"The Rolling Stones" Thread

[Rikk]

The second song released from this album is great.

It has very much a SHINE A LIGHT-sorta vibe (I mean the song from EXILE, not the mediocre concert film Scorsese released some years back).

It also reminds me of an excellent song from the deluxe EXILE set called FOLLOWING THE RIVER. This was another gospel ballad the band recorded for EXILE but never did vocals for. I figure it didn't make EXILE because they already had two gospel ballads in SHINE A LIGHT and LET IT LOOSE. But when FOLLOWING THE RIVER was released in 2010, I loved it. And still do. That whole EXILE outtakes album was really good (actually, much better than the SOME GIRLS outtakes album...they picked all the wrong outtakes for that SOME GIRLS outtake set...I bet Ford would agree with me on this point).

This song also features Stevie Wonder on keyboards...and the Lady Gaga part I thought would turn me off. But it didn't. Her vocals have a kind of GIMME SHELTER vibe.

[FORD]

I liked the Some Girls outtakes disc, but they probably used too many country songs. Ironic since much of the original album was about as close to punk as the Stones ever got. And I still like the original 1977 demo of "No Spare Parts" better than the 2011 overdubbed version

[Rikk]

I liked the Some Girls outtakes disc, but they probably used too many country songs. Ironic since much of the original album was about as close to punk as the Stones ever got. And I still like the original 1977 demo of "No Spare Parts" better than the 2011 overdubbed version.

I totally agree.

It wasn't a bad album...but it's very homogenized. It just doesn't reflect the sound of most of those sessions. And I've heard plenty of SOME GIRLS outtakes that are better choices than the ones they picked for that album.

And yeah, the original NO SPARE PARTS is just...better. Less polished but better. (I think that cool lead guitar, which sounds slightly out of tune, was mixed out on the official version.)

[Kristy]

The problem with Kristy is (s)he has no soul. The brain is a pile of drug riddled mush, and the soul was never there to begin with.

Remember kids, this is coming from Von. A (wo)man is praises Kid Rock

[Kristy]

Seriously, how do you know "EXACTLY" what Justin Bieber sounds like?

I couldn't even name you one of his fucking songs.

Easy:

[Rikk]

Easy:

OK...that's fucking hilarious. (Almost as good as the Harry/Meghan episode from last year.)

[Von Halen]

Seriously, how do you know "EXACTLY" what Justin Bieber sounds like?

I couldn't even name you one of his fucking songs.

It's hilarious. (S)he is the only one on here that knows what a Justin Beiber song sounds like. But I'll tell you what. If that motherfucker made songs like this new Stones song, everybody on here would know his work. Instead of making little girly boys like Kristy's assholes tingle, he'd be making women's pussies wet!

[Kristy]

But I'll tell you what. If that motherfucker made songs like this new Stones song, everybody on here would know his work. Instead of making little girly boys like Kristy's assholes tingle, he'd be making women's pussies wet!

Gossip

https://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/slideshows/justin-beiber-a-timeline-of-poontang/

[Rikk]

Gossip

https://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/s...e-of-poontang/

Where do you find these articles? Did you have this bookmarked for your personal connection? What the living fuck?

[Rikk]

...This UCR review just made me THAT MUCH more excited for this new Stones LP...

OK...this review makes me REALLY excited about the new Stones album. I haven't been this excited about a new Stones album in so long. I remember being really excited for VOODOO LOUNGE...and, in retrospect, that album was...ok. But it certainly didn't live up to the hype. BUT...after hearing the absolutely amazing new song, Sweet Sounds of Heaven (which I remember Von, Ford & myself creaming over...it has a real EXILE vibe to it), I have truly high hopes for this LP. It would be so damn sweet to get a new Stones album this month that actually captures the vibe of what made so many of us love this band so fucking much...


THE ROLLING STONES - Hackney Diamonds Album Review
Ultimate Classic Rock

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-album-review/?influencer=hindsight

The last time the Rolling Stones released a proper studio album, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still a year or two away from retirement age, celebrated expanded reissues of Exile on Main St. and Sticky Fingers weren't even being discussed and, most significantly, original drummer Charlie Watts was still alive. A Bigger Bang arrived in 2005 with a revitalized band linking their gloried past to a new future, and the Stones built on its momentum with several tours, repackaging of their classic records and enough nostalgia to remind everybody that they used to be the greatest band around.

