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Yet Another Tiny Quiz…Bank Holiday stylee

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As before, here’s an extract from a review in the NME. Starts off sounding quite complimentary – but by the end of the sentence, it’s become a bit double-edged!

No clues: no year, no journalist name…
Which album do you think is being reviewed?

“It seems (…) has learned to pierce the centre of a tune’s target with one shot, rather than dropping a cobalt bomb on it and annihilating everything for miles around”

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Comments

  8. I wish to cheat, for as much as I enjoy guessing, I prefer cheating. However I’m currently having breakfast in a cheap hotel where the wifi access is very limited. Though I’m sure hotel limits can be rearranged. Once I get that sorted, I’ll answer the quiz.

  9. Point of order: cobalt bombs destroy the whole fucking world, not just a few miles. They are specifically designed to spread lethal radioactivity as far as possible. Known as the doomsday bomb, they were discussed a lot in the seventies.

    Is it Tales From Topographic Oceans?

    Either that or The Clash Give ‘Em Enough Rope.

    • This morning’s clue: 1970s is correct – I suppose the cobalt bomb comment was a bit of a giveaway…

      Regarding the point of order: “NME journo trades snappy line for factual accuracy shocker!!!”

      • Woah! Hold on a second for one goddarn minute! 1970s? That means I cheated wrong! I asked Perplexity for the answer and it told me Eliott Smith’s XO. Hence my cryptic “rearrange hotel limits” remark. Which must have seemed even crypticer than intended. I’m never trusting Perplexity again. Grock next time. What a bummer. I cheated and didn’t prosper! How often does that happen???

    • He’s on Facebook.

      A recent post, copied below, asked his “followers” whether he in the NME or Dave Marsh in RS were right in their original reviews of Black and Blue

