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The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup Super Deluxe Box Set

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What does it sound like?:

There are two watershed albums in the entire career of The Rolling Stones. The first is Their Satanic Majesties Request. Compare and contrast their musical style pre and post that album. There isn’t just a step change. It’s almost a completely different band. The second is Goats Head Soup.

Goats Head Soup is the sound of men on the cusp of thirty considering the possibility of becoming responsible adults. In the songs, they look back on their Rock’n’Roll lifestyle, reflect on past relationships, and weigh the meaning of adulthood. By 1973, The Rolling Stones were a complex adaptive system bordering on the edge of chaos. The pall of heroin, clinging to them since 1967, incapacitated both Keith and Jimmy Miller. Various drug busts over the years restricted their ability to remain tax exiles. Jamaica was one of the few countries that would allow them all entry but there was no respite from dealers. The Caribbean sunshine couldn’t eradicate the murk and mire of the basement at Nellcôte where they recorded most of Exile On Main Street. Bill felt intimidated by The Stones’ own armed guard and a break-in to his hotel room. Hunter S. Thompson said, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” Hedonism was catching up with The Stones.

Goats Head Soup is known for its ballads. However, they are not in the least schmaltzy, and deal sensitively with complex relationships. Two of them take on from where Wild Horses left off, both essentially written by Keith. In fact, Coming Down Again could be a sour, querulous look at the same relationship described in Wild Horses. Its brittle melody and fragile vocal are held together by the best bass line on the album, played by Mick Taylor, and Bobby Keys’ robust sax solo. Angie is a moving, mature ballad, coming to terms with the end of a relationship, tinged with fondness and regret. It’s grown up, vulnerable and very appealing, feeling much more of a farewell than a hello to a new life. Winter is a step on from Moonlight Mile, a tender, sophisticated piece of music aching for a better place and time, and mainly the work of the two Micks. Jagger’s love-sick reverie, worthy of Van Morrison losing himself in Listen To The Lion, Taylor’s heart-melting solo and Nick Harrison’s string arrangement lift the performance into the transcendent. 100 Years Ago is one of The Stones’ most unusual tracks in which Jagger reminisces affectionately about his relationship with Marianne Faithful. Its finale is a stretched-out musical coda, a furious duel between Taylor’s wah-wah guitar and Billy Preston’s grungy clavinet, refereed by Charlie’s aggressive drumming, until collapsing into an anguish of lost love.

If those four songs are buttercups on an unkempt grave, the rest of the album is where they begin to reveal the bodies. Recording in Jamaica was bound to leave its mark. Dancing With Mr D is all voodoo and no lounge. It has a suffocating, sinister feel, its atmosphere thickened by African percussion. The creepy guitar riff and lurching rhythm are both intoxicating and unsettling. Can You Hear The Music is the kind of adventurous experiment The Stones hadn’t attempted since Their Satanic Majesties Request. Besides the island percussion, there are flutes, finger bells and a guitar drone while Charlie revels in the lazy, hypnotic groove.

Set aside Exile On Main Street, which is the real anomaly in The Stones’ discography, and Goats Head Soup follows Sticky Fingers quite logically. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) is part of a sequence of social verité songs (Jigsaw Puzzle -> You Can’t Always Get What You Want -> Sister Morphine) but is far more professional, punchy and direct, thanks mainly to Bill Price’s final horn chart for the band, a maddeningly catchy chorus and an impressively impassioned vocal describing disturbing real-life stories of hardship and police brutality. Billy Preston only plays on two tracks but his clavinet is an essential part of the sound of Goats Head Soup. Hide Your Love is a hidden gem, a swampy blues, improvised in the studio as Jagger pounded out the chords on piano. It’s agreeably shambolic in the manner of Parachute Woman, Let It Bleed and Sway. The two most old-fashioned Stones’ style tracks, and the most juvenile, see Ian Stewart’s return to the piano stool. Silver Train is an old song with a favourite topic, an encounter with a prostitute, dusted off from 1969. They joyfully barrel through the song with such vigour you can hear the wind in their hair. It must have felt like 1964. Star Star follows a tradition of smutty rockers (Stray Cat Blues -> Live With Me -> Bitch). It raises eyebrows on Goats Head Soup placed at the end as a middle finger to their encroaching middle age. Steve McQueen was happy with his name-check.

