The Rolling Stones: Metamorphosis (1975)

Beyond the obvious inspiration from Kafka, this album cover is unique in that it is only one of two Rolling Stones albums that depict both Mick Taylor (bottom left) and Brian Jones (bottom right), though they were not in the band at the same time. The other is Rolled Gold: The Very Best of The Rolling Stones, released that same year.

Even with the most accomplished and beloved of bands, outtakes can be very tricky turf. Witness The Beatles Anthology, six discs of rare and previously unreleased material from one of the greatest bands of all time. Taken as a whole, it is awfully uneven. The first installment features segments of dialog, presumably to make the collection feel like some sort of audio documentary, complete with obnoxious cross-fades where Paul is still talking about recording "My Bonnie" with Tony Sheridan while the song's intro plays. Someone somewhere realized this was a bad idea, as these snippets are only heard on Anthology One. All this without even really talking about the content.

On the one hand, the Anthology boasts the first official - and digitally remastered - releases of some historically significant tracks: John, Paul, and George's first recordings as a trio; selections from the Decca audition; the rendition of "All My Loving" from The Ed Sullivan Show that got the 1960's off to a start, four years too late; and the acoustic demos for The White Album recorded at Kinfauns. This makes up roughly a quarter of what can be found on the Anthology. Nearly half of the series is presentations of those familiar tunes as works-in-progress. Sometimes the differences are only of interest to the obsessed, other times we get the boys' attempt at "I'll Be Back" from A Hard Day's Night in waltz time, an even more psychedelic "Tomorrow Never Knows," and "Fool On The Hill" in a noticeably different key.

The remaining quarter, though, is what made Anthology ripe for parody, even right after its initial release in the mid-90's: an early version of "And Your Bird Can Sing" that is littered with stoned giggling, studio banter that makes the spliced-and-diced filler on Let It Be seem interesting by comparison, and the instrumental backing tracks to "Eleanor Rigby" and "Within You, Without You." Great songs, don't get me wrong, but for the casual listener, hearing those tunes without their melodies transforms two masterpieces into a melancholy British string quartet and a trip through India in 5/4 time, respectively.

Beginning with the advent of CD's and boxed sets in the early 1990's, unreleased material has gone from the stuff of legends to the expected. Retailers have adopted this into their business model, getting exclusive "Deluxe Editions" of new albums where, for a few dollars more, you can treat yourself to alternate takes, radio edits (since people LOVE censored versions of their favorite songs!), maybe a B-side, and, depending on the artist, a remix of the album's single. Boxed sets started off as collector's items, meant to be enjoyed with a glass of wine while you read the extensive liner notes on a plush sofa placed fifteen feet in front of the hi-fi system, the speakers themselves roughly twenty feet apart. The Beatles Anthology opened the floodgate, and now there is nary a contemporary release that doesn't boast a special edition in some form or another.

Funny enough, The Rolling Stones did all this first, predating The Beatles Anthology by twenty years. Granted, the Stones themselves had nothing to do with Metamorphosis, a collection of outtakes and demos, but credit is still due. A lot of these songs come from a period where Mick Jagger and Keith Richard (he dropped the 's' until 1977 - it probably made much more sense at the time) were not just competing with John and Paul in terms of who had the bigger fan-base, they were also hoping to make a name for themselves as pop songwriters. Recording information for these songs is scarce, but it is safe to say there are several tracks where you aren't even hearing The Rolling Stones at all - score one for us Monkees fans - and are instead hearing some of London's finest session players.

Somewhere along the way, manager Andrew Loog Oldham must have told Mick & Keith to diversify their interests, because there is not a lot of the Stones' early bluesy flavor on this album. Is that a good thing? Well, that depends. As both a fan of The Rolling Stones and British pop from this era, there is a lot of potential in these songs. In a way, this album presents an alternate history of The Rolling Stones. Several of these songs are so unabashedly pop - this coming from the band whose press release warned the British public to lock up their daughters - that it is not too far of a stretch to think that in some parallel universe, Metamorphosis doubles as Britpop pioneers The Rolling Stones' greatest hits.

Perhaps I am over-hyping a little too much, but I've always been a champion of the underdog. This is not an album that will blow your mind or alter your worldview. It is, however, one of the first times a popular band's vaults were opened up for public listening, and that is truly something. At its worst, the weaker tracks can be waved away with a "well, at least you tried." At its best are some fine songs to put on your own best-of mix to surprise your friends, mostly accompanied by the phrase, "Yep, that is The Rolling Stones."

On with the show.

TRACK LISTING
Anyone reading this who hasn't read my album reviews before: I have a very unscientific method of rating albums where the songs are scored on a 1 to 10 scale, reserving 11 for the best track on the album, finding the average, adding a few extra points (see below after the subtotal) before racking up my final letter grade.

The songs on this album were all recorded between 1964 and 1969. For extra information about these tunes, when they were recorded, who went on to record them, all that fun stuff, check out the Wikipedia page for the album.

01. Out Of Time [10]
Imagine dropping the needle on your record player, excited to hear this new Stones album, only to be greeted with sprightly - and very British-sounding - strings. Again, I can't hate, I think this song is a brilliant pop gem. It's catchy, well-produced, and has a good beat. What more could the Ready, Steady, Go! crowd have asked for? This is one gem that should be polished off the next time a Stones compilation is being assembled.

A disappointingly inferior re-recording of this song can be heard on Aftermath and (in abridged form) on Flowers.

02. Don't Lie To Me [6]
Discovering the Stones' earliest work, after first hearing the likes of "Paint It Black," "Brown Sugar," and "Star, Star," was like hearing an entirely different band. It's like listening to The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn after hearing Animals - both great albums, but so incredibly different. That said, I love early Stones. It has a very palpable sense of danger and excitement to it that truly does explain why they were the bad-boy alternative to The Beatles.

This is not the best example of that era. The band turns in a solid performance, delivering the same menacing blues that marks so much of their early career. Ian Stewart, the sixth Stone, plays a lively piano part, while Keith turns in a solid solo, but for the song's first half, Mick sounds half asleep. It is only in the last run-through of the verse that he delivers any of his signature bravado, but it's too little, too late.

03. Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind [8]
From the "well, at least you tried" file, this marks the band's first foray into country music. The lyrics are insipid - a syndrome not unknown among Stones tunes circa 1964 - and the vocal delivery is a bit too exaggerated, but beneath it all is a sweet melody, some great slide guitar, and a subtle percussion arrangement.

04. Each And Every Day Of The Year [4]
This one is a straight-up clunker, and a waste of a trumpet overdub. The song never quite finds its footing, let alone its genre - and what was with the harp flourish at the end? Bringing the worst elements of the previous track without any of its redeeming qualities, I was reminded why the last time I heard this song was in 2003...when I took the newly-bought CD out of its cellophane.

05. Heart Of Stone [9.5]
This is a different version of an early Stones classic, an anti-love song about the joys of being a moody little womanizer. While the version released as a single in 1965 is a downbeat soul number, this outtake does an interesting bit of genre-bending. There is a countrified slide guitar solo, followed immediately by an almost note-for-note rendition of Keith's solo from the released version. For a song that sat in the can for ten years, this shows the first few baby steps towards the innovation that would dominate The Rolling Stones' career for the back half of the 1960's.

Apparently Clem Cattini, a highly valued session drummer in the 60's and 70's, is sitting in for Charlie on this one. He had played on "Tel-Star" by The Tornadoes, "Shakin' All Over" by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, and guested on a few tracks from The Kinks' Misfits album in 1978. Some session guy named Jimmy Page plays guitar here, not entirely sure what became of him...