      ORIGINAL NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS UK REVIEW (April 24, 1976)
      Comes on like an idea-shaped vacuum
      The Stones’ delayed 13th proves unworthy of the wait
      The Rolling Stones Black and Blue
      “It doesn’t sound as if the Stones are too much in touch with what’s actually happening.”
      “THE ROLLING STONES are a really good band, but, like, I consider them like a boys’ band because they don’t play men’s music. They don’t play professional music for men, they play music for young people, and even with their most intelligent material as a stimulant, they play music for the young.” – Mike Bloomfield, 1968
      “I’ve heard some of the Rolling Stones’new tracks and although l dig them, l don’t think they’re anything more than what they are, which is incredible, delicious and wonderful rock ‘n’roll and well overdue from them. The Rolling Stones should always be a non – progressive group.”
      – Pete Townshend,1968
      “Quite simply, I personally feel that the Stones are the world’s best rock ‘n’roll band – quite unqualifiedly. Not that I think their records are always great… it’s like Glyn Johns says about a Stones session, you can sit and wait for weeks and they’ll just churn out a lot of rubbish.”
      – Pete Townshend,1970
      “That’s what makes the Stones the Stones: they never back down, never lose ground, they plunge ahead as raw as life itself, and even though they make mistakes sometimes they’re not afraid to admit ‘ern, and they’ll take another wilder chance round the very next bend. That’s rock’n’roll, brother, and so are the Rolling Stones.”
      – Lester Bangs,1973.
      The last time the Stones put out an album was nearly two years ago. That was It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll and since then they’ve pacified the natives only with a couple of crash-course-for-the ravers compilations of their Decca and Rolling Stones Records periods (Rolled Gold and Made In The Shade respectively), Bill Wyman’s Stone Alone, assorted cameos on Ron Wood’s solo LPs, and the everything-you -always- wanted -to -hear -from -the -Stones -and -then- wished you -hadn’t -asked Metamorphosis. Mick Taylor blue -jaunted at the tail end of ’74, just as the Stones were about to embark on their next bout of recording, and various notables – including Jeff Beck, Ronnie Wood (two guys I would deem it inadvisable to invite to the same session), Robert A Johnson (from John Entwistle’s Ox), Harvey Mandel (late of Canned Heat and John Mayall) and Wayne Perkins (late of Smith, Perkins & Smith) – zoomed in amid flurries of are-they-or-are-they-not-the-new-Stones to help The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World to lay down their weary tracks.
      Anyway, Ron Wood won the door prize and gets his pic on the sleeve despite still not being “officially” a full-fledged Stone, and the nationals generally play safe by referring to him as “guitarist with the Rolling Stones and the Faces” even though the Faces are gone – gone. And guess what? Black And Blue, the Stones’ new album, released last week, is composed entirely of material recorded between mid-December of 1974 and early April of1975, featuring Wood, Mandel and Perkins on auxiliary guitars. Relevance, right? Immediacy, right? Fast throughout, right?
      In his celebrated Rolling Stone interview, Keith Richard responded to Robert Greenfield’s remark that “Stones albums usually take a long time” as follows: “Which really pisses me off. Because everybody’s laid back a little more and everybody has other things, whereas when it was just a matter of being on the road and recording, that’s all you did… and obviously you could do things much quicker that way, but you can’t have weddings of the year and solo albums…”
      So Black And Blue comes out nearly a year after it was cut, which would imply (a) that the Stones have been having a more than a somewhat turbulent time of it and (b) a fairly low read-out on the prolific-o-meter.
      Still, it wouldn’t matter a hoot in hell if the album had proved itself worth the wait, but Black And Blue is a letdown of hideous proportions, devoid of either the epic sense of sleazy grandeur or the galvanic bejeweled tension which are the Stones’ twin ace cards.
      From the top, then. Side one opens up with “Hot Stuff”, with two guitar parts from Keef, led by Harvey Mandel, and a dollop of piano from Billy Preston. It’s little more than a lengthy (nearly five-and-a-half minutes) workout on a funk riff with Jagger alternately breathing, “Hot Stuff, can’t get enough” over the top, and indulging in what sounds like a drunken impression of Captain Beefheart doing an I Roytalkover. Mandel takes a lengthy psychedelic I-am-backward- tape solo when Jagger pauses for breath, which isn’t nearly often enough. Richard’s rhythm lick is awesomely casual in the time-honored Keef tradition of playing so loose that it sounds as if he’s going to miss a chop at any moment except that he invariably holds it down with his patented throwaway precision. Plus Charlie’s good tonight, innee? honored Keef tradition of playing so loose that it sounds as if he’s going to miss a chop at any moment except that he invariably holds it down with his patented throwaway precision. Plus Charlie’s good tonight, innee?
      Unfortunately, even the sterling efforts of these two stalwarts can’t make “Hot Stuff” anything more than an embarrassment.
      “Hand Of Fate” is built around a cluster of supposedly fail-safe Stones devices: a snarling, lurching Keef riff, a spitting, grandstanding Jagger vocal, Watts cymbal smashes to boost the momentum, mixed-down Preston piano, and a hardnosed lead guitar (by Perkins, who sounds uncannily like Mick Taylor, which doesn’t hurt a bit). Only trouble is it don’t work. It sets itself up as the latest heir to “Brown Sugar” and “Stray Cat Blues”, but winds up as little more than a poor relation.
      “Cherry Oh Baby”, the Stones’ latest stab at reggae, was written by Eric Donaldson, who recorded the original version which, regrettably, I haven’t heard. It features Nicky Hopkins in the unfamiliar role of organist and no less than four guitar parts (three by Keef and one by Honest Ron Wood, putting in the first of his three cameo appearances). Charlie Watts plays delightfully crisp and solid drums the best white reggae drums I’ve ever heard, in fact – but Bill Wyman’s bass is far too sluggish and the guitars stumble over each other, completely demolishing the feel of the track.
