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Post by peter on Jul 24, 2022 9:52:08 GMT
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Post by DarknessFish on Jul 24, 2022 10:09:35 GMT
Classic albums on Beggars Banquet?
Half Machine Lip Moves Mask This Nations Saving Grace ...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2022 15:52:05 GMT
I can't help you with your question, and I doubt anyone else can either, so let's broaden this out and talk about the album. I admittedly have moved away from The Stones quite a lot in the last 15 years, but even before then, when I was more of a fan, I couldn't see why this was so acclaimed. It's meant to be this return to the "authentic" Stones, which means the album is stuffed full of rather forgettable blues, but like many of their albums it is extremely patchy. Here's how I see the tracks. Great - Sympathy For The Devil, Street Fighting Man, Stray Cat Blues. Good - Jigsaw Puzzle, No Expectations Mediocre -...the rest.
I struggle to see it as a classic, even if its regarded that way.
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Post by Charlie O. on Jul 24, 2022 17:59:28 GMT
For me, "Dear Doctor", "Prodigal Son" and "Factory Girl" are the only somewhat subpar tracks, but I wouldn't be without any of them.
If not their best, then still pretty close, I'd say.
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Post by peter on Jul 24, 2022 18:25:11 GMT
Its not a great full album except that Sympathy and Street Fighting Man are the pinnacles for the Rolling Stones. Their Day In The Life.
They made better albums than BB but they never made better songs than those two.
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Post by osgood on Jul 24, 2022 19:05:51 GMT
I wouldn't call it their best, but, in a similar way as Rubber Soul or Face to Face, I find it essential as an album that stylistically opens the way to their peak era.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2022 21:41:30 GMT
Its not a great full album except that Sympathy and Street Fighting Man are the pinnacles for the Rolling Stones. Their Day In The Life. They made better albums than BB but they never made better songs than those two. Wouldn't disagree there. More than any other band we judge The Stones on their highs I think, which were pretty fucking high.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2022 21:42:34 GMT
I wouldn't call it their best, but, in a similar way as Rubber Soul or Face to Face, I find it essential as an album that stylistically opens the way to their peak era. Their peak era was 65-69.
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Sneelock
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Post by Sneelock on Jul 25, 2022 0:19:52 GMT
Man, you guys are nuts. People think it’s a great album because it IS a great album. No klunkers at my house.
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Sneelock
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Post by Sneelock on Jul 25, 2022 0:22:55 GMT
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loveless
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Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
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Post by loveless on Jul 25, 2022 12:17:43 GMT
If not their best, then still pretty close, I'd say. I wonder what Rolling Stones album a person might prefer? On this thread, I wonder it aloud, as people sort of damn Beggars Banquet with faint praise (or less). What's your personal gold standard for a Stones album? Rather than "They got bluesy, rootsy, folky, countrified, etc." (inaccurate/reductive, really - there's still a hell of a psychedelic hangover, as well as some menacing hard rock underpinnings, and some of their most original work of any era), I take the descriptor "authentic" to mean that they sound truly like themselves, i.e. comfortable in their own skin, super confident and informal. Like - Cinderella and the glass slipper. Like...their musical adolescence lead to a certain musical adulthood. I think of BB/LiB to them as I think of Revolver/Pepper for the Beatles - an arrival of sorts, a crucial leap. I'm here for their 1966/7 - I don't need much more than the best of Satanic Majesties ("Lantern"!) and the semi-adjacent single to be happy, BUT... The leap into that next, relatively brief, 68-69 period ( BB, LiB, "Honky Tonk Women", "Jumping Jack Flash"") is beloved and canonized for a reason. "Sympathy" is obviously top fucking tier on every level. And I think the likes of "Jigsaw Puzzle", "Stray Cat Blues", "Salt of the Earth", "No Expectations", "Street Fighting Man"...and, yes, for me, "Dear Doctor" and "Parachute Woman", all speak to a band who have found themselves in a major way. I LOVE "Dear Doctor"! I can't imagine them having tried such a playful thing earlier on (some of the silly bits like "Something Happened to Me Yesterday" seem like lesser stabs at this form of goofiness). "Dear Doctor" sounds like the apex (they go back to this well in later years - "Far Away Eyes", etc. - with lesser results). It's a compelling performance (kicks "Rocky Raccoon" right in the ass - THERE'S your faint praise!). "Parachute Woman" is a SOUND (this is a big part of the character of this record - this sort of low fi studio art that, ala "JJF" and "SFM", really works for them). And to that end, while I don't necessarily single out "Prodigal Son" and "Factory Girl" as individual tracks I'm always dying to hear out of context, they are very much a crucial part of the overall experience. Albums are like that - certain things set up other things, or are meant to be taken all together. I don't think they ever bettered it, myself. (TO BE CONTINUED)
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loveless
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Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
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Post by loveless on Jul 25, 2022 12:41:06 GMT
I don't think they ever bettered it, myself.