06. I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys [8.5]
From the "yep, that is The Rolling Stones" file, this song could have been a Beach Boys outtake from around the same era. If anyone takes offense to the blatant misogyny of the lyrics, one fun thing to do is give it a queer reading. Suddenly the line "I'd much rather be with the boys than be with you" takes on an entirely different meaning. Gender studies 101 aside, hearing the Stones do surf music is a unique experience.

07. (Walkin' Thru The) Sleepy City [10]
A wistful melody, dulcet harmonies, lyrics about being out late at night, visiting a cafe, and a yearning for companionship - this all sounds like the making for a classic Kinks song circa Something Else or Village Green Preservation Society. The resemblance to one of my favorite bands - to the point that it rivals Weird Al's style parodies in terms of authentic aping - made this a favorite from first listen. What makes the song truly special, however, is when it was recorded: September 1964. "You Really Got Me" had been released the previous month. In other words, at the time "Sleepy City" was recorded, The Kinks didn't even sound like The Kinks...or at least not the version of The Kinks I had long thought The Rolling Stones were borrowing from.

Which leaves two gaping mysteries: where the Hell did this song come from, and why didn't the Stones ever try anything like this again? Oh, wait...they did, and it was amazing.

08. We're Wastin' Time [5]
Meandering, unmemorable, and with a clumsily busy production, this one lives up to its name. The only thing saving this song from a rating of 3 (or worse) is its fluid and somewhat out of place guitar solo. Also, The Rolling Stones, God bless 'em, couldn't waltz their way out of a wet paper bag.

09. Try A Little Harder [5.5]
Another one that had stayed in the vault for a reason, though it boasts a beefy brass section. Sounding hesitant and limp, I can picture this song taking on a new life when performed live, with a little more oomph. Alas, it never saw official release, so it never had the chance.

10. I Don't Know Why [11]
Covering a Stevie Wonder song, the recently initiated Mick Taylor proves himself with an achingly beautiful solo, while Jagger sings as soulfully as ever. If one song from this collection deserved legitimate release, it was this one. Imagine this track kicking off side B of Let It Bleed, just before "Midnight Rambler." Oh, well, that's why the good Lord gave us the wherewithal to make iTunes playlists.

I'm limiting my rambling asides from entries past (seriously, those things got obnoxiously LONG!), but here's some Stones lore for you: this song was recorded the day Brian Jones died. As to whether the fellas laid this track down before or after they heard the news, it is up for debate. Part of me thinks the song's raw emotion comes from a very real place, but my pal Keno claims the telephone call delivering the bad news brought the session to an end.

11. If You Let Me [10]
A very sweet outtake from Between The Buttons, with a gentle arrangement and some surprisingly vulnerable lyrics. People don't typically associate the Stones with these things, and while that may add to the novelty of hearing the Stones do sweet and vulnerable, it is a great song on its own merits.

12. Jiving Sister Fanny [9]
Whoever compiled this track listing did a nice job, because I have always liked the shift from Kinks-inspired balladry on "If You Let Me" to the coked-out basement blues of "Jiving Sister Fanny," recorded only two years later. Another outtake from what would become Let It Bleed, this has all the elements of classic Stones: a driving riff, distant and incoherent vocals, and a beat you can screw to. Somehow those ingredients never get stale.

13. Downtown Suzie [8.5]
The Rolling Stones had some nasty habits - they even admitted to it on "Live With Me" off Let It Bleed - but one of their worst was frequently crediting other people's work as their own. (Don't worry, Led Zeppelin did it, too, and their manor-dwelling asses got taken to court over it.) Similarly, Mick & Keith let bassist Bill Wyman contribute an original song only once on an official release, the song being "In Another Land" from Their Satanic Majesties Request, itself a fairly divisive episode in the Stones saga.

It truly was their loss, because Bill Wyman is talented songwriter with a knack for melodies and often witty lyrics. "Downtown Suzie" is much more in the vein of classic Stones than "In Another Land," with bluesy verses and a shit-kickin' country chorus. The band sound like they're having a lot of fun on this one, which further presses the issue of why this didn't make its way to an official release.

14. Family [10]
This is the album's only outtake from the Stones' gloomy return to roots, Beggar's Banquet, a fact given away by its sparse and eerie arrangement. Lots of cymbal sizzles from Charlie Watts on the verses before kicking into a double-time rhythm on the pre-chorus. The lyrics' description of a damaged family matches its unsettling musical tone. Another one that should have made it onto the final album.

15. Memo From Turner [9]
Just like "Out Of Time" and "Heart Of Stone," this is an alternate version of a song that was given official release. I enjoy this version a lot, it's pissed-off and urgent, but it has nothing on the released version, which can be heard (and seen, in a modern precursor to the music video) in the 1970 film Performance, Jagger's acting debut. The movie comes highly recommended.

16. I'm Going Down [10]
Rounding out the album is another leftover from Mick Taylor's first few months in the band, predicting the choppy riffs that would define the band's sound for the rest of their career. Yet another masterpiece that didn't quite make the cut for Let It Bleed. Come on, guys, did "You Can't Always Get What You Want" really need that stupid choral intro? Some people...

Subtotal: 83.75% B

Replay Factor: 0.5
I have maybe listened to this album from start to finish five times, one of those instances being while I wrote this. Considering I have owned Metamorphosis for over ten years, that should tell you something. The songs are good, but there is not much of a flow to it.

Consistency Factor: 0
I'm being harsh with my factors this time around, which typically give an album extra points, but this collection of tracks ranks down low with Satanic Majesties as far as being consistent with the rest of the Stones' output.

External Factors: 2
As a warts-and-all compilation of outtakes, this was pretty ahead of its time. It also showcases the most unique examples of The Rolling Stones trying on a number of different musical hats.

TOTAL: 86.25% B

The Rolling Stones - Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

This is the one where I piss off a margin of Stones fans, earn the respect of another (considerably smaller) margin of Stones fans, and find myself on the receiving end of sheer indifference from all other Stones fans.

This album is one of the most divisive records ever put out. My father calls it "A poor man's Sgt. Pepper" and notes that the use of drugs is a lot more obvious here than on The Beatles' album (I disagree with the quote, but he's probably dead right on that last one.) For its defenders, it was a step in the logical direction after Aftermath and Between The Buttons, a sign of their edge for experimentation. For others, this is proof that the band had lost their way, trying a little too hard to keep with the times.

Yes, and what was Some Girls? Oh, wait, that was just more of what they SHOULD have been doing instead of the aimless mid-tempo sludge that dominated their 1970's output and earned them the disparaging dinosaur title from the punks.

(Gee, you really need to guess where I stand on Their Satanic Majesties Request?)

I love this album. Get these notions of Pepper or Forever Changes or even Safe As Milk out of your head. Hell, if it helps, pretend it's NOT The Rolling Stones. If this had been some one-off by a British underground band, it would be the object of the respect it deserves. Anyway, do whatever it takes to approach this album with an open mind, because there's not a trace of the band's blues roots to be found.

And that's okay.

