The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan

[FogBlueInSanFran]

A fluke. There were posters there though, that I'm convinced the only music they ever listened to is the sound of their toast burning, who just came on to be contrary and annoying. They made it unbearable.

On the contrary, they were fun to take the piss out of and they don’t know shit about music compared to those on this thread so fuck them and I can’t wait for the next one of those threads.

Of course my song won so I might be biased . . . :) Still amazed by that frankly — The Boxer was a total afterthought on my part.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

You missed my nomination!

I did listen to it on the way to and from work and assumed it was a record from the mid 80s til I checked. I liked it okay and thought the final score here was too low but probably around a 6 from me. I wanted to like it more.

 

[BlueHammer85]

 

[RobMCFC]

Some Girls – The Rolling Stones

It’s about time that The Rolling Stones made an appearance on the album review club. We’ve had some 60s/70s icons in The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan after all. (Still no Pink Floyd or The Who, though).

Remarkably, this is my first listen to a whole album from Mick and the boys, but I’m familiar with their biggest songs because I own the 2-CD Forty Licks album. However, the fact that at least half of that album sounds like filler had me worried.

“Miss You” gets Some Girls off to a great start. I enjoyed its funky rhythm and the streak of street-talk in the vocals. A bit of sax, a bit of harmonica, and we're off to a flying start.

With its crunchy guitars, “When The Whip Comes Down” is reminiscent of that classic Stones sound, echoing the days of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.

Other songs like the title track, “Before They Make Me Run” and “Shattered” have some tasteful and interesting guitar licks, but in my notes for “Just My Imagination”, I just wrote meh. “Beast of Burden” has a nice lilting melody, but it goes on a little too long, and it’s a bit repetitive for its running time.

Here's an honest statement: On my second run through this album, I wrote the following about “Lies” whilst it was playing:-

"Lies” is that archetypal 70s boogie song that just sounds too generic – note, I will say this about a lot of country songs: if it just sounds like a generic country song with nothing to mark it out as different, I’m not interested.

And then “Far Away Eyes” comes on. Oh my God! Or should I say, Oh My Gawwwd! This just sounds like that generic country song I said I’d hate! Thank God Steve Earle and the like turned up to save country music in the 80s.

With “Respectable”, there’s more generic barroom boogie. Even though you are the mighty Rolling Stones, you’ve got to do something better than Chuck Berry did – and did it better two decades earlier.

I can understand @bennyboy, whose favourite band of all time is The Rolling Stones, enjoying this album when it was released. The relief of hearing a band come up with something that you enjoy after one or two bad albums is a feeling that I’m sure we can all identify with.

However, hearing this album for the first time 46 years after its release, I’m left feeling a bit nonplussed. There are some decent tracks, but nothing that can sit with the best of The Stones – that’s a high watermark, and an unfair stick to beat them with. Still, it’s hard not to compare these songs to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Gimme Shelter”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, “Paint It Black” and “Sympathy for the Devil”. What great songs this band have produced.

This music should be right up my alley – a proper band playing proper instruments with not too much in the way of gimmicks. I should like it more than The Midnight, but where I was still getting something out of that on the fourth listen, I’ve heard all I need after three this time out. Not a bad album, but a record that just didn’t move me. 6/10

 

[GoatersLeftShin]

My favourite Stones album is Let It Bleed and I still think that after listening to this. I'd heard this years ago but had never returned to it. However, knowing more about the context it was released in - disco and punk being all the rage - it piqued my interest a lot more. When these genres were in full flow there were some musicians who felt their careers could be at an end.

I quite enjoyed the album but if I'm honest, whilst there was some nods to disco and punk, I couldn't help think "this is a pretty typical Stones album" in that it's rock/bluesy and the hint of disco/punk isn't as much as I remembered. All the tracks on it are more than decent but nothing really stood out maybe apart from Miss You but it's not one of my favourite Stones tracks.

I think if I'm honest, I think I like the Stones more of a "best of" band than an album band. I don't think any of their albums are bad, it's just the good stuff stands out a mile on each album.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed this album and will definitely play it again maybe more for background music, I can't help but compare this to Let It Bleed. That's probably extremely unfair on them as it was arguably made at their peak, but when you have peaks as high as they had that's the standard you set.

It's a 7/10 from me.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Amazed they got away with that line from ‘Some Girls’

 

[threespires]

Amazed they got away with that line from ‘Some Girls’

Isn't it claimed that the song is mocking that type of 'thinking' - not sure I buy that, sounds like retrofitting to me. But whatever the intention, it's indicative of a somewhat different time.

 

[GornikDaze]

Like one or two other contributors, I have never listened to a full Stones album.
My early years musical influence was my older brother who got me into LZ, Floyd etc but never the Stones. He dabbled with The Who and The Beatles but thankfully I gave them a swerve.
This was enjoyable enough with its tight delivery of bluesy rock, but I’m just not a fan of Jagger’s voice. It’s been interesting to read the debate on his vocals, at least it’s not just me. I’d agree he’s up there with the best rock n roll front men of all time, but for me he just grates continually.
There are some decent tunes on this album some of which I’ve heard before. I (surprisingly for me) won’t be contrary and dock points for the vocals, as a whole it was a solid 6/10.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Amazed they got away with that line from ‘Some Girls’

I know to which line you are referring but there are another few on that tune that wouldn't pass muster today, plus other lyrics in other songs.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

However, hearing this album for the first time 46 years after its release, I’m left feeling a bit nonplussed. There are some decent tracks, but nothing that can sit with the best of The Stones – that’s a high watermark, and an unfair stick to beat them with. Still, it’s hard not to compare these songs to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Gimme Shelter”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, “Paint It Black” and “Sympathy for the Devil”. What great songs this band have produced.

Immediate disqualification due to its association with "The Big Chill."

(I hope some of you get that reference. If you don't, ask me.)

I like Shelter and Paint and (sacrilegious that you left off) "Can't You hear Me Knocking" but I've never cottoned to their "jumpier" tunes nor their slower tunes. I like them best as a blues boogie and occasional power-chord band. I like this record because it was so defiantly THEM in the face of a very rapidly changing music scene. And this gave them confidence to enter the 80s sounding like themselves, although because of that, I wasn't a big fan of anything they did in the 80s because in general I've just never loved them the way others do. Feel the same about Bruce Springsteen TBH. I get how they're loved, and I really respect them, but they just aren't a band I reach for.