The new remaster sounds as though each element has been removed, cleaned up beautifully, then replaced exactly where they were. The bass stands out and Charlie’s drums clatter and shimmer. You can actually make out what Jagger is singing. There are four keyboard players on Goats Head Soup. Nicky Hopkins was lost in the mix somewhat but now his wonderful touch is more apparent. The acoustic guitar is a real gainer as are the strings on Angie and Winter. This 2020 remaster is almost like déjà vu. Everything is very familiar but seems brand new.

The superdeluxe Exile and Some Girls have taught us a lot about The Stones’ recording practice. They had plenty of songs during this period and they would start developing a large number of them. After a little while, they would concentrate on the dozen or so they thought would make the album, leaving the rest unfinished. As a result, they had a lot of material they could return to at a later date. The Goat sessions yielded rich pickings for future albums. There are just three outtakes in this package, though: Scarlet, featuring Jimmy Page on guitar, All The Rage and Criss Cross. All sound as though they were close to complete in 1973, without excessive touching up in the 21st Century. Criss Cross, a Taylor co-write, almost made the album and was cheekily used without permission for the soundtrack to a 1978 Japanese animation film called Metamorphosis. Lyrically dripping with lust and stylistically funky grooves, all three are more in keeping with Exile rather than Goat, despite the fact that the actual soup is meant to be an aphrodisiac.

There are four early takes. 100 Years Ago is Jagger singing a remarkable guide vocal accompanying himself on piano with Keith playing a counter melody at the high end. It brings a lump to the throat, it’s such a beautiful song. The instrumental of Mr D is completely different to the finished product. The drums are in a spritely 4/4 rhythm, Taylor’s slide is dominant and there is a throaty, prowling sax. The instrumental Heartbreaker is at a nice, steady pace with some gentle guitar and soulful organ but the horn chart is complete. Hide Your Love is billed as a remix but it sounds more of a fascinating alternative take, the piano folded into the background with a full-flowing prolonged bluesy Taylor guitar solo. There are three Glyn Johns 1973 mixes: Mr D, Heartbreaker and Silver Train. His approach is less dense, lighter on the bass, perhaps a bit thin but giving more room for the instruments to be heard, especially the guitars. The whole is a fascinating bonus disc giving greater insight to how the tracks were made, much more so than the Sticky Fingers bonus.

The Brussels Affair is a live recording compiled from two shows at The Forest National Arena on 17th October 1973 during the Goats Head Soup Tour, Taylor’s last with the band. Preston is the keyboardist, Trevor Lawrence and Steve Madaio play horns and Bob Clearmountain provides the mixing. Keith is rejuvenated and back in his pomp, albeit disgruntled with the clear delineation between his rhythm and Taylor’s lead. It’s two thirds of a glorious performance up to an ecstatically received Angie and an imperious You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Thereafter, things get too frantic, a twelve minute Midnight Rambler proving spectacularly desperate. This recording has been available as a download since 2011 but is now getting its first physical release outside of Japan.

There is a sumptuous 120 page book with an appreciation of the album by Ian McCann, a Nick Kent piece on the tour and Darryl Easlea’s story of the cover which was designed by Ray Lawrence and photographed by David Bailey. There are two rolled up posters, a DVD with the videos of Angie, Silver Train and Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) and it’s the first Stones’ album to boast a 5.1 Surroundsound mix, provided by Giles Martin no less. You can even buy Abbey Road half speed masters. The Rolling Stones website will throw in a Goats Head T-shirt for few extra bob. As is often the case with The Stones, prices are high but there is no denying that this is a wonderful product, probably the most appealing deluxe edition of their seventies albums. Nevertheless, many Stones’ fans will feel short-changed. They are likely to already own The Brussels Affair, as a download, and would have been hoping for an outtakes bonus to rival the one in the Some Girls reissue. Imagine 1973 versions of Waiting On A Friend, Tops, Short And Curlies or Through The Lonely Nights. Glyn Johns must have mixed the whole album. The Japanese edition benefits from his 100 Years Ago, for example. Why not include his mix in total?