Maybe this album's bad reputation says more about the average (let me emphasize AVERAGE) Stones fan than The Rolling Stones themselves. There's something to be said about the resemblance between "Brown Sugar" and "Rough Justice" or the fact that damn near every album since Let It Bleed has featured some rewrite of "Gimme Shelter" - though "Brown Sugar," "Rocks Off," and "Dancing With Mr. D" are all great in their own regards - in one shape or another, yes, but they also play to audience expectations. Here they are, sounding unlike their previous works...and it stands hated, in the shadow of its (overrated, but still good) cousin, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The album spent a long time gestating in the studio, mainly because of Mick, Keith, and Brian all enjoying their share of legal troubles. It was during this period that the notorious bust - on orders to "wait until the Beatle [George Harrison] leaves" - on a party at Keith's home caused a massive scandal, thus beginning The Rolling Stones' career-spanning affair as tabloid fodder (I recommend David Dalton's 1981 book for its compilation of Stones tabloid headlines - amazing stuff), from where Marianne Faithful put that Mars bar to what Mick Jagger was doing with it...yeah.

By this point, Brian Jones was on the brink. His legal tangles kept the band from obtaining travel visas to the States, which on some level I'm led to understand played a small role in the case for his dismissal in 1969. He makes some great contributions to this album, but after that his role in the band is fairly dubious. A slide guitar here, an autoharp there...but that was it. He withered away, and it really was tragic. I can be a cynical asshole (as I was in my entry on Aftermath) and say it was his fault for squandering his talent, but at the end of the day it won't change the fact that his own demons ended his life at 27.

One of Keith's best moments (which is saying something) is in this 1973 interview, himself in the throes of a heroin addiction and discussing Brian's passing:


This album really does mark the end of an era for them. More so than Altamont, I think. For me, Altamont didn't end the 1960's - it was the beginning of the 1970's and the image The Rolling Stones had as this dangerous force, quite possibly with the Devil on their side. This is The Rolling Stones' dying days of the innocence of their youth. Until this point, they'd been troublemakers, the scruffian alternative to The Beatles, and one of the best blues bands in England. They partied, they did drugs, but at that point in time it was all still fun and games. No one had died yet.

The high point of the album comes with "2,000 Light Years From Home," which I interpret as an illustration of the dark side to the so-called rebellion that came with turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. You find it gets awful lonely, so many light years from home. For me, there was always something inherently nasty brooding underneath the surface of flower power. It would come to manifest itself with the great unrest of 1968 in Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Prague. It was as if The Rolling Stones were able to see through the bullshit and know that this wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

All this, without becoming washed-up acid casualties in the process, some great work still ahead of them.

01. Sing This All Together [10]
This song is great fun. As its title suggests, it isn't too hard to sing along with. There are some great African-derived rhythms (no doubt influenced from Jagger, Richards, and Jones' trip to Morocco) on this track in the interlude, with some buried fuzz guitar. The brass arrangement is both punchy and a perfect tone to accompany the song's middle section. It doesn't grab you and shake you by the collars the way Sir Paul introduces the boys from the Lonely Hearts Club or Billy Shears, but it works in its own way. The Beatles want you to sit back and watch the show, but The Rolling Stones want you to join in on the fun, "Open [y]our heads and let pictures come." Hell, they even have Lennon and McCartney joining in on backing vocals!

02. Citadel [9]
This song is a great mix of some great guitar riffing (I especially love the second guitar that drops in for a little bit in the left channel), sax, mellotron, I think some flute, harpsichord, an atmosphere of percussion, and Charlie Watts playing a staggered drum beat like a warped twist on "My Obsession" from the previous album before hitting his stride in the majestic choruses. Who said psychedelic music had to be all "Nights In White Satin" (one of the best songs of its genre) or "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" (blech - more like "A Whiter Shade Of Pail," which I usually need nearby when that snooze-fest comes on) or "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"? This song rocks, just try to ignore the lyrics:

"Candy and Cathy, hope you both are well
Please come see me in the citadel."

Yikes. Not quite the Carroll-esque imagery of Lennon's psychedelic compositions (which I rank as his best right behind his "I just discovered Dylan" phase, which I mean as a high compliment), now is it? At least the music paints a wonderful picture.

Since YouTube has been the subject of scrutiny from the legal teams at more than a few major labels, I couldn't find every single song from this album. So, here's The Damned doing their cover of "Citadel."


03. In Another Land [10]

Uh...whoa. That was definitely The Rolling Stones on "Citadel," and we could at least pick out Mick Jagger on "Sing This All Together," but who the Hell is this?

This is actually sort of a big deal, being a song written and sung by bassist Bill Wyman. That's right, folks, the band was so keen to experiment in the studio that Mick and Keith let up their monkey grip (get it?) on the songwriting end that they let someone else have a go. The story goes that Bill, the straight-edged member of the band (in all fairness, this was a dual title held with Charlie until the 1980's when he quietly checked himself into rehab for a drug & drink addiction; to further counter that, though, sticking up for my drummer brethren, Charlie has the distinction of being the only monogamous Stone) was the only member to show up to the studio.

He laid down this song just the same, with some help from session man Nicky Hopkins on keyboards and two members of The Small Faces, Steve Marriott (who played acoustic guitar on the song as well) and Ronnie Lane (later to join The Faces with another guy named Ronnie and a guy named Rod). It turns out Mick and Keith liked the song, and it wound up on the album after they added backing vocals alongside Ronnie and Steve, Charlie added drums, and Brian added a mellotron part.

That in itself is one thing, but how is the end product?

It's actually a fabulous song. Bill has a good voice, though he's effected the shit out of it here. With the chant-like lyrics of the opener and the pure psychedelic gloop that make up the words to "Citadel," you might not expect much. Don't short change yourself, these lyrics are tongue-in-cheek. I've always seen this as a send-up of the psychedelic mode of songwriting - especially the third verse, where he twists the dream imagery of the earlier verses of everything being blue and feathers floating around everywhere:

"We heard the trumpets blow and the sky turned red
When I accidentally said that I didn't know
How I came to be here, not fast asleep in bed.
I stood and held your hand.

And nobody else's hand will ever do,
Nobody else's hand.
Then I awoke, was this some kind of joke?
I opened up my eyes.
Much to my surprise."

The song ends with the sound of Bill snoring, tacked onto the song as a joke by Mick and Keith, who recorded the bassist snoring when he fell asleep during a late night session. A truly unique moment for the band, and one of their most memorable songs.

[Side note: Bill Wyman was the first Stone to put out a solo album, then a second, even a third before Mick or Keith got sick enough of each other to do their own. In fact, all three of these albums - Monkey Grip (1974), Stone Alone (1976), and Bill Wyman (1982) can all be found on one collection, The Bill Wyman Compendium. It had the misfortune of being released on 9/11/01. His solo material is quite good, but only on the grounds that you don't expect to hear Stonesy songs with a different singer. He's also got a keen sense of humor, and as the band's historian has published two excellent books, Stone Alone and Rolling With The Stones. He quit the band in 1992.]

04. 2000 Man [10]

(Yes, this was the only clip I could find. All I can say is I love the Internet.)

Back to Mick and Keith, and this one's got some weird lyrics..."I am having an affair with a random computer." It's about life in the future, but apparently it's okay to have sex with computers. It starts off with a tentative folky feel before its rocking second half. Kiss later covered it, cock-rocking it to the max, and I don't mean that in a good way. The nuances of the original are nowhere to be found in their less than delicate treatment. Oh, well. The original is great, making me wonder just how this would have been done live had they been able to tour. I bet it would have been one of the showstoppers.

05. Sing This All Together (See What Happens) [7]

Is anyone else experiencing deja vu? Not just with this song being a meditation on the opening track, but with The Rolling Stones ending the otherwise stellar A-side of an LP with a song that is maybe a little too long?

