, too.
Witness, I like your idea, but the problem (as I see it) is that the Glimmer Twins are no longer intersted in creating interesting, vital new music. Each of them has other interests that they find far more gratifying (spending time with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, producing films, performing their songs in concert, counting their money, reading history books, growing lemon trees, etc etc). And this is compounded by the fact that their creative partnership -- and with it the remarkable creative muse that generated so much wonderful music -- long ago dissolved (in all but name). And to top it off, Mick and Keith know that they can get away with crap like Stealing My Heart because no one really cares anymore except us die-hard fans.
Drew
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billwebster
A good song, maybe my favourite of the "Four Licks". They should indeed have recorded an album's worth of song there and then, even though they had no immediate use for them at the time. They sound pretty inspired. Not doing that was a huge missed opportunity.
So we must be happy with what we got. "Stealing My Heart" really should have been the 2nd single from "40 Licks". But as it wasn't, it's unlikely they'll ever try it out in concert.
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Witness
Well, there is some "shoegazer/post-punk" music I actually do like, for instance Joy Division, Virgin Prunes (not sure whether that is shoegazer or just weird), Wire, PIL, ...
But, I don't see how the Stones could ever get influenced by aforementioned bands, I mean, imagine Mick Jagger singing seriously, without any tongue in cheek, about "a crisis that he knew that would come, destroying the balance he kept"... But hey, it might have been interesting. PIL might be interesting for them too, what with all the dub influences in that. Then again, I think I read somewhere that Keith can't stand Johnny Rotten (although that never stopped Mick Jagger...)
I thought Pixies were fun but I like Frank Black better. And I guess Frank Black, even though he has modern post-punk influences, clearly also has more American "roots music" influences, at least in those albums that I mentioned. So it might be easier for the Stones to relate to it.
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Doxa
But had the Stones chance at all in the 80's? That is, whatever they had done, wouldn't have make it? I don't know. I tend to think that the tricks of the day started to be so far from their own roots in blues that it was impossible for these old dogs to learn them (Keith seemingly was more aware of that, Mick not so much). Perhaps that was a good thing.
- Doxa
I fully agree.
Maybe if they really wouldn't haven given a **** about their audience, and gone really experimental (i.e. get influenced by PIL for instance) something interesting might have come up. On the other hand, the last time they did that, they came out with Her Satanic Majesties... I don't know what's worse actually, a joke like Her Satanic or a bore like Voodoo Lounge.