Keith’s famed rhythm guitar and his blending and weaving with Taylor are largely absent but Goats Head Soup features some of The Stones’ best songs, Jagger’s most impressive vocals and Charlie in top form. In 1973, after Aladdin Sane, Fresh and Mott had stolen their thunder, it felt like progress, a blessed relief after Exile On Main Street, still demonstrating The Stones’ sweaty power and ability to outrage, but moving on from the youngster’s game of Rock and looking forward to a more sophisticated future. Goats Head Soup is unique in The Stones’ catalogue, the point at which they almost made an apology and grew up, proving that Rock can be adult without being soft. It was a commercial success, out-selling its predecessor, with Angie a global smash. As things turned out, their newfound maturity didn’t last and they chose to continue down the path of hedonistic irresponsibility, maintaining their reputation as British bad boys. Soon, they would lose the artistry of Mick Taylor, to be replaced by the functionality of Ronnie Woods. Before it, lay their imperial phase. After, the decadence that had inspired their creativity and innovation became grotesque and tired the more they embraced Stadium Rock.

This updated, refreshed edition is an opportunity to recognise Goats Head Soup for what it is, one of The Stones’ very best albums, a quieter, more reflective, complicated, contradictory older sibling to Sticky Fingers. The minimum purchase for anyone in the least bit interested in The Rolling Stones is the two disc set.

What does it all *mean*?

The Rolling Stones are yet to deliver the perfect superdeluxe box set but they are getting closer.

Goes well with…

A desire to possess luxurious physical product.

Release Date:

Out now

Might suit people who like…

Rock music. What’s not to like about Goats Head Soup?

35

Comments

  5. Great review, still an extremely average Rolling Stones album though. And stop dissing the real masterpiece that is Exile! Maybe check out our recent poll to see how well it is (rightfully) regarded here *

    Believe some of the outtakes were recently finished by Mick

    Brussels is great, I have the download (and had it on bootleg cassette in 1981), I feel Taylor overplayed a bit though.

    * I have listened to GHS recently to check my previous opinion was correct.

    (Doo doo doo doo doo remains awesome)

    • I think Angie and You Can’t Always Get What You Want on Brussels is the best live I’ve heard of The Stones.

      Doo doo doo doo doo is indeed awesome, as are many of the other tracks. My personal favourite is 100 Years Ago. I’m surprised it’s not one of yours.

      • Replied at 4am (being an occasional insomniac), the natural successor to Sticky Fingers is Exile on Main St, I am getting tired of re-evaluated lost classics being anointed something they are not.

        • It’s easy to forget that neither Exile nor Sticky Fingers were considered ‘classics’ until much later. During my uni years ago in the late 80s/early 90s, the standard position from the rock intelligentsia of the time (i.e Arts student wankers) was still that the Stones peaked around Aftermath, held course for Banquet and Bleed (ignoring Majesties) and then began their slide into 70s mediocrity with Sticky Fingers and Exile. I remember buying these two one holiday after ignoring them for years and being stunned: this was how I wanted the Stones to sound. In retrospect GHS is very obviously the tail end of something rather than the start of something.

    • Extraordinary! I realise only now, that, for decades, I have mistaken and muddled up GHS with its successor, IOR&R, which is unmitigated shite, bar the Santana lite of Time Waits For No-one. It sounds as if I may have unfairly dismissed it when Simon Treacle brought in his signed copy….. Must give it a spin.

  8. This is where me and the Stones part ways. It’s really hard to explain why, but the line between Exile and this is some very thin line between authenticity and cartoonish-ness. I think they just cross over that line here.

    Yes, I know “authenticity” is a problematic term. But, I don’t know, something in the intention and delivery of a song like Sweet Black Angel just manages to beat a song like Angie hands down.

    Doo Doo Doo Heartbreaker sounds like they have just watched Shaft. It’s kitsch, like a Scooby Doo version of Isaac Hayes. (Ha! Scooby Doo Doo Doo….) That can be thrilling when you are in the right frame of mind for it, but it just doesn’t sound like my Stones any more.