In all fairness, it isn't as bad as "Going Home." It isn't great, but it's certainly not awful. One thing I'll give it is that it is really well-done as a work of production, with all these musical colors drifting in and out without drowning the production. (I should probably go ahead and mention that Mick and Keith produced this album alone.)

First of all, listen to this song with headphones. You'll just notice more, like for example at 0:22 in the song, you can hear Mick say, "Where's that joint?" A perfect summary of the next eight minutes. Very trippy, druggy number. It has the feel of being in the desert at night, just you, the sand, and the stars...that or doing lots of drugs. Plenty of good instrumental moments from the mellotron, some guitar/brass interplay, a glockenspiel, and a piano dueling with a spaghetti western flute. At the seven-minute mark, the verse from the opening track is resurrected before the song ends with forty seconds of white noise.

It's a trip, not always enjoyable, but solid.

06. She's A Rainbow [10]

I still have no idea what the Hell is going on with this song's intro - is it a carnival game? Ah, it doesn't matter. This is a terrific little pop song, dipped in a bottle of lysergic and served to you on a sugar cube. Ok, it isn't really that psychedelic, but it wouldn't fit in anywhere else in the band's catalog.

How do Stones fans feel about this song? I shamelessly love it, the innocent piano from Nicky Hopkins, some well-used strings in the verses, some must-have-been-embarrassing-to-record backing vocals, and a mellotron that up until (literally) three minutes ago I had always thought was a saxophone. But then I heard an instrumental mix of this song from the sessions...nope. Definitely a mellotron. Good drumming here, too, nice fills. There's a beautiful piano/string solo spot in the middle of the song, and I love the pomposity-deflation that occurs with the violins sawing around the stereo soundscape around 3:55.

Pop music was never really The Rolling Stones' thing...but damn, they NAILED it here!

07. The Lantern [5.5]
Maybe the reason I thought Aftermath had such a dull B-side was because this album has two back-to-back clunkers on its flipside. This one suffers from a horrible production job, to the point that I could chalk it up as being an error in the mixing. But it isn't. The drums and piano in the left channel are barely there, and it doesn't sound good. This means that even though the guitar might really be just a hair too loud in the right channel, with the other instruments so...absent, the guitar might as well be gunshots. Very jarring. Pretty subdued brass contribution - they sound dazed, drugged-out...if that was their intention, they did too good a job with this overlong number - though it boasts some nice brass parts at the end - that never really gains momentum, let alone that it can barely maintain what little momentum it has. Ho-hum.

08. Gomper [7]

This song is unremarkable for the first 125 seconds. It isn't terrible, but it certainly isn't memorable, never quite capturing my attention. Its Indian roots are a little too obvious a cue from The Beatles, I guess. But then at 2:05 comes a really cool jam, led by a flute. The best part? The entire jam was played by Brian Jones via overdubs.

Lots of world music flavor, showing broader influence than - dare I say it? - Sgt. Pepper! (Cue suspenseful music.)

No, seriously, it's got some great motifs of African and Middle-Eastern music. The trip to Morocco, where Brian and actress Anita Pallenberg broke up and Keith took up with her - Brian's own behavior being so boorish apparently that Mick, Marianne, Keith, and Anita ditched Brian without any prior notice - must have had a profound effect on their musical interests.

Even long after the psychedelic Stones were dead and buried...Hell, even on the opening cut of Beggar's Banquet, the incomparable "Sympathy For The Devil," what starts the song but the percussion of conga player Rocky Dijon? The prototype of "Brown Sugar," a song co-written by Mick Jagger and Jones' replacement Mick Taylor called "I'm Going Down" (heard on the 1975 Decca cash-in Metamorphosis) has a dense conga arrangement near the end. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" off Sticky Fingers has a pretty good layering of percussion throughout its jamming coda.

09. 2000 Light Years From Home [11]

The Rolling Stones' psychedelic masterpiece. It's got a great message on the savage underbelly of the idealism of flower power: "It's so very lonely, you're a hundred/six hundred/a thousand/two thousand light years from home." The rest of the song is about space travel...but this isn't the goofy retro-futurist space travel we saw in 1950's sci-fi. No, this was the dark, gloomy outer space, the realistic visions of alien landscapes as bleak and desolate as anything on Earth. The lyrics were written by Mick Jagger during his stint in jail amid all the drug trials of the time, further underlining the sense of isolation.

After the eerie intro of backwards piano and a guitar riff accompanied by mellotron, off we go, the engines of the band thrusting us onward and upward. This is the first time since "Citadel" that they actually sound like a band, and that feels like ages ago by this point. "2000 Light Years From Home" is the only song on Their Satanic Majesties Request that lives up to the sinister implications of its title. Amazing. Truly amazing.

Long, long ago when I was in elementary school, my 4th grade class did a play called "Food Wars," a nutrition-centric spoof of Star Wars. Our teacher asked us to bring in "outer space music" to use as intro and outro music for our performances. I brought in this song. I was told it was too weird. What did she choose instead? Why, Meco's disco-tastic treatment of the Star Wars theme, naturally!

Their loss.

10. On With The Show [9]
This song isn't as memorable as I once thought it was. Otherwise it would be a ten, hands-down. It is much-needed after the last song, Mick putting on the affect of a posh cabaret emcee - "We've got all the awnsuhs!". There is a little break at 1:05, before the song can really go anywhere, I'm assuming to emulate a striptease act? The song's last minute also carries on the same vibe, with plenty of indiscernible bar chatter. My favorite is at the end where a lady says with a Texan accent, "I hope you didn't record any of this!" and Mick's prompt reply is, "No, we didn't." And that, friends, is every reason why I love The Rolling Stones.

Subtotal: 88.5% B+

Replayability Factor: 1
It had been three years since I last heard this album, popping into my head only because I found myself wanting to hear "Citadel" again. I really have to be in a specific mood to hear it. As just background music - though many Stones albums DO make for perfect background music - it's got too much going on, deserving a closer listen. Besides, if you aren't in the mood for this sort of thing, "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" can be the most annoying shit in the world.

Consistency Factor: 0
Um...sorry on this one. My guideline is that an album earning "It's for the die-hard fan" status gets zero points for this tilt factor. I think it's a great album...but it doesn't stand for comparison to something like Sticky Fingers. That's like comparing Rubber Soul to Never Mind The Bollocks. Two great albums, but in wildly different ways. And Stones fan or not, this is not an accessible record. There are albums by The Residents more accessible than this.

External Factors: 1
Not giving them the two was difficult, based solely on the merits of "I'll give you an A for effort." This is a mesmerizing album, the last of their great innovative works. They push the envelope as much as possible, more than a few of these songs actually possessing what Frank Zappa called "NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL" on The Mothers' first album, Freak Out!

Unfortunately, sometimes they go too far. Not in terms of them getting too experimental, but the self-production (most noticeably on "The Lantern") was a sign that the boys shouldn't venture over to the other side of the control room window alone. They'd have Jimmy Miller for the next few albums, maybe you've heard them?

Beggars' Banquet (1968)
Let It Bleed (1969)
Sticky Fingers (1971)
Exile On Main Street (1972)
Goats Head Soup (1973)

Mick and Keith would man the production chair again on 1974's It's Only Rock 'N' Roll, and guess what? It sounds like shit. Thankfully, they got a little better at producing in time for Some Girls. Anyway, the production is at its best really bold (in the case of the layering of "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" and the chilling work on "2000 Light Years From Home") and at its worst unnecessarily and unintentionally lo-fi dreck ("The Lantern," the first half of "Gomper.")

