Early Rolling Stones Masterpieces

[craner]

He was a magic ingredient for a while.

 

[Woebot]

I don't think there's a lot of hidden gold here, but I could be wrong.

that's why digging around the early lps is interesting (i splurged on the mono box set) - quite a lot of nice things one hasnt heard.

@craner - but "the last time" TOTALLY. a personal fave that one.

 

[version]

Dennis Wilson was the only "authentic" beach boy

ahem

 

[Woebot]

especially when done like this

quite unpleasant, mean lyrics!

@woops that's great. and yes nasty.

i gotta admit (as an only partially reconscructed man) that's why "back street girl" and "under my thumb" are (in the truest sense) guilty pleasures.

but with "back street girl" its grasp of feminine psychology is very deft. because i'd wager that's something which is FINE by many women - i just want you for your raw sex appeal dahling. "you're rather common of course anyway" ESPECIALLY adressed to his posh groupies - they'd LOVE IT.

let's re-up that one

 

[Woebot]

He was a magic ingredient for a while.

was brian's group!

here's an interview with genesis p orridge talking about his love for brian jones - quite a cool bit of conspiracy theory in there [round 1 min in]

 

[Woebot]

There's something about Jagger being unable to sing

check the end of "congratulations" where he just goes "la la la" where the backing vocals go "congratulations" - wicked conceit - very clever [2 mins in]

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

He was a magic ingredient for a while

in every sense

he's the Stones' Cliff Burton: original force who and driving spirit/cult figure who's departure robbed the band of its essential quality

crossed with typical self-destructive tortured soul artist but ramped up to 11

Syd Barrett is an obvious comparison but he was also PF's primary composer, whereas Jones famously never wrote anything

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I appreciate the idea of Stones as original - and archetypal - Rock band, followed closely by The Who

whereas the Beatles were a rocknroll band (i.e. their Hamburg days) that then became the world's most fwd pop. never a Rock band tho.

Jagger/Richards obviously an all-time songwriting partnership. I'd take them over Lennon/McCartney for sure.

L/M undoubtedly have more and across a much wider stylistic range, but the Stones were the first to get on top of a killer riff and just fucking hammer it

whence Zeppelin, Sabbath, and etc

 

[muser]

I think it's so hard to judge even the music of the beatles/stones when you didn't grow up in the 60s. The radicalism of it. A lot of it sounds corny or like old hat now which at the time must have sounded exciting/terrifying to people at the time.

The stones now seem so far removed from being dangerous that it's hard to imagine they ever were considered as such.

I'v been going back over Pet Sounds recently and Smile Sessions and it's a similar sort of deal. Hard to fully grasp how radical they were. Although I'd say despite being more poppy by nature they managed to maintain a bit more radicalism than the stones to modern ears. Maybe just because there were much less similar sounding groups that followed.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the Stones also felt dangerous in a way that neither the Beatles nor any big group of the time really did

50+ years, the last 30 years of which they've been basically a nostalgia act/self-parody, really dulls that. it seems very quaint now.

they knew and played up to it obviously, large part of their mystique/appeal

symbolically/literally culminating in Altamont, the urban legend that they were playing Sympathy for the Devil when Meredith Hunter was killd

after which they retreat into roots rock

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Mick not really being a singer is somehow part of that I think

it's not just that the olds can't get it, it's a harbinger of the dissolution of society

this fey pouty lipped motherfucker oozing sex appeal, monotone warbling about street fighting and the devil

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it makes me think of Cato the Elder and his horror at the Hellenization of Roman culture as embodied by Scipio Africanus etc

his horror at the decline of traditional Roman values - austere, stoic, resolute, flinty hard, obsessed with honor (well that last never changed)

and their replacement with urbanity, ostentation, wit, style over substance, philosophy

populist politicians in the late Republic - Scipio, Pulcher, Caesar - were sometimes accused of using sexual magnetism in service of their politics

Jagger obviously a supernova of charisma

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

i.e. see MC5 (arguably, with Blue Cheer, the archetypal Hard Rock band) play a freakout version of Black to Comm for some olds who just do not get it

middle-aged TV host dude comes on at end and literally says "I give up" and it comes across like he could mean on life, society, anything

this alien mystery will never reveal itself to you. you will live with this knowledge until you die.

it's hard to imagine, as always, music having that kind of effect on people nowadays.

MC5 of course a different kind of dangerous - obvious danger

Jagger more dangerous because the danger is seductive

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and now he's just been around long enough to make all kinds of weird choices

the completely insane insanely mid-80s cover of Dancing in the Streets with David Bowie

this pretty bad but enjoyable random cyberpunk B-movie with Emilio Estevez. wut?

(btw I saw that when I was like 8, way before I knew who the Rolling Stones were, so it's my formative Jagger memory)

 

[Woebot]

awesome stiff here padraig. never seen that MC5 thing.

with the stones the challenge must have been that THEY WERE SO FUCKING POPULAR!

on the "early" tip - here's something i watch time and again

 

[Woebot]

here's another early beauty.

they suck all the filling out of the blues. you're just left with this thing, waspy rattling sound. but it's so much less boring than the blues and "authentic" modern blues can be. it knows how cheeky it is...

 

[Woebot]

and now he's just been around long enough to make all kinds of weird choices

the completely insane insanely mid-80s cover of Dancing in the Streets with David Bowie

this pretty bad but enjoyable random cyberpunk B-movie with Emilio Estevez. wut?

(btw I saw that when I was like 8, way before I knew who the Rolling Stones were, so it's my formative Jagger memory)

HA HA HA"you can't get rid of me that easily" they'll have that on his tombstone.

 

[jenks]

Those two NME poll winners party 64 and 65 I think - they're on youtube - are great - skinny boys making it up as they go along.

I do think though there has always been a nasty side to the Stones - Under my Thumb has pretty vile lyrics, there's a misogynistic sneer that runs through lots of that early stuff - like a proto incel - Paint It Black being a perfect example.

Also you forget how much class mattered - all those songs about what people's parents do - they only really kick that when they adopt the later bohemian royalty personas - my favourite Stones era 69-75 - there's a live concert from Leeds in about 71 which is just incendiary

 

[Corpsey]

Under My Thumb is inexcusable, but Paint It Black seems (appropriately) murkier to me?

According to Wiki the fount of Truth

"The song describes the extreme grief suffered by one stunned by the sudden and unexpected loss of a wife, lover or partner. It is often claimed that Jagger took inspiration from novelist James Joyce's 1922 book Ulysses, taking the excerpt "I have to turn my head until my darkness goes", referring to the novel's theme of a worldwide view of desperation and desolation."

 

[thirdform]

It's actually a liberal feminist anthem, under my thumb is.

of course liberalism relies on collective amnesia but that's an indictment of feminism.