    My experience of getting to know the Stones was through Hot Rocks first, then buying up the CBS Nice Price CD reissues – Exile and Sticky Fingers just seemed effortlessly mature and sophisticated, but as soon as I heard the Rewind compilation (’71 – ’84) I felt I had a clear idea of where they lost it.

    • I was going to write that first para of yours, Art (although most likely not as well as what you wrote)
      I will add this stunning review to my collection named “Brilliant writing once again. Pity the album is dullsville. Why doesn’t Riggs just review Time Loves A Hero or something/anything good??”

    • I have just emerged from a second helping of GHS, and the remix/master + bonus tracks havn’t changed my opinion that this is very nearly the worst Stones album. Being the fan that I am, I still enjoy it and believe (against all evidence) that they never made a bad album. My attention wanders. That’s the problem. I can walk away from this and forget that I was listening to it. The songs are (generally) too long, and lacking the energy that made Exile (and so many others) vital entertainment.

      Coming Down Again sounds like a Stone Roses outtake. Or a Primal Scream outtake. So much of the rest sounds like the Stones being the Stones, not the music.

      But still. Eh? Eh?

      • Yes, I gave it another go last night on Spotify. Tiggs is right about 100 years ago, that’s a keeper. Otherwise didn’t change my mind too much. Songs are overlong and mainly they did everything better previously or even after this. e.g. the obligatory Keith ballad, and Winter strives to he as good as Moonlight Mile and is almost a re-write but isn’t as good. It doesn’t thrill me. I wouldn’t say it is their very worst, but I think I prefer everything else from Between the Buttons to Some Girls.

        Now there’s an underrated album ripe for reevaluation: Between the Buttons.

        • Not underrated in my house it’s not. The version I prefer has 14 tracks, with Let’s Spend The Night Together and Ruby Tuesday. Fabulous Swinging London album, great cover … wotta band. WOT A BAND.

            • Yeah, let’s go and get the same thing we’ve already got.

              3 unique EPs; 15 45s, 30 songs, only two appearing on original LPs.
              That’s my Rolling Stones. And they looked good.

            • I agree. It’s certainly not as straightforward as The Beatles with UK good, US bad. And in those times The Stones were not necessarily recording a certain 12 or 14 tracks for one particular album, they were all sort of compiled somehow.

              • I think most popular bands, in the UK anyway, were kept constantly touring and recorded the odd track or two (or three) between gigs.
                Lots of quick in-and-out recording sessions, because a constant supply of singles was needed to keep those fickle teens interested.
                As soon as one single was falling down the chart, a new one would be required.
                Most tracks would be used on albums, once there were enough in the can, or stuck on single b-sides.
                The ones thought to be most chartworthy would be rushed out as a-sides.
                Until the last few years of the ’60s, pop album sales were fairly low. Singles were the main focus for artists and labels.

  9. When I see Tiggerlion has reviewed an album, I get positively excited (steady on…) as they are invariably excellent. And so it proves again. Who needs printed music mags?

  10. Brilliant, beautifully-written review! GHS has always been a bit of a curate’s egg for me, forever in the shadow of Exile and yes, a watershed moment marking the end of the imperial phase. I’m very much looking forward to hearing this with fresh ears today.

  11. An anecdote: a school chum, now a very la di da antique dealer in upstate New York, lived next door to Charlie Watts, in Lewes, and I recall him being sent a signed copy to school. Upped his credibility, especially as he then had a birthday party at his home over a half term, attendees lured by the promise of a Rolling Stone dropping by. He didn’t. I

    • Hardly struggling but Goat did better than Exile initially. It had more successful singles. Angie was mega. My personal experience was that the more mature teenage girls and young twenties swooned at the previously unnoticed vulnerability of these bad boys.

  15. Fabulous review, but no sale here I’m afraid. I often spend too much money on music, but over a hundred and ten sovs for a Stones album, any Stones album, however carefully curated, is just waaaay too much.