      The last time the Stones addressed themselves to the wonders of dat JA beat (“Luxury” on It’s Only Rock’n’Roll), they covered their bets both ways by simultaneously stylising reggae to hell ‘n’ gone, and maintaining a basic classic Stones rough -edge drive with a reggae backbeat. Here, they attempt a straightforward cop of Actual Real JA Licks, and blow it. The vocal is so hammy that any devout Rasta, Muslim or Jew wouldn’t even allow it in the house.
      The final track on the side, “Memory Motel”, goes part of the way towards reclaiming the lost ground. Perkins and Mandel play guitars (acoustic and electric respectively), and Jagger and Richard pianos (ditto), while Billy Preston weighs in on string synthesizer (the acceptable face of Mellotron). It’s a fair -to – middling example of the Stones Ballad, with just enough roughage from the vocal and drums to satisfactorily complement the pastoral keyboard drama and extremely winsome melody. It would be a more than adequate Second Division cut on a Grade -A Stones album, but on this one, it’s the first track that actually achieves what it sets out to do.
      In general, things pick up a little on the second side. They don’t pull off any masterstrokes, but on the other hand, they don’t fumble the ball.
      “Hey Negrita” is the album’s winner dance track; sinuous, stomping funk with Richard and Wood on guitars (a commendably restrained one guitar track apiece) and Preston on piano and organ; tailor-made accompaniment for stuff-strutting. The song ain’t no Nobel Prize winner, but it’s just solid enough to give the riff an excuse for living and the chorus vocals (by Jagger, Richard, Preston, and Wood) have a nicely sassy urgency.
      “Melody”, which follows, is another of the album’s better moments. Cool, slinky, feline, and deceptively mellow, it gives Billy Preston a hands-down landslide as its Best Supporting Player for his piano, organ and backup vocals, tho’ Bra’ Keef comes a respectable second for his snaky blues fills. It also wins Best Lyric and Best Vocal not that Jagger gives himself too much competition on this album.
      There’s a beautiful verse which goes sump’n like:
      “I took her out eatin’ but she drank up allay pay/She said, ‘I’m gonifix myface, don’t you go away /I was lookin’ for her high and low like a master for a hound/She was passed out in the bathroom in the arms of my best friend.”
      Cute, huh? Unfortunately, the next cut, “Fool To Cry”, throws away a very pretty backing track (Richard and Perkins on guitars, Jagger on electric piano, Hopkins on acoustic piano and string synthesizer) and a lovely chorus with a quite unprecedentedly crass vocal and lyric. Maestro?
      “I come home, baby, after working all night long/Put my daughter on my knee/And she say, ‘Daddy, what’s wrong?’/ And she whisper in my ear so sweet/You know what she say?/ She say, ‘Daddy, you’re a fool to cry’…”
      Look, I know Mick and Keith used to write for Gene Pitney, but this is ridiculous. For closers, there’s “Crazy Mama”, another entry in the Write-A-classic-Stones-Rock-Out sweepstakes. The song’s a bit of a 98-pound weakling, but the track has a rolling, methodical, remorseless power, with Richard playing both the rhythm and the principal leads, augmented by Mr. Jagger himself on Assistant Rhythm and (it says here) Wood and Preston for the gorgeous solo and fade-out lick. I haven’t the faintest idea what Preston’s playing since it sounds like three guitars to me, but I’m too chicken to argue the toss with an Actual Mock-Up of Actual Engineers’ 16-Track Mixing Notes.
      Commendations: Keith Richard still plays Keith Richard better than anybody else, though he’s played it considerably better in the past. Charlie Watts is, on the other hand, greater than ever. Mick Jagger’s guitar is improving dramatically, and he’s playing very respectable piano indeed.
      The Massed Engineers (played by Glyn Johns, Keith Harwood, Phil McDonald and Len Hahn) have achieved a radically different Stones sound: ultra-crisp, clean and sharp, with an enviable degree of solidity and punch on the It doesn’t sound as if the Stones are too much in touch with what’s actually happening bass and drums, as opposed to the tangled, shaggy meat-grinder mixes of yore. It’s a Conventional Good Sound, and I still haven’t made up my mind about it. Brickbats: the quality of the material and of Jagger’s vocals is at an all-time Stones low. The songs are mostly poor, and Jagger sounds strained and uptight, substituting caricature phrasing and enunciation for the deadly, lynx-like confidence of old. Could be he’s unhappy with the songs and is thus unable to work within them to his customary degree.
      All in all, Black And Blue comes on like an idea-shaped vacuum. Why it wasn’t released a year ago I haven’t the faintest idea, and I can only presume that it’s surfacing now because they haven’t had the time/energy/inspiration to cut anything better in the meantime.
      Perhaps the most upsetting aspect of the album is that parts of it already sound dated. “Hot Stuff”, particularly, reminds one that a year ago, when it was cut, earnest folk in the rock biz were all enraptured by Thangs Fonky (Kool, Ohio Players, Fatbacks, etc) and the likes of Keith and his pals were probably dying to try their hand at Summa Dat Fonky Stoff. (Ditto reggae, for that matter.) Well, Fonk precision-tooled itself into a blind alley and “Hot Stuff” is still staring blankly at the wall.
      Black And Blue is neither a triumphant return to the forefront to show all the upstart bands of the last two years that the Original Is Still The Greatest, nor a work of resolute classicism, Rather, it radiates confusion and aridity; isolation and stalemate.
      Unquestionably they’ve still got the chops to play the ass off of their next set of good ideas, but those good ideas are gonna haveta be there if the Rolling Stones intend to be anything more than an oldies band. Black And Blue is neither a trailblazing foray off the beaten track, nor a confident lap of honour round the main freeway, but a directionless mooch round the side streets.
      ‘Oh well.’ suppose it’s rather naive at this point to expect veteran heroes- even colossi like the Stones, The Who and Led Zep- to return messianically toting rock’n’roll salvation in the form of Tablets from the Mountain. The two first-named bands have by now enjoyed longer periods of genuine creativity than either Elvis or Chuck Berry, and even rock stars (especially rock stars) have to contend with built-in obsolescence.