This also marked their first release without Andrew Oldham in the picture. He left as their manager mid-year. It's strange, the bizarre parallels with The Beatles: both groups lost their managers and proceeded with what most writers consider missteps (this album, with The Beatles it was Magical Mystery Tour) that I somehow think are overlooked and underrated. One major difference, though: while The Beatles, depending on which member of the band you asked, were doomed the moment Brian Epstein went the way of the Norwegian Blue parrot (I don't agree with that at all), The Rolling Stones flourished in the new-found freedom that came without the control Mr. Oldham had exerted on the band.

Two steps forward: great album, ditch the manager...and one step back: crummy production job and some unimaginative lyrics/songs.

TOTAL: 90.5% A-

Singles / Non-LP:

Before we do the singles, let's visit a US-only compilation entitled Flowers, released in August 1967. I don't want to go off on some stupid rant, but the US/UK disparity in releases for The Rolling Stones is Byzantine. Buy all the UK albums, you're still missing a good chunk of songs, from songs released only in the US (there's a few) to different mixes to, oh yeah, the singles. No "Paint It Black." No "Ruby Tuesday." Buy all the US albums and you're missing about an album's worth of songs trimmed from the UK releases to make room for the singles. Plus, you're buying more albums, and albums around 30 minutes in length, at that. In short, ABKCO was run by a crook - a feller by the name of Allen Klein, you may know him for some of his other exploits - and they did very little to remedy this problem with the CD reissues.

God, at least with The Beatles we had Past Masters, which gave us the singles, the ONE exclusive EP's worth of tracks, and the ONE US-only tune ("Bad Boy") in two healthy installments. (By the way, two days from now the remasters are coming out. Holy Shit.)

That said, Flowers was surprisingly balanced for a US compilation. Sure, the US listener had "Ruby Tuesday," "Let's Spend The Night Together," and "Lady Jane" from the albums, but "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby?" was given a proper release, along with ALL of the songs trimmed off Aftermath (all five of them) and Between The Buttons, plus three unreleased songs for good measure. I'm enumerating them based on their track listing on the original LP.

06. My Girl [7]
Dating from the early/mid 1965 sessions for the Out Of Our Heads album (their third UK album, their fourth in the US), this is the "My Girl" you're probably thinking of. It's pretty faithful to the original, though the string break is nowhere near as ornate as The Temptations' version. Mick doesn't have the inflection or emotion of the original, and the song drags as a result. But it isn't a terrible cover, though history would not have been kind to it had it been given a proper album/single release, as the original "My Girl" has entered the public lexicon as one of the best popular songs to come from America, ever.

11. Ride On, Baby [9]
Recorded for Aftermath in late 1965, this shows just how far they'd come from doing soul covers in their spare time. This is a driven, rocking number, with some kick-ass timekeeping from Charlie. This should have been on the album! As with "Out Of Time" and "Take It Or Leave It," this song was done by Mick Jagger's friend Chris Farlowe.

12. Sittin' On A Fence [9]
The Rolling Stones do The Kinks? Though it's a Jagger/Richards original, this song could have been plugged into a certain little green amp (but keep the harpsichord) and wouldn't have been at all out of place on (sigh, I hate this title) The Kink Kontroversy or Face To Face. Comparison to The Kinks aside, this is a lovely little acoustic country song, with some nice finger work on Keith's part and Brian on harpsichord. This, too, should have been released. It was a hit for Immediate Records duo Twice As Much. They didn't go too far.

Next comes the actual single from the time...

01. We Love You [10]
This was Mick and Keith's message of thanks to their fans and friends in the press who voiced their support during their drug trials. John and Paul are present on backing vocals (on both side of this single, in fact). The Who pledged to keep releasing their own takes of Stones songs until the two were released (managing to squeeze out "Under My Thumb" b/w "The Last Time" before they indeed were free men). Monkees Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz wore black armbands in support of Mick and Keith during their tour of England.

Great. So how's the song? Amazing! The drums, the mellotron, the backing vocals, it's all one big sound. Very cacophonous production, perfect for the song.


Try not to look directly into Brian Jones' eyes. You might catch a contact high. Jesus.


Here it is again, shorter, with the image flipped horizontally, but it's IN COLOR! That's another thing, can they not just put this stuff out on a DVD? I guess that would make too much sense, wouldn't it? Wait till I put up the promo film for "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

02. Dandelion [10]
In the midst of the "Summer of Love," The Rolling Stones pulled off a song that teeters on being kick-ass rock and acid-soaked naivety. It's a beautiful song - love the oboe solo - and there really is an innocence to this song, however imagined it might have actually been, that showed just how much respite there truly was to psychedelia, with the death of Camelot and Watts on one end, and all the turmoil of 1968 through Watergate and Hanoi on the other side. Hunter S. Thompson put it best:

"...[t]he middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...

There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..."

Though the late Mr. Thompson's quote ties more into the culture of America than England, its message is universal. Idealism reigned supreme. I guess knowing what horrors lurked around the corner from the peace and love scenes of 1967 gives such a bittersweet air to a song as pretty as "Dandelion." Who cares? I was born twenty years after it was released, and that's how I always knew it. I recall hearing it and thinking this song was quite happy for a band with such a dark and murky story. I was nine years old, and I knew it then.

"We Love You" b/w "Dandelion" is a Hell of a single, better than "Penny Lane" by a long shot. If only the middle of side B of Satanic Majesties had carried on the momentum, there wouldn't have been any doubt that The Rolling Stones put out two marvelous albums in 1967. Oh, well. It was what it was, love it or hate it. I'm sticking to my original statement: I love this album.

The Rolling Stones - Aftermath (1966)

My initial reaction to this album was disappointment, but alas, that came by using The Beatles as the standard. This is what happens when an album is hyped up as being "The Rolling Stones' Revolver." Groundbreaking for The Beatles means the westward wind was diverted east and the sun has stood still. Groundbreaking for The Kinks means the most thought-provoking introspective poetry to come out of England since Wilfred Owen or Rudyard Kipling. Groundbreaking for The Who is a spiritual experience. Groundbreaking for The Rolling Stones is that they did an album of all-original songs.

I say this with a bit of joking derision, but also much affection. John and Paul could hiccup and a decent song would tumble out. For Dylan or Davies it wasn't second nature to them, it was their first nature. In the case of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, their manager locked them in a drawing room until they'd written a song. It was a bit more of a challenge for them, and their early work shows a clear line of development and improvement as songwriters. Their successes and failures got released, from early masterpieces like "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)" to slightly airheaded (but really well-produced) stuff like "Play With Fire."

Mick and Keith could always fall back on the blues, or even somewhat contemporary R&B tunes, on their albums. They did a cover of Barrett Strong's "Money," and while The Beatles' version is a thumping romp, The Stones are downright menacing. Their demand for money - and lots of it - might as well be the musical version of getting mugged. They even did a cover of Marvin Gaye's "Hitch-Hike." I would hate to call it a crutch for the band, but it always seemed like a safety zone for them. They had seven songs in the can for an album? Add five covers and the album's a done deal.

Ok, so it was a crutch...but it's also what made them unique. I've said this before, but The Beatles weren't a blues band. Their version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" is given the full Bo Diddley treatment, turning a fairly pristine pop song into sounding like a blues song from yesteryear. And Mick Jagger is a terrific blues singer. The Yardbirds were the second-greatest blues band in England, but not because of their singer, Keith Relf; what put them on the map was their succession of guitarists.

