Tuesday, October 26, 2010

HE'S NOT HOT FOR YOU (3X): In his (paywalled) review of Keith Richards' memoir, the New Yorker's David Remnick asserts that "The Stones have not written a song of consequence in thirty years."  Really?  "Thru and Thru," anyone?  (And did Remnick specify "written" as opposed to "performed" to excuse his love for "Harlem Shuffle" and its douchetastic video?)

13 comments:

  1. "Start Me Up" was 1981.  "Love Is Strong" (1994) was an OK song and had a memorable David Fincher video with the 50 foot high Rolling Stones wandering around.  "Anybody Seen My Baby" is noteworthy for the (apparently unintentional) lift from "Constant Craving," and is credited to Jagger/Richards/lang.

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  2. Anonymous12:27 PM

    I think that Remnick specified "written" as opposed to "released" because everything on Tattoo You -- including "Start Me Up" and "Waiting on a Friend," the last two Stones songs I would consider "significant" -- were written earlier.  The whole album was comprised of songs written either for Emotional Rescue or for Some Girls (or for both), I can't remember, but they were not songs written in 1980 or 1981. 

    With that caveat, I'm completely 100% on board with Remnick's statement.  One could argue about "Undercover of the Night," but that was more ubiquitous than significant.  By the time the Stones released Steel Wheels, the albums were less artistic statements than marketing tools for gigantic nostalgia tours.  If you date Tattoo You to when it was written, not when it was released, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a person alive whose favorite Stones song, or anything in, what, the top 20? 50? -- belongs to the last 30 years. 

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  3. isaac_spaceman mobile12:27 PM

    That was me.

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  4. isaac_spaceman mobile12:30 PM

    Here's Wiki on the provenance of Tattoo Youhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo_You. I guess some of it dated back further than I thought -- "Waiting on a Friend" is actually an outtake (largely) from Goat's Head Soup in 1972.  Anyway, it supports what I said -- Tattoo You was released in 1981, but it was written long before (other than two not-consequential songs).

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  5. What makes a song "of consequence?" Does it have to be a hit, does it have to be critically acclaimed, or yes? I liked most of A Bigger Bang, particularly "Laugh, I Nearly Died" and "This Place Is Empty," even though the latter involves Keith Richards asking a woman to bare her breasts, which makes me involuntarily shudder. But I guess songs don't get to be of consequence just because some chick in Pittsburgh likes 'em.

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  6. isaac_spaceman mobile2:00 PM

    All songs about baring one's breasts are significant.  "You Can Leave Your Hat On," "It's Getting Hot In Here," "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Naked, If We Want To."  I can't think of a single insignificant song about baring one's breasts. 

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  7. I'm totally jumping TPE's cue here, but what about Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Put Em On The Glass"?

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  8. Let's be honest--isn't there pretty much an entire sub-genre of hair metal devoted to songs about baring one's breasts? 

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  9. Top 50?  Maybe Thru and Thru, maybe Mick's Demotion, not One Hit To The Body.

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  10. Jenn.4:51 PM

    I feel like I accidentally wandered into the wrong thread.

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  11. isaac_spaceman mobile5:34 PM

    Here's a proposed top 53 (I couldn't limit it to 50) most significant Stones songs, and yes, it would include every Stones-written song from Let it Bleed and Sticky Fingers and almost every one from Exile, but there's no way to pare those down at all based on significance:

    Beast of Burden
    Bitch
    Brown Sugar
    Can't You Hear Me Knocking
    Casino Boogie
    Cocksucker Blues
    Country Honk
    Dance Little Sister
    Dead Flowers
    Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
    Emotional Rescue
    Fool to Cry
    Get off of my Cloud
    Gimme Shelter
    Hang Fire
    Happy
    Honky Tonk Women
    I Got the Blues
    It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
    Let it Bleed
    Let it Loose
    Let's Spend the Night Together
    Live with Me
    Midnight Rambler
    Miss You
    Monkey Man
    Moonlight Mile
    Mother's Little Helper
    No Expectations
    Rip this Joint
    Rocks Off
    Ruby Tuesday
    Satisfaction
    Shattered
    She's So Cold
    Shine a Light
    Sister Morphine
    Some Girls
    Start me Up
    Street Fighting Man
    Sway
    Sweet Black Angel
    Sweet Virginia
    Sympathy for the Devil
    Torn and Frayed
    Tumbling Dice
    Turd on the Run
    Under my Thumb
    Ventilator Blues
    Waiting on a Friend
    Wild HOrses
    You Can't Always Get What you Want
    You Got the Silver

    And that doesn't count "Love in Vain," "Time is on my Side,"  and "Little Red Rooster," all of which would have made the list, as Stones songs because they weren't written by the Stones.  Can you really find four songs on that list that should be cut so that you can put "Thru and Thru" -- which seems as trifling a Stones song as Voodoo Lounge is a trifling Stones album -- on the list?

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  12. isaac_spaceman mobile5:43 PM

    Blame Robin, not me.

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  13. Jenn.8:40 PM

    With all due respect to Robin, blaming her is not as much fun as blaming you, Isaac.

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