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DandelionPowdermanQuote
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.
They did.
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
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.
They did.
They did what, Dandelion dear?
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René
Yes, yeah, I though I was shot open, yeah, you were a walk in the park
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GasLightStreet
It's amazing such a horrible and incredibly tepid boring pathetic song made it to Track Talk.
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GasLightStreet
It's amazing such a horrible and incredibly tepid boring pathetic song made it to Track Talk.
+ 1
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treaclefingersQuote
71TeleQuote
GasLightStreet
It's amazing such a horrible and incredibly tepid boring pathetic song made it to Track Talk.
+ 1
You have to imagine that at some point since then Mick or Keith has looked at the track listing of 40 Licks and thought, "what the hell were we thinking putting that crap on there?".
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DandelionPowderman
It's easier said than done...
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treaclefingersQuote
DandelionPowderman
It's easier said than done...
that's easy for you to say.
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WitnessQuote
DoxaQuote
Witness
.
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.
- DoxaQuote
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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
Under the strain of a less and less interested fanbase, confronted with newer Stones ideas, displayed in the reception to UNDERCOVER, the partnership between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards also in the same process became more severely exposed. The inclinations of the two - Mick more towards continued innovation, Keith increasingly rather towards further development of the core of music ideas, that had evolved between them - that contrasting attitude, one might assume, changed into a more extreme mutual relationship. That means it was no dissolvement, but a difficult stretch in their partnership. First, towards something approaching a split during DIRTY WORK, then, later, involved in a sought (probably also, difficult) compromise in this issue after the band's virtual reunion. However, all the time with an immanent split in their attitudes making for less ability to work as a creative band in the studio like in their past.
Then what is at work, is the combined effect of two or three (or even four) factors behind what in a too simplified point of view may appear as a, claimed, more or less unprovoked loss of their muse. a) The growing conservatism of the aging fanbase (and its musical generations), b) the increasing difficulty of an elder rock band to attract new generations in order to renew their fanbase, when the band was a stadium venues concert band, and c) the contrasting attitudes between Mick and Keith towards musical innovation vs remaining within their created musical universe.
And when I say that is a too simplified point of view, against which I argue, it is also because the last two albums made with eyes fixed forward, not backward (TATTOO YOU), before this alleged loss of muse, were enterprising albums in my perspective (EMOTIONAL RESCUE and, especially(?) UNDERCOVER).
Add to the mentionned combined effects, d) the difficult situation of the band exposed not to one surrounding scene, but to the split simultaneous presence of a musical "overground" and an underground, the latter consisting of various and different scenes of independent labels and venues for a longer period. Neither of them, that positively oriented towards an older major band's attempts to renew itself, but with a view preferably to make new idols or, alternatively, radical new musical expressions. At best, willing to show the old Stones as the old Stones.
Then it is not simply creative stagnation expressing itself either, when the band later on takes the opportunity to communicate by their recreation of older ideas, which they themselves out of their own accord at that time needed to play out towards their public with the release of VOODOO LOUNGE, to find their own feet again. It may also be an effort to come of out of an isolation that, relatively speaking, had been their situation during parts of the 80s. Besides, the band in addition needed to renew the contract with their customers and audiences, after having lost and having to replace one of their original members (Bill Wyman). In passing,besides, I find the evaluation of VOODOO LOUNGE as recreation of old ideas only, as somewhat exaggerated. Apart from that, what seems most backwards looking, possibly, "You Got Me Rocking" and "I Go Wild", those songs are rather formulaic oriented as such, then needed by the band in their refinding moment, than socalled "Stones-by-numbers". In fact, Stones-by-numbers, although rather successful and catchy, I rather find covering as a characteristic for "Start Me Up".
Then it is remarkable that after having delivered VOODOO LOUNGE, that their next album, although characterized by the personal strained relation Jagger- Richards, was more of a creative ambition again.
So, no, I disagree that their muse was lost, even if was weakened. However, it might have been gradually regained in part,if the band's efforts to do so had been rewarded.
Last edit: Correction of a misprint.
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Witness
Sorry I haven't responded to this post earlier, but let's say it is simply so excellent in its profondness and insight, that it simply left me speechless when I first read it. Needed some time to reflect. My own post looks now very sloppy and like shooting from the hip... Not that I am able to do any better now, but this important post by Witness needs recognition in a form of reply...