That said, it only dawned on me one of the last times I listened to Aftermath that expecting Dylanesque lyrics over a shimmering sonic backdrop with The Rolling Stones is like expecting an album of doo-wop standards by The Kinks (now, Neil or Zappa, that's another story...). Yes, Dylan had some impact on The Rolling Stones - "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is a pretty good example of this. But their roots were deep in the soil of the blues, soul, and to a surprisingly equal extent American country music.

What I'm building up to is that side B of Aftermath used to strike me as slightly unimpressive, by and large. But in the years that have passed since my initial listen - again, thanks to some twat who calls himself a journalist I was expecting another Revolver - it's come to me that this album is the logical development of the music that inspired them in the first place. They were finally able to write a proper blues song themselves and give it their own edge in the same way they'd been doing with Howlin' Wolf numbers. It's not like The Rolling Stones would ever start sounding like The Beatles out of the blue.

Oh...right - Between The Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request. Touche. Perhaps that's why Aftermath feels the odd man out of their innovative works from the mid-60's. I consider these three albums to make up a trilogy, in the same manner as Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver - let me qualify this claim - in that they began to challenge their established sound and songwriting. Would they have ever thought to use a xylophone on a record in 1963? Doubt it.

There's some terrific Rolling Stones moments on this record, with some of Mick and Keith's greatest songs all captured here, but the album is tossed askew by one mammoth of a tune that depending on who you ask is either a major distraction or a step in the development of more progressive rock and roll. I'm of the former school of thought. It's also a pretty long album for its time - 53 minutes - but as far as I am concerned, 11 of those minutes should have stayed on the cutting room floor. (Then again, if that had been the case, the song in question would be enshrined as the great lost Stones epic. Oh, fans...we're so fickle, so stupid...)

Since we're at an album that was markedly different in the US than it was in the UK, let me just reiterate that in these instances I always regard the UK version as the standard. This is the one with the artist-approved track listing and mixes. (Well, for the most part, let's leave the mono versus stereo debate for a rainy day. No, let's actually save that debate for monsoon season.) Thankfully, the differences are minor with The Who and The Kinks. With the latter, the US-only records have been considered obsolete since they went out of print. One of the few times The Kinks' period of obscurity in the United States worked in their favor.

I can't get behind anyone claiming the superiority of one of the American versions of a Rolling Stones album, or for that matter The Beatles (just wait till I do Rubber Soul!) because the UK albums give you more bang for your buck. There are fourteen tracks on the UK version of Aftermath. Somewhere in the Atlantic, in transit to the States, a whopping five songs seemed to fall off the boat and be replaced by "Paint It Black," their latest single. I love "Paint It Black." I think it's one of the band's greatest songs, period. But in the UK, singles wouldn't often grace LP's.

Oh, and the four songs that got lost on the voyage to the US? They were "Mother's Little Helper," "Out Of Time," "Take It Or Leave It," and "What To Do." I can't imagine the album without any of them!

Ironically, the US version runs about 11 minutes shorter. I can think of another tune that I would have rather had on the chopping block, one running just about that length. Strange...

01. Mother's Little Helper [10]
What I love about the early Rolling Stones is their image, however contrived and cooked up by Andrew Loog Oldham it might have been, as these snotty anti-authoritarians. This is a full-out attack on the middle-aged and the middle-classed, the same people who wanted to see Mick and Keith and Brian go to jail for a long, long time during the drug trials of the next year while at the same time popping pills to endure the drudgeries of their own lives. This was pretty heavy stuff in 1966, and it still is today. Drug culture is frowned upon by the mainstream, but cut to commercial and they're trying to sell you a pill for restless leg syndrome. Antidepressants have caused suicides, but damn those who go down the destructive path of drug use!

Now, I say this as a fan of neither. You'd be hard-pressed to get me to take something for a headache. But I certainly see the hypocrisy of pill-poppers lining the pockets of the drug companies who look down their collective noses at people who are doing the exact same thing on the opposite side of the law.

This is a great nose-thumbing opener. What sounds like a sitar in this song is just a heavily effected slide guitar, probably an electric twelve-string. I love how the song starts: "What a drag it is getting old..." before the rest of group joins in. Nice, bouncy drums and bass by the second-best rhythm section of all time. (Number one being Duck Dunn and Al Jackson Jr. from Booker T. & The MG's.) It should probably be mentioned that the Stones had never made a record this sonically innovative by this point. I can only imagine how it felt to hear this when it first came out.

02. Stupid Girl [10]
Don't be duped by any overtly p.c. reviews you see, this song is not misogynistic or sexist. (Don't worry, when they DO take a misogynistic or sexist voice, I'll call it out.) Maybe it's because I've met more than a few girls that I could easily dedicate this song to. I know I stated earlier that one shouldn't look too hard for traces of Dylan in the Stones, but the carnivalesque organ that leads this song sounds straight off of "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Positively 4th Street."

Whether you're a Stones neophyte or a hardcore fan, I strongly recommend Keno's Rolling Stones website. In fact, his homepage has links to his sites on The Rolling Stones, classic rock polls, John Lennon, and Hound Dog Taylor. I've talked to him before via email - seeing as he runs a website I'm sure I was just another bullet point in his inbox - and he seems like a very nice guy.

(I've had at least one bad online run-in with a webmaster for a site dedicated to one of my favorite bands. Won't say WHO the band or site in question was, other than that I CAN'T EXPLAIN how upsetting his stand-offish behavior was to me and I WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN to believe that in contacting a site-runner that we're automatically friends because of our mutual love of a band...though that is how it should be.)

Anyway, doing what I normally do for these reviews involves having the album pulled up on iTunes and double-checking the song's lyrics. In the case of The Rolling Stones, Mick either mumbles or the recording is just so damn murky (I'm looking at you, Exile On Main Street!) that you can't tell what he's singing. Reading the lyrics at Keno's site, I was surprised to see a transcription of the vocalizations in the song's middle section. I'd always though it was just a percussive "chop! chop!" to keep time or something. They're in fact saying "Shut up, shut up!" again and again, making this song that much cooler.

03. Lady Jane [10]
I'd always loved this song since I first heard it, thinking it as a nice little medieval/baroque ballad. But hearing Neil Young's "Borrowed Tune" (in which he mentions that the borrowed tune is from the Stones), which is based on the melody of "Lady Jane," the sheer beauty of the melody was made all the more apparent to me. Listening to Aftermath end to end for the first time in a long time last night, "Lady Jane" sent chills down my spine. It's a gorgeous, haunting song, with the harpsichord and Brian Jones' dulcimer giving the song its centuries-old flavor. Not bad for a pair of kids raised on the blues!

04. Under My Thumb [10]
Ok, I will readily admit, this song is sexist. But as with this song or "Brown Sugar" or "Some Girls," one must raise the issue of how likely it is that the song is being delivered in a voice. Frank Zappa's "Bobby Brown Goes Down" was from the perspective of the type of white, upper-class male he hated - you hear "I got a cheerleader here / Wants to help with my paper / Let her do all the work / 'N maybe later I'll rape her" and know it's a joke.

Is this to be meant in the same way? I don't know. I sure hope so. You look at the ladies in Mick Jagger's life: Anita Pallenberg, Chrissie Shrimpton, Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall...these are all pretty tough, independent women. To ease the mood, Brian Jones was quite an asshole to Anita Pallenberg, who he also dated for a while, prompting Keith (apparently a knight in shining armor - I'm not kidding!) to steal her from him. Ms. Pallenberg has gone on record stating Keith was the nicest and the best lover. I don't think Keith would have shared songwriting credit on a deliberately sexist song.

