Have you seen my cell phone, baby ... (laying around in Berlin)?

[westen44]

A bit (ok: way too!) twee for my taste. Whenever the Stones try to be poppy or Beatlish, it backfires. They then begin to sound awkward or banal. Let's Spend the Night Together is an example for the latter. The Stones are best when they take a soul, funk, reggae, country, Chuck Berry-rock'n'roll or blues blueprint - all that New World music that is their eternal canvas - and add their 10-20% of Stones flourish to it. That is where they are unbeatable (the only band as good in that department would be J. Geils in their prime for me). The Stones sounded best when they did not try to sound like The Beatles and, vice versa, The Beatles sounded best when they did their little Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road ornamented masterpieces and did not attempt to out-Stone the Stones at their own game with something "authentic and primal" like Get Back or some of the stuff on the White Album. When the Stones play simple, it convinces; when the Beatles played simple, my thought was always "ah, a conscious effort!"  Ironically, The Beatles sophistication could even be heard when they played something relatively simple - their version of Berry's "Rock'n'Roll Music" is beyond anywhere the Stones could have taken the song, just listen to the Stones' version of another Berry song in comparison, "Around and Around", nice but hardly a giant leap away from the original. Unlike The Beatles, the Stones aren't innovators (nor did they want to be), but they are great, loving curators  of essentially all American music. (This is no Stones vs Beatles discussion, the two bands are so different they really don't step on each other's toes at all.)

When it comes to weepy Stones balldads, I prefer Fool to Cry, Memory Motel or Waiting on a Friend to Angie which sounds constructed to me. Of course millions think different!!!

In general, I don't much like ballads regardless of who the band is.  Plus, "Angie" isn't really the best Stones ballad, either.  But I have a friend who does a great cover of it which I like quite a lot.  Also, I do think the lyrics are quite good.  So to me personally the song does deserve an honorable mention. 

As for the Stones vs. Beatles competition, it most likely helped both bands be even better.  After all these years, it might be looked at as a good thing.  Ringo's lighthearted suggestion that "Revolver" be called "After Geography" in response to "Aftermath," was probably silly, but a clear reminder that the two bands were always closely keeping up with each other. 

[uwe]

"Some Girls" has three grand tracks (Miss You, Faraway Eyes & Beast of Burden), some ok tracks (the title one) and quite a few fillers, the kind of stuff the Stones write while tuning up. Sticky Fingers is a lot more cohesive, but then releasing cohesive albums has never been the Stones' forte. They never really adopted that 70ies concept of "the album as an art form". More often than not, they just wrote a couple of good songs and cobbled them together with a couple of not so good songs for whatever album was coming next.

[westen44]

"Some Girls" has three grand tracks (Miss You, Faraway Eyes & Beast of Burden), some ok tracks (the title one) and quite a few fillers, the kind of stuff the Stones write while tuning up. Sticky Fingers is a lot more cohesive, but then releasing cohesive albums has never been the Stones' forte. They never really adopted that 70ies concept of "the album as an art form". More often than not, they just wrote a couple of good songs and cobbled them together with a couple of not so good songs for whatever album was coming next.

I agree.  Of course, coming out with some great songs but not always having cohesive albums may be something that applies to quite a few bands.  In the Stones' case, it might be more obvious than usual.  In my case, though, I regret I stopped buying all their albums.  If I had, I would have conveniently and gradually acquired a nice collection. 

[TBird1958]

Whether you like them or not The Stones were bending gender long before Shep Gordon dreamed up Alice's shtick.

I wanna be a Klassy  Broad too 

[uwe]

Your legs remind me of Bill's in that pic! 

Joe King

PS: That would have been one great LP cover, but it was deemed too risque at the time.

[dadagoboi]

PS: That would have been one great LP cover, but it was deemed too risque at the time.

Widely circulated at the time, it was the 'Have You seen Your Mother, Baby' sleeve.

[uwe]

I knew it was a single cover - that's all they dared with Decca -, but the effect of an album sleeve that decorates a record shop's window for months (as it used to be before people began mistaking electronic data for a record) would of course have been different. But then Decca and Rolling Stones sleeves were an ongoing issue ...

[TBird1958]

I seem to recall seeing it somewhere in my younger years.............

Then I was raiding Mom's closet. 