Their 2016 album Blue & Lonesome managed a glance back even further, all the way to their original dues-paying club days, with a set of blues covers first made famous by their earliest heroes. It's the best they sounded on record in decades. Hackney Diamonds, only their second album of original material this century, finds the Rolling Stones at a curious stage in their long career: with both nothing and, for the first time in decades, something to prove.

And they step up for the occasion, delivering their most committed set of songs and performances in years. Starting strong with "Angry" – a blender whirl of classic Stones signposts – and continuing through to the LP-closing acoustic "Rolling Stone Blues," Hackney Diamonds is the rare occurrence of a veteran band embracing its legacy with new determination. The Rolling Stones aren't doing anything new here, but there's a surprising amount of vitality to almost everything they do.

Producer Andrew Watt – who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and Eddie Vedder in recent years – never gets in the way of the songs, while still infusing tracks with nods to the band's storied past. There's Sticky Fingers-like sax in "Get Close," a snarling, punk-inspired Some Girls-era vocal from Mick Jagger in "Bite My Head Off" and "Dreamy Skies," a Beggars Banquet throwback featuring Keith Richards on acoustic slide. Hackney Diamonds sounds like a half-century's worth of classic Stones music distilled into 50 exhilarating minutes.

The album comes with a bigger guest list than usual: Elton John, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and original bassist Bill Wyman show up in some capacity throughout. The late Watts appears on a couple of tracks that were started before his 2021 death. Steve Jordan, the Stones' touring drummer and Richards' longtime solo sideman, ably fills in for the rest. But it's the songs that will immediately fucking grab you. Even the ballads are uniformly solid: "Depending on You" and "Driving Me Too Hard" absorb country influences; "Sweet Sounds of Heaven" builds over seven and a half minutes, recalling a Let It Bleed castoff with Lady Gaga channeling Merry Clayton. Maybe it's the renewal of their fighting spirit, or perhaps they realize that because it took nearly two decades to get here, this could be their last album. Whatever the reason, Hackney Diamonds finds the Rolling Stones sublimely reclaiming a crown they relinquished long ago.

[twonabomber]

Rolling Stone has an early review, also

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-review-1234837336/

It’s 2023, and the Rolling Stones Have Made a Record You’ll Want to Play More Than Once — Seriously
They haven't sounded this on top of their game in about half a century

Not counting their blues covers record from 2016, the last time the Rolling Stones bequeathed us with an album of fresh material was during George W. Bush’s presidency. That record, 2006’s A Bigger Bang, was feisty but not especially memorable, and in the nearly two decades since, maybe even the Stones started to wonder if we needed another record by them. If they were going to drag themselves (and us) through the process again, and after such a long gap, they also must have known they’d have to make it worth everyone’s while. Shockingly, they have. A collection of bangers (old-school division) that nobody in their right mind had a right to expect in 2023, Hackney Diamonds (out Oct. 20) isn’t just another new Stones album, but a vibrant and cohesive record — the first Stones album in ages you’ll want to crank more than once before filing away.

Whether it’s a first-time Stones producer (Andrew Watt), bits of technological wizardry, or simply a desire to remind us why we cared about them in the first place, they haven’t sounded this brisk and focused in what feels like a half century. Keith Richards’ and Ron Wood’s guitars are crisp and uncluttered, with most of the slovenly strumming of the past banished. Depending on the song, Mick Jagger sounds snappish, peeved, needy, or insouciant, with lyrics and a more pronounced British accent to match: In the sputtery single “Angry,” he spits out, “It hasn’t rained in a month, the river’s run dry/We haven’t made love, and I wanna know why.” Not exactly rock poetry, true, but he also hasn’t sounded this engaged with the songs since the heyday of the cassette. “Depending on You” could have been one of those draggy ballads that have made their way onto later Stones albums, but Jagger wails as if he wants the whole world to hear him.