    Sadly, the double CD version – a relatively reasonable £15 – apparently doesn’t get me a polished copy of the Brussels gig, so that’s a non-starter too.

    I’ll stick to my reliable old vinyl copy thanks (along with the Brussels gig from *cough* other sources).

  16. Great review of a fine album. I’m not sure I agree that it’s such a watershed record – what comes immediately after is more of the same but less good, followed by the magnificent final flourish of Some Girls, which brings the run from Beggars Banquet (and the 70s) to an end. It’s after that that things really change I think, as they struggle to come up with fresh ideas and fresh sounds and end up flailing all over the place with ever diminishing returns.

    • Agree somewhat, but actually Emotional Rescue (mostly recorded in 79) and Tattoo You (throughout the 70s) are pretty much “70s albums”. Things went very wrong then in the 80s with Undercover and Dirty Work, but I think took a turn for the better with Steel Wheels and (especially) Voodoo Lounge.

    • It’s Only Rock & Roll lacks the emotional resonance and the musical sophistication that is present on Goat. It felt that The Stones simplified everything, a process that accelerated once Taylor left, whereas there is contrary complexity here.

      I like Some Girls and the reissue has an excellent disc of outtakes but I’d say it’s a different type of record altogether.

      • Sorry, but “musical sophistication” on GHS? I refer you to Señor Cowslip and his very astute first para. And as for Some Girls – the very definition of embarrassing.
        I would still pay multitudes of dosh to watch The Stones play live but, honestly and seriously, they have recorded nothing new of note since Exile. And that’s a stone cold fact despite your erudite contrariness.

  17. I have never listened to this album.

    Know some of the tracks listed above so looking forward to forming an opinion on a new album that I already know contains two top tracks.

  18. It’s a lovely album and excellent review as ever Tig. It supports my view that Mick Stones is better than Ron Stones and Brian Stones (though the 60s run of singles is superb). I don’t know it as well as Sticky Fingers or Exile where i know every note, but I bought Angie the week it came out and have loved it ever since. I saw them at Knebworth (eventually…) and they did a lot of these songs and were superb (even though Lynyrd Skynyrd took the day) with Mick Taylor in fine form. I must rediscover It’s Only Rock n Roll – I have the single of that too.

  19. I was going to ignore this purchase and stick with the original release but your realy excellent review has made me think again. Can I have my money back if you are wrong?

  20. Thanks Tigs! Smashing writing as always, although I can’t agree with your enthusiasm for the songs.
    I got the 2CD version and the remix sounds good, but I have yet to compare it with my old CD from the 90s or the original 73 LP. This has made me realise that I don’t ‘know’ this album nearly as well as virtually all their other 60s-70s stuff and I can’t remember the last time I played it – it simply isn’t a favourite and nowhere near their imperial phase of Beggars to Exile, and the next album was far better too. It’s not dreadful, and they have made far worse albums since this, but to me the songs just aren’t up to much in most cases. I clearly remember this being a crushing disappointment after the previous run, and that has stuck with me. Even the album cover art is a bit…well…unStonesy somehow.

    The extra tracks are certainly worth having – I do like Criss Cross a lot, and it’s all very listenable rather than just being a collection of offcuts. The Brussels Affair I already have anyway, and it is a stupendous set. I saw them on this tour for the first time and they were absolutely at the top of their game.

    • Impressive. Was discounted specially (the single CD).

      I listened to the Brussels download I bought in 2011 last night. Great stuff.

      Also checked my live records to see how the album has been featured in the 28 Stones shows I have seen.

      Scores on the doors:

      Angie 6 times
      Doo doo doo doo doo 4
      Star Star 1

  23. Hi @Tiggerlion

    This has been sitting on my shelf for a while – I bought the 2-CD version (partly based on your review above) but have only just got around to listening to it. In a nutshell, I haven’t heard this album for about 40 years and have lazily accepted the received wisdom, ie, I didn’t bother trying to hear it again. I have to say, it’s much better than I (think) I remember – and, for once, the bonus disc is worth listening to….

    A belated thank you for your review – I probably wouldn’t have bought it if I hadn’t read your thoughts first…

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