[dadagoboi]

I knew it was a single cover - that's all they dared with Decca -, but the effect of an album sleeve that decorates a record shop's window for months (as it used to be before people began mistaking electronic data for a record) would of course have been different. But then Decca and Rolling Stones sleeves were an ongoing issue ...

You just make this stuff up as you go along?  Back then singles were still a big deal and they did a lot of publicity for them.  It stirred up controversy, which was the intent.  After it appeared on a single they wouldn't have considered using it on an album cover.  It had served its purpose.
http://books.google.com/books?id=A8d9lD_cw9oC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=rolling+stones+wheelchair+sleeve&source=bl&ots=iTBrosxRXR&sig=K2h3Myt3jxlbND4EtzSVBj_G8QM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=koOgU7DZMsSQqga_xID4Bw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=rolling%20stones%20wheelchair%20sleeve&f=false

Decca was happy to do whatever the Stones wanted, read down the page you'll see how much money they were making them.

[uwe]

Yes, so happy they only took 16 years to release the originally intended "toilet sleeve" to Beggars Banquet:



Release date of album in this sleeve in late 1968,



release date of "toilet sleeve" (in the UK) in 1984, shortly before LPs went out of date. Gosh, Decca sure allowed them anything, they just took their time doing so ... 

And if I may make an eye witness comment from the sixties: Singles came and went, shops didn't decorate their windows with them for months or even years. There was also a practical reason for it: They were just too small to catch visual attention. Yes, singles were still a big market in the UK in the sixties (and seventies as well), but picture sleeves were seldom (in the UK, it drove single collectors there nuts). If you had a good piece of cover art, you used it for your album, unless your record company told you "we'll print this for a few weeks for your single, but it's not going on one of your albums stored in record shops for years!". I'm not denying that Decca was probably happy to have a little controversy, "but let's not get carried away, shan't we?!" Consequently, the US single release saw the controversial "Stones in drag" pic relegated to the rear of the single sleeve. Out of sight from a shop window view.

[dadagoboi]

Yes, so happy they only took 16 years to release the originally intended "toilet sleeve" to Beggars Banquet:



Release date of album in this sleeve in late 1968,



release date of "toilet sleeve" (in the UK) in 1984, shortly before LPs went out of date. Gosh, Decca sure allowed them anything, they just took their time doing so ... 

And if I may make an eye witness comment from the sixties: Singles came and went, shops didn't decorate their windows with them for months or even years. There was also a practical reason for it: They were just too small to catch visual attention. Yes, singles were still a big market in the UK in the sixties (and seventies as well), but picture sleeves were seldom (in the UK, it drove single collectors there nuts). If you had a good piece of cover art, you used it for your album, unless your record company told you "we'll print this for a few weeks for your single, but it's not going on one of your albums stored in record shops for years!". I'm not denying that Decca was probably happy to have a little controversy, "but let's not get carried away, shan't we?!" Consequently, the US single release saw the controversial "Stones in drag" pic relegated to the rear of the single sleeve. Out of sight from a shop window view.

Proof please, not just your conspiracy theory.  Beggar's Banquet cover proves nothing.

[Highlander]

Whether you like them or not The Stones were bending gender long before Shep Gordon dreamed up Alice's shtick.

Nothing new here and across Europe... cross dressing is a tradition here going back beyond American history, and as for the Romans and their togas... I'm trying to keep quiet here as plaid may become apparent...

[uwe]

Proof please, not just your conspiracy theory.  Beggar's Banquet cover proves nothing.

Ok, then let's just settle for the fact that prohibiting the sleeve for more than a decade is ample proof of how "Decca was happy to do whatever the Stones wanted" because they were making so much money off them.

There is no point arguing evolution with creationists either. The dinosaurs all fell off the Ark and drowned, case closed.

Still, we can all enjoy the vid shoot of the time - about 30 seconds of the Stones in drag from 1:40 onwards:

[TBird1958]

Doing Drag is so liberating!





I feel pretty, oh so pretty!

[westen44]

When I think of Decca, I almost always think of their rejection of the Beatles.  That guitar groups were going out of style and that the Beatles had no future in show business.  But then Decca made up for it by signing the Stones, although it's possible George Harrison's positive comments to Dick Rowe about the Stones helped.