When all of those elements come together, a fountain of musical youth miraculously emerges. Toward the end of “Live by the Sword,” one of two tracks they made with drummer Charlie Watts before his passing in 2021, Jagger snarls as the guitars tear it up around him, and you’d hardly think it was the 21st century. With Watt burnishing their sound just enough, songs that could have easily been rote feel revitalized. “Mess It Up” finds Jagger awkwardly trying to connect with anyone under 30 who’s barely heard of the Stones: “You share my photos with all your friends/You put them out there, it don’t make no sense,” he grouses, then complains about his lover stealing his “codes.” (Dude, we think the term is “passwords,” unless you have access to a nuclear arsenal and you’re not telling us.) But the combination of his swooping delivery and Watts’ percussive swing elevates the song, which has a slippery dance-music kick to it. It’s also representative of the way that some of these songs balance Jagger’s popism and Richards’ rockism in a more seamless way than on records like Bridges to Babylon.

Steve Jordan, the longtime X-Pensive Winos member who has taken Watts’ place on the road, plays on the majority of the record. Jordan hits his kit harder than Watts ever did, but his contributions aren’t as jarring as they could have been. The album’s most ambitious track, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” throws everything against the wall: a gradually swelling honky-tonk-gospel arrangement, Jagger ruminating on people going hungry and satisfying his own material thirst, Stevie Wonder rolling along on piano, and Lady Gaga whooping it up for added fervor. Even Richards rouses himself. Ever since his Some Girls highlight “Before They Make Me Run,” his requisite solo cut on every Stones album has felt increasingly slight. But “Tell Me Straight,” which builds on a shadowy, skeletal riff that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Nineties grunge record, is as taut as the rest of the album, and he too sounds invested in every word, avoiding the slurry delivery of the past.

What you won’t find much of here is the late-in-life introspection heard on recent records by some of the Stones’ peers. We’ve arrived at a fascinating period in rock history, when aging boomer rockers aren’t just dragging themselves onstage but continuing to write songs — uncharted territory for them and us. In a first for that generation, we get to hear what‘s on the minds of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, or Judy Collins as they approach or enter their eighties — in songs that confront mortality, look back over tumultuous lives or recent history, and occasionally rant about the state of the planet or politics.

Here and there on Hackney Diamonds, Jagger indulges in contemplative moments of his own. “The streets I used to walk on are full of broken glass/And everywhere I’m looking, there’s memories of the past,” he sings in “Whole Wide World,” which welds zig-zagging guitar parts with lyrics meant to buck us up during troubled times. Looking to get away from it all in the country shuffle “Dreamy Skies,” he longs for an old AM radio and a Hank Williams record.

Those expressions are about as deep as it gets. Jagger is still partial to songs with choruses like “I wanna get close to you” or “You’ll think I’ll mess it up for you.” It feels like a bit of a lost opportunity: Don’t you want to know what’s going on in Jagger’s head? Instead, in “Bite Your Head Off,” which feels like a grumpier-old-men update of “Get Off My Cloud,” he rages, “Ain’t on a leash/Well, I ain’t on a chain/You think I’m your bitch/I’m fucking with your brain.” (He seems more natural singing, “If you wanna get rich, better sit on the board,” in “Live by the Sword.”)

But with a relatively unobtrusive Paul McCartney contributing bass, “Bite Your Head Off” winds up a kicky musical spitball, and the Richards and Wood rave-up at the end is the best sort of sonic roller-coaster ride. The album’s closer — Jagger and Richards alone, playing Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone,” here called “Rolling Stone Blues” — has a palpable and obvious full-circle feel to it. But maybe they’re right. Whether this is their last album or not, maybe songs like “Bite Your Head Off” are the way we want to remember them, and rock itself.

[twonabomber]

Keith Richards interview on the Howard Stern Show tomorrow. Hopefully he's on longer than Jagger was, which might have been a half-hour.

They're doing all kinds of press. Jagger was on Sirius with ex-MTV's Mark Goodman on Classic Rewind. I see various things popping up on my YouTube too.

[Von Halen]

Keith Richards interview on the Howard Stern Show tomorrow. Hopefully he's on longer than Jagger was, which might have been a half-hour.

They're doing all kinds of press. Jagger was on Sirius with ex-MTV's Mark Goodman on Classic Rewind. I see various things popping up on my YouTube too.

Good interview. Keith is a cool motherfucker.

[FORD]

[FORD]