I think the trem I used above - "losing muse" - is a bit too vague to explain anything precisely. It is a metaphor, and like with metaphors, they leave rather much for imagination. What I have in mind was to judge more the actual output in terms of its quality and not so much in quantity. In quantitywise there was nothing dramatical changes happening during the 80's: Mick and Keith came up with a new material as they had done earlier. So the 'muse' was still there, in that sense. And like you pointed out, UNDERCOVER was a serious try for re-invention. From outset, there was nothing wrong. The band was releasing albums almost as often they had earlier done. That's radically different in compared their later doings, especially since BRIDGES TO BABYLON. A great poster here, Edward Twining, once said that EMOTIONAL RESCUE was the first album the Stones did just the sake of making an album, and I think he hits something crucial there. That's a clear sign of having problems in muse department. What it is called period of their mid-seventies decline - from GOATS HEAD SOUP to BLACK&BLUE - suffers bit of the same problem. The focus and point, at least compared to the masterpieces prior them, was somehow lost; they weren't sure what to 'say' (that didn't mean that they didn't try to reinvent themselves, they did, but the sort of conviction and sense of direction they had earlier, wasn't there). In SOME GIRLS they found that focus and point again, but EMOTIONAL RESCUE was a rather big let down again. A tricky TATTOO YOU didn't say a lot of their current condition. UNDERCOVER did, as a real follower of EMOTIONAL RESCUE, but it wasn't any SOME GIRLS either. It sales were disappointing after TATTOO YOU (but no tour to promote it), and even today it is a rather forgotten album by critics, rock historians and many Stones fans. Its front song, "Undercover of the Night", never turned out to be any big Stones classic.
Let me now repeat the great insights Witness made in his brilliant post about why the 80's albums - especially UNDERCOVER and DIRTY WORK - were doomed to fail:
a) The growing conservatism of the aging fanbase (and its musical generations).
b) The increasing difficulty of an elder rock band to attract new generations in order to renew their fanbase, when the band was a stadium venues concert band.
c) The contrasting attitudes between Mick and Keith towards musical innovation vs remaining within their created musical universe.
d) The difficult situation of the band exposed not to one surrounding scene, but to the split simultaneous presence of a musical "overground" and an underground, the latter consisting of various and different scenes of independent labels and venues for a longer period.
All of these points tell a story why the albums didn't 'make' it. Three of them (a, b, d) seem to be reasons that was not all in the hands of them. Like I rhetorically suggested earlier, no matter what they had done, wouldn't have a chance to overcome the factors of (b) and (d) - the time simply was not any longer on their side (the same was with many of their contemporaries from the 60's). Probably both UNDERCOVER and DIRTY WORK were too 'experimental' or 'current' to deal with the factor (a). That is to say, roughly, that the albums were too old-fashionable to attract new audiences, but too modern to attract the old ones. They couldn't find the 'right' balance.
But still more than that, I think, the quality of the material was the biggest problem. Especially for their older audience, the albums suffered compared to their earlier works (and some of those albums weren't yet decades, but just some years old, and people still had that quality level, and expectations based on them, still fresh in mind). To get new audiences, there wasn't a winner like "Miss You" or "Start Me Up" like to catch their eye, no matter how much, say, "Undercover of The Night" tried that. I think that number is a great example of the problems here: it tries so hard to be modern, with its sounds and videos; it is innovative (in their standards) but something crucial is missing to convince people and leave bigger impact. It clearly drops to the hole between the two audiences I described above, unlike, say, "Miss You" five years earlier. I think the problem is not with the taste of audiences, but in the song itself. I would call that 'losing a muse' - the ability to make awesome songs, instant 'classics'. To me it looks like that the trends and sounds of the day - modern technology and instruments and what to do with them - was not simply in their reach any longer. Neither a retro thing like "She Was Hot" was great or memorable enough to make bigger impact even in their old audiences. A cover of good old dance number, saved what was was worth saving from DIRTY WORK, but that wasn't saying much positive about the creative state of the band (they have the world's second famous song-maker duo there, and they release a cover as a leading single of the album). A modern hard rock sounding "One Hit" seemingly, once again, dropped into hole between the tastes of two audiences. Okay, these were the 'big songs' of the albums, potential hit numbers (singe A-sides), and we know the EXILE argument what goes for hits, but, frankly, there was no EXILE level material to be found either in UNDERCOVER or DIRTY WORK to compensate the lack of killer songs.
It could be that the factor made in (c), that of Mick and Keith couldn't get along creatively any longer, had something to with their creative decline. That, however, had already started during the early seventies, and seemingly reached a new level in EMOTIONAL RESCUE, and UNDERCOVER and DIRTY WORK continued there. Sometimes a tension, and a healthy competition, can bring excellent results (think of Jones vs. Jagger/Richard tension of the old days), but seemingly that was not any longer the case. I think the argument mostly considered, like Witness pointed, about the whole direction of the band, and not having consensus there surely hurted the results in records. Both had shown that they were able to make great songs individually, but what songs to pick up and what to do with them, seemed to be the problem. Even though I think that the worst thing, especially in DIRTY WORK, was that of other Glimmer Twin was not any longer wholeheartidly involved (but even still dictating quite a lot what kind of material the album was to be consisted on). Once again, having problems in that department - choices what songs to pick up, how to produce and mix them, etc - was one of sign of losing a muse.
To anyone who have followed me here, and grasped anything, I offer a drink in next bar! I go there right now...
- Doxa
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HenrikBB
Now I´ll dress in full armour, - and find my plexiglass-shield, -
and in full cover shout :
I LOVE "STEALING MY HEART" ! ! !