Music : Sticky Fingers |
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Rating: - * Simply The Best? ... I am the Stones authority. But I am not going to give you a blow by blow analyzing each of the tracks, many of the 4 & 5 star posters here have already made fine arguments and cases for the album and the individual tracks. My post here is to address the handful of nuts out of more than two hundred reviews here who somehow rate this album as 1 or 2 stars. The mind boggles. Even a non-fan, but someone with a general appreciation for music, should be able to walk away with at least 3 stars and respect for this album. What I am wondering about is what would rate 5 stars in the world of a reviewer who gave this album 1 star? Five stars for Babs? Bee Gees? Kiss? Ratt? Michael Bolton? Michael Jackson? Kenny G? What rates 5 stars in your world? Simply put this is one of two Stones albums that is arguably their best, and certainly an album the figures automatically into the top ten of any list of the best albums ever - by anyone. If you don't have it and are not familiar with it - then you have no business talking about music - with anyone. Period. Rating: - * Great Music ... A must for anyone with an interest in The Rolling Stones. This is a great album Rating: - * The Best Stone Album? ... Sticky Fingers is a landmark Stones recording, rivaled and perhaps surpassed, only by Let It Bleed. Mick Jagger's performance on Sticky Fingers was a perfect rock'n'roll 10. Great album. Rating: - * As good as they got ... For my money, the Stones never put out a better album than 1971's "Sticky Fingers". I know, I know, 1968's "Beggar's Banquet" and 1972's "Exile On Main Street" have their devotees, but "Sticky Fingers" is the World's Greatest Rock And Roll Band at its absolute zenith in the studio. Though he never really fit into the group's aesthetic, the young Mick Taylor was, technically, the best guitarist the band ever had, and helped return them to their blues base after Brian Jones died. And, in my opinion, Jimmy Miller was the best producer to ever work with them. The record kicks off with the filthy "Brown Sugar," the group's best Seventies single, and continues from strength to strength. "Moonlight Mile" is ravaged and lovely, as is "Wild Horses," the best ballad Jagger and Richards ever wrote. The Stones were at their nastiest on "Bitch" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." Everything released from 1968 to 1972 is essential, but "Fingers" is, quite simply, the best rock band on earth at its height. Rating: - * Demon Life ... Misanthropic, gothic, indestructable. Purists will inevitably favor Exile over Sticky, and it's true we've heard "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" 'til we're dizzy with indifference, BUT, there's something to be said about that 3:52 residing between. And I'll say it: "Sway" is the quintessential Stones session and, most likely, the perfectest damaged purebloodedest rock song ever recorded. It's got that underhanded epic quality, coming way down , which nobody else (like, GnR) could ever effect. Sounds basement, haphazard, intoxicated until the coda, just a sliver of cleverness, suggests the majesty of pure poetic dissolution. Key ingredient, Mick Taylor, no stompboxes, all feel ~ plus Nicky Hopkins and Jimmy Miller strings, plus the boys, just invented the power ballad for the 1st time. As a fadeout, an afterthought! Slippery guitars, barroom piano and careening drums, it's church of roadhouse. I bet Chuck Berry threw a tantrum. Not only THAT, but "You Gotta Move" which shames Led Zeppelin III and "I Got The Blues," Mick's supersingularest rave soul vocal. NO band ever got so much with so little exertion. Bad badder baddest. |