Hopefully that issue can be laid to rest...

This is a good song. No, this is a great song. Musically, it's catchy and quite well-produced, with the handclaps, a fuzzed-out bass, and Brian Jones on marimba. (A marimba being a tuned percussion instrument like the xylophone but with wooden keys, oddly enough giving it a fairly wooden, resonant tone.) That fuzz bass sounds great, forty-three (!) years later.

As a sidenote, it is interesting seeing Brian Jones trying to look cool and defiant while playing the dulcimer and the marimba in these videos. I'm rough on the guy because of how willfully he squandered his own talent until he became a washed-up flake; it says something to be in the same band as Keith Richards and get kicked out for doing too many drugs.

05. Doncha Bother Me [9]
After knocking it out of the park with four back-to-back classic Stones pieces, this song might sound like a streak-stopping dud. But I like it a lot. I consider it like a note for the listener, musically, saying, "It's okay, we're messing around with fuzz tones and dulcimers and harpsichords and marimbas, but we've not forgotten our beloved blues!" It was recorded alongside most of the rest of this album, meaning during the same sessions that yielded "Lady Jane" and "I Am Waiting," they ripped and roared through this tune.

It sounds like it should be some old Howlin' Wolf tune they dusted off, but it's a Jagger/Richards composition, with its sneering slide guitar line, rattling percussion, Charlie's cymbals on the bridge adding a good (but short-lived) dose of noise, and a great harmonica line. This song would have been perfect if they'd gone through the chorus one last time with Charlie keeping time on his kit as it fades out, but that's just me. Still a great tune, able to hold its own against the heavyweights on the rest of side A.

06. Going Home [3]
Ok, this is a pretty divisive piece. This closes out the first side of the album, and it is a full eleven minute, fifteen second blues/jam that I find more than a few issues with. For me, it hovers over the rest of the album like a black cloud, so let's just roll up our sleeves and get dirty on this one.

This song should be fading out into oblivion around the three-minute, forty-five second mark. But it doesn't. It just keeps going. Unfortunately, throughout this first portion of the song, it seems to be building up...but to what? Well, nothing, really.

Most days I'm not in the mood to sit down and soak all 675 seconds of it. With the album's running time of 53 minutes, it could have done just fine without this meandering workout. Richie Unterberger, writing for AllMusic, nails it in his review of this track: "There's the sense of the track getting drawn out more for the purposes of adding to its length than to make necessary musical and lyrical points, verging on clumsiness..."

This song also set a bad, bad precedent in rock music: the idea that a song can be of extended length simply because you want it to be. Take a song that should theoretically last three to four minutes, but stretch it out to seven minutes. Or ten. Or fill up an LP side (roughly 23 minutes). Don't get me wrong, I can think of another 11-minute long song - Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" - that is perfect in almost every regard. But Dylan's a lyricist, and he doesn't waste a second. It isn't of that length because of a meandering blues jam.

In all fairness, I could see myself defending this song in another context, or even in another mood. When you play with a band, you can get a good thing going and not really want to stop, and it's a Hell of a lot of fun. Tragically, having both participated in and witnessed this, it's only fun if you're part of it or if it's there, right in front of you. Otherwise, it's a yawn-fest.

And this, friends, is why I don't like jam bands. Music shouldn't feel like it's just there. Or at least the best music shouldn't just feel like it's there, unless you're listening to an ambient record, where that is the objective of it. Anyway, this song is a major distraction. It actually gets better in the last two or three minutes of it, but by that point you've sat through eight or nine minutes of so-so material. By which point just about anything would sound like blessed relief, it doesn't seem worth it, and even then it would sound horribly out of context without the last nine minutes before it.

In short, as my criteria for a 3 states, "Bad. Next time you hear the album, you will definitely skip this one. It downright annoys you." Look no further.

Can't wait till I unearth a 2 or, God help us all, a 1! Guarantee you that if it will come from any artist I've reviewed so far, it will most likely be The Rolling Stones. When they're good, they are ON, but when they're not so good...yikes...

07. Flight 505 [9.5]
Remember my spiel about the second halves of early Beatle records getting a bum rap? Aftermath seems to suffer a similar fate, with all but one of the big tracks, known by the slightly-more-than-casual fans, gracing the A-side. If you're going to make an album, try to keep it paced in terms of quality. Front-load it with all your best tunes and the rest of your record will just seem...dull to most listeners.

Side B of this album isn't the stomping ground of the titans, no, but to enjoy it my advice is to take a break, then come back to it. Besides, on CD, "Flight 505" is a breath of fresh air after "Going Home." The most innovative stuff you've heard, with a nice throwback to their roots by way of "Doncha Bother Me," and Side B takes these two extremes and fuses them together.

If it sounds like I'm making a big deal about sides, it's because I am. It's a lost art form of sequencing and pacing songs to make a listenable whole. I'm also doing my damndest to defend the latter half of this record, probably due to my own initial blowing-off of it when I first hear the album five and a half years ago. (God, it's already been that long?)

"Flight 505" is a straight-up rock tune, twisted by the piano intro that sounds like it was recorded two doors down. Lots of ambient-sounding echo. Lyrically, it's funny, a tale of a man who decides to escape his old life - though nothing is really amiss with it - and hops Flight 505. The punchline comes when his plane crashes. To me, it's like their own comment on the growing idea of escapism throughout popular music, of their entire generation wondering what it's all about and ditching their old lives for no real reason at all to pursue the answer. This sums up their own cynicism towards it. Then again, they could have just sat down and decided to write a song with a funny ending. I don't know, I wasn't there. But it's a really good song.

08. High And Dry [8]
Interesting use of the compressed cymbals as a timekeeping device, but at the same time it borders on being irritating. Musically, it shows the band just as much in tune with country music - traditional white American music - as they were with blues, which was traditional black American music. As far as I can recall, this is their first real foray into anything resembling country, though hardly the last. And not quite the best.

09. Out Of Time [9.5]
I initially gave this one a lower score due to my preference for the version found on their odds and sods collection, Metamorphosis. That version was a different backing track, with strings, tambourine, and Mick's presence serving only as guiding vocal for friend Chris Farlowe, who had a minor hit with it. Hearing that version first, I always thought this one seemed just a little off, with its organ and marimba arrangements - and no strings.

Then I gave it a thorough re-listening and and realized I used to be a complete idiot.

Two things: first, the version on Metamorphosis is all session musicians. It's worth hearing this version to hear Charlie's distinct drumming style and the backing harmonies by Keith, Brian, and (I think) Mick. Second, the reason I didn't like this song in early 2004 is now the reason I find it enjoyable. It's dominated by the organ and marimba, sure, but I now think it's brilliant. This is the song as they'd intended to do it, and not only is it catchy, there's an extra verse here not found on the Metamorphosis version.

Though this song was sheared off the US version of Aftermath, it did resurface on the US-only compilation Flowers, albeit in a slightly truncated form. (Flowers caught the US up on songs removed from the records, making it seem like a useless release now, right? Wrong - it has three songs not available anywhere else: "Ride On Baby," "Sittin' On A Fence," and their cover of "My Girl." All of which are impressive.)

10. It's Not Easy [8.5]
This song sort of grooves by, like an R&B tune from Memphis, with an organ and fuzz bass where the brass section on a Stax record might otherwise have been. I can scoff at the lyric "It's not easy, it's hard..." for being one of the dumbest lines ever, but are the lyrics to "Soul Man" pure philosophic bliss? No. But it sounds pretty good.