      The hell with it. If they won’t rock us, somebody will. But then you can’t always get what you want.
      ~ Charles Shaar Murray
      __________
      ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW
      Although the Rolling Stones now sing about their children and families as often as their stupid girlfriends, we still try to retain our old image of them, under our thumbs and out of our heads. Musically, the Stones aren’t the same band anymore, either, although the continued use of the same rudiments — the drumming, the ceaseless riffing, the vocal posturing — might make it seem otherwise at a hasty glance. But the band that made Black and Blue isn’t the same one that made 12 x 5 or even Aftermath. But that doesn’t mean today’s Stones are not a great band playing great music. They’re a different sort of band, playing a different kind of music.
      When Mick Taylor joined, more than a guitar style changed, although what changed may have had less to do with the new guitarist than seemed obvious. By 1969, the Stones had already begun their break from simple blues and rock, remember. And even though the technically adept, emotionally sterile Taylor has been replaced officially by the rock archetype, Ron Wood, it is still fatuous to imagine the clock turning back. For at least five albums, the best Stones songs have relied on strings, horns, keyboards and eccentric vocal combinations as much as on guitar, bass and drums. No guitarist could change that. But the audience — and in a sense, I suspect, the Stones themselves — still expects each album to contain some traditional guitar rock. In a way, Black and Blue is an admirable album just for its refusal to bow to the past. A few songs here try to sound like “Brown Sugar” and “Tumbling Dice” and those few aren’t the best ones.
      Still, the Stones have problems. Keith Richard recently has seemed to run out of melodic ideas altogether and, like the majority of their post-Exile on Main Street repertoire, the new numbers are based on loose riffs rather than tight song structures. Consequently, the music lacks energy. (The lack of energy has been written off to age, but that is absurd. Like the Who or any rock band, the Stones are obsessed in their way with age and time, but unlike the rest, they’ve matured with confident gracefulness. For Soul Survivors, I guess, dying before you get old is simply not relevant.)
      What has really dissipated the Stones’ enormous energy is a lack of organization and control. This is most obviously displayed as a production flaw, although the lack of song structure is a symptom, too. The Glimmer Twins (Jagger/Richard’s nom de production) kept control of It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll until the end when “Fingerprint File” finished things with unredeemed self-indulgence. This time, they’ve lost control; it took them too long to make the record, and the weariness shows.
      Too much of Black and Blue picks up the trail of “Fingerprint File.” “Hot Stuff,” which opens side one, and “Hey Negrita,” which opens side two, are intricate funk jams, fusing reggae, Latin rhythms and the Meters’ brand of funk without achieving the focused mood of “Fingerprint File.” Some of the playing is exceptional — on “Hot Stuff,” Charlie Watts might be playing .44 magnums instead of drums — but it never coalesces to slam the message home.
      A producer’s more objective voice could have made the difference. Merely resequencing the songs would have helped. In the middle of a side, the repetitive sameness of “Hot Stuff” or “Hey Negrita” would have seemed less portentous, at least.
      There is plenty of good stuff left, although all of it is marred by the need for fuller, firmer instrumentation. “Hand of Fate,” which isn’t as melodic as the Stones riff usually is, is brought to life by a blistering Wayne Perkins guitar solo and Jagger’s incredibly live vocal. “Crazy Mama,” the wild little rocker that closes the set, is hot stuff. It sounds as out of control as the Faces, although Wood doesn’t play on it. (He’s “in the band,” but he only plays on two songs.) The lyrics are marvelous: “‘Cause if you really think you can push it/I’m gonna bust your knees with a bullet.” Those two are the only hard rockers on the album, and the only time Jagger pulls the standard macho-demonic act, too. The former is perplexing news, but the latter may be regarded by one and all as a good omen.
      Jagger’s new role is as a professional singer, and he’s great at it. “Melody” ought to be a tentative experiment with Billy Preston’s jazzy keyboard sound. Instead, it’s a triumph, Jagger’s voice swooping and snaking around Preston’s piano and harmonies. If Black and Blue leaves us nothing else, it is the knowledge that Jagger has become a total pro in a way that, of rock’s great white vocalists, only Rod Stewart and Van Morrison can match. This, with the album’s two ballads, “Fool to Cry” and “Memory Motel,” is material he can sing with pride until he’s 50.
      “Fool to Cry” harks all the way back to the confessional style of one of Mick’s original influences, Solomon Burke. He talks and cries through the number, riding against the waves of Nicky Hopkins’s string synthesizer. Stalked by the same lonely terror that haunts so many recent Stones numbers, Jagger is consoled and sometimes berated by his daughter, his woman, his best friends. He opens with a neat, oblique comment on his own parenthood, another sign of his maturity. But what is finally striking about the song is that Mick Jagger is now living up to his inspirations. He tried to match Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye for power in his younger days, and failed brilliantly. Older and wiser, he proves their equal as a singer of ballads.
      For “Memory Motel,” a sort of return to “Moonlight Mile,” the stops are all pulled out. Once more, Watts propels the tune with his drumming. The story begins when Mick meets a girl before last summer’s tour. (The real memory motel is near the house in Montauk, Long Island, where the band rehearsed.) But it soon becomes entangled with his recollections of the tour.
      The singing is nothing less than spectacular. Jagger is powerful in his yearning, almost a supplicant. But the real revelation (as always) is Keith Richard, who sneaks in some really touching lines.
      ~ Dave Marsh (May 20, 1976)

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