THAT SAID - I really do take it and Let it Bleed as a pair of twin peaks.
BB seems more lo-fi, mimeographed, "filmy" in its way (the canonical B&W "titles" cover we all grew up with prior to the CD era ultimately suits the context). LiB seems more colorful and decorative (the cover, for sure, but I'm mainly thinking of all the sort of sparkling splashes of color in the likes of "Monkey Man', "Gimme Shelter", "You Can't Always Get What You Want").
Both are "art" - people really making honest to goodness albums (a struggle for them previously, says me) and applying all of their most modern and artful ideas and approaches (the children's choir, the French Horn, Taylor's impressionistic slide playing, the reverse echo on "Silver", the mandolin, even the sort of dynamic build/rest/finale digressive form of "Rambler" - compare this to "Goin' Home" if you doubt that they got better at certain types of experiments).
After this? For me, Sticky Fingers is respectable, if not quite as rarefied - a little less focused and effective on the whole, and Exile is...a chore. "Some other person's favorite album". My loss, surely. They ARE "The Stones" at this point, and will only ever become increasingly moreso (this is not a compliment).
So - not bullish on this, but certainly quite happy to fly the flag for BB/LiB as the sort of top of the mountain.
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Post by osgood on Jul 25, 2022 13:07:36 GMT
I still see Sticky Fingers as their peak, not a wasted second on it. I also rate BB and LIB above Exile (though I would never call it a chore, just that it would certainly benefit from some intense editting). As Charlie said, there are a few not top class tracks on BB, but the whole makes a top class album.
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Post by Charlie O. on Jul 25, 2022 16:52:20 GMT
"Dear Doctor" sounds like the apex (they go back to this well in later years - "Far Away Eyes", etc. - with lesser results). I hate to say it, but the likes of "Far Away Eyes" (a joke that does not keep giving on repeated listens) and the bewilderingly overrated (not a word I use much) "Dead Flowers" may even have retroactively soured me a little on "Dear Doctor". I know that isn't fair, but... it can happen, can't it? I can't actually gainsay anything you've claimed for it. Exile is...a chore. "Some other person's favorite album". *(raises hand)* For years it was Between The Buttons that was my "pet" Stones album, and I still love that, but in the last decade or so I find myself returning to Exile (an album I've known and been fascinated by since I was seven or eight) more and more. I can understand your view, though; it's more of a "vibe" album than a songwriting one - an aesthetic choice that few bands have ever gotten away with, in my view - and the "vibe" isn't an entirely pleasant one. It's their Riot Goin' On, in fact. I will say that after Exile there was a sheer drop in inspiration that (like Sly) they never bounced back from. I also rate BB and LIB above Exile (though I would never call it a chore, just that it would certainly benefit from some intense editing). I actually tried making my own 51-minute condensed Exile back in my cassette making days - the album isn't terribly long as doubles go, and there are certainly a few lesser tracks (though "Let It Loose" is the only one that stubbornly refuses to imprint itself on my consciousness)... but I found that I didn't listen to that condensed version very much - the full album is ultimately more satisfying to me.
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Post by osgood on Jul 25, 2022 17:42:26 GMT
... the bewilderingly overrated (not a word I use much) "Dead Flowers" ... Them's fighting words!!!
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