11. I Am Waiting [11]
Then comes this one, out of nowhere among Mick and Keith's self-penned (successful) attempts at Motown and Stax tunes.

The song is lonely, nervous, brooding on the verses, then angry and passionate on the bridges. For my money one of the most beautiful songs they've ever done, giving "Ruby Tuesday" and "Moonlight Mile" some heavy competition. A whiff of the sounds of the mysterious East can be found in Charlie's "thump-thump" at the beginning of each measure, before going into his gentlest swing beat on the bridges. They clearly heard Rubber Soul, taking that English approach to folk and giving it a mood, lyric, and feel all their own, with only some residue of Beatles or Dylan on the edges.

12. Take It Or Leave It [10]
I can picture Otis Redding singing this. It's a beautiful ballad and in a perfect world this would be just as venerated as the classics on the A-side of this record. Though they would have you believe otherwise, the organ, finger cymbals, and acoustic guitars on this song are indicative of a tender side to these guys.

Just listen to it. It speaks for itself. (And with that, I give you the shortest description I will ever write for a song earning a ten.)

13. Think [8.5]
The intro makes it sound like the rest of the song would be clumsy Kingston Trio-esque folk, but once it gets off the ground, we've got another R&B-inspired rocker. Another case where the fuzz guitar is subbing for the brass section we would hear if this had been a James Brown tune, although he did a song on his own called "Think" which is pretty damn good in its own right. Is the song anything special? No, though I am impressed that they could write something that sounds like it would have come out on Stax Records just a year before.

14. What To Do [9]
The Rolling Stones were a little slow on the ending-the-album-with-something-memorable bandwagon, but this isn't a terrible song. Just kind of an afterthought as an ending track. It seems like it could go on for another minute or so and make an even deeper impression - in contrast to side A ending with a song that could have lost about seven minutes and been decent - and I would say along with "Doncha Bother Me" it's their most unadorned vamp of R&B on the album. No fuzz guitars, no odd instrumentation, no swirling Highway 61 Revisited organ part, but it shuffles and bounces along like no other. Too short.

Subtotal: 90.0% A-

Replayability Factor: 3
In this day and age, we can merely press a button and skip over the 11-minute cure for insomnia that graces the slot of track 6 on the CD. I'm going so far as to let it slide that there is a pretty bad song on this record. Otherwise, this is a great, solid collection of all-original songs by The Rolling Stones. Their dependency on blues and soul covers has been overcome by this point. Their dependency on other things was just starting.

Consistency Factor: 2.5
Is this the first Stones album you should run out and buy? I don't really know...it's sort of in this weird turf of being both essential and nondescript that it straddles being a 3 and a 2. On the one hand, I don't think this album holds up as well as Between The Buttons, which I consider their best. But it took Aftermath for Between The Buttons to exist. Never mind they've had a long enough career that they've got quite a few worthy entry points, much like Zappa. As an intro to the Brian Jones-era Stones, I would suggest this one and/or Between The Buttons, but at the same time these are radical departures from the earlier records...so yeah. When in doubt, add a decimal point and a five.

External Factors: 2
"Going Home" aside, much respect is due to Mick and Keith for writing thirteen fantastic songs and making an album out of them. The experimentation with new sounds is not only admirable, but successful. And the fact that they could write their own blues or soul numbers (I'm serious, there are quite a few moments on side B of the record that they sound like a Motown act or someone on Stax or King Records) alongside their own brand of sardonic, boisterous rock and roll duly earns them the title of "artists" in my book.

Total: 97.5% A+

Singles
01. 19th Nervous Breakdown [9.5]
Aftermath was released in mid-April of 1966; this single preceded it by two and a half months. This song is great fun, in the same accusatory, insulting vein as "Mother's Little Helper" or "Stupid Girl," with plenty of noisy guitar and bass. That torrent of lyrics in each verse? Someone must have heard "Subterranean Homesick Blues," itself inspired by Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business." I wouldn't consider it as outstanding as "Get Off My Cloud" or the next single, it seems to get a little lost at points, but it's still a Hell of a romp.



02. As Tears Go By [2.5]
You should know by now I don't like making oblique comparisons between one musician and another. But this is The Rolling Stones' version of "Yesterday," and I'm saying it with a bit of contempt (for both songs, actually). They wrote it for Marianne Faithfull, whose own version is a tuneless wonder in and of itself, though she looks cute singing it:


Their own version doesn't fair much better. Sure, Mick is actually able to change to pitch of his voice to form notes, unlike the lady who would soon become his regular girlfriend...but it's awful. Drenched in the high fructose corn syrup of sappy string production - the exact sound The Beatles wanted George Martin to (successfully) avoid on "Yesterday" - this is not The Stones' proudest moment. Far from.

01. Paint It, Black [11]
Essential Stones. Moody, "I want it painted black" wouldn't sound to out of place coming from Nico (or Lou Reed, for that matter), and with just a peppering of the Eastern influences George Harrison had immersed himself in. The Stones might have been hip and cynical to most trends, quickly shaking off flower power with "Jumpin' Jack Flash," but they had to give pause for the droning beauty of the sitar. They were able to incorporate it here better than The Beatles did with "Norwegian Wood," as far as I'm concerned. Strong, powerful song in all respects. Oh, and Charlie Watts' tom-toms sound like they're heralding the Apocalypse itself...for the other side.


Note the comma in the official title. Keith said before someone at the record label did that, and he never figured out why. Also note that any other time I type it out, I neglect the comma. Most people forget it anyway and wouldn't even notice.

02. Long, Long While [3]
For the great, self-composed ventures into soul found on Aftermath, this one is a step backwards. It's drowsy and half-assed...a perfect b-side, in the sense that the flipside of a single is typically a song too crummy even for an album. They've done better, and one would have thought with the classic slice of Rolling Stones that is "Paint It Black" as the a-side that the song it's paired with would be just a little better than this.

01. Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? [11]
I don't know how other fans feel about this song, but I think it's crazy...no, manic good fun. Lots of feedback, close-miked brass making it sound all the more claustrophobic and chaotic. I love this song.


02. Who's Driving Your Plane? [6.5]
One might think the song is musically a little incongruous, dated...but the vocals are given a good swathe of echo. Not a particularly strong song, at all, but it is well-produced.

Fifteen Albums I Always Need In The Car

These are the albums that, when I review them, will come with a warning of hyperbolic language.

These are the albums that have gotten me through rough times, good times, desperate times.

These are the albums that changed my life.

These are the albums that make me love music.

These are the albums that make me love life.

15. Heaven Tonight - Cheap Trick (1978)
14. Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones (1971)
13. Tonight's The Night - Neil Young (1975)
12. Sell Out - The Who (1967)
11. Help! / Rubber Soul / Revolver - The Beatles (1965 / 1965 / 1966)
10. Sleepwalker - The Kinks (1977)
09. The Third Reich & Roll - The Residents (1976)
08. Highway 61 Revisited / Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan (1965 / 1966)
07. Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, Part One - The Kinks (1970)
06. Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young (1979)
05. The Beatles - The Beatles (1968)
04. Preservation - The Kinks (1973/1974)
03. Time Fades Away - Neil Young (1973)
02. Bringing It All Back Home - Bob Dylan (1965)
01. Tommy - The Who (1969)

Additionally: I'd like to add that, after some thinking - and the fact that One Size Fits All earned over a 100 - that there should be an elite club of sorts for albums that are so damn good their scores, with the "factors" intact, are over 100. This shall be called the 100 Plus Club. I can already tell you it will include all of the artists on this list...and others.

--- Alex