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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Sticky Fingers |
| Date | Mon, 14 Apr 2003 01:19:08 -0500 |
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The Stones obviously went through three distinct phases between *England's
Newest Hitmakers* and *Exile*: the early R&B-covers/Nanker Phelge phase, the
eclectic pop phase, and the rootsy blooze phase. I don't really see any
reason why they should be held up against each other as competing for
peak-period status. They're different enough to have their own distinct
appeals, so holding up one period over the others tends to say more about
the taste prejudices of the listener than it does about the Stones. Me, I
find a lot to like about the Stones in each of those periods, although I'm
in the camp of those who believe that the band went into a
three-decades-long careerist rut after *Exile* (with the exception of the
singularly excellent *Some Girls*) from which they've only emerged on
isolated tracks here and there.
For the record, I agree with those who prefer *Satanic Majesties* to *Sgt.
Pepper* but don't think that either album ranks highly in the oeuvre of
either band. *Satanic Majesties* does have its pleasures, as Stewart
delineated, but they're not consistent pleasures. The proper way to approach
the album is to see it as distinct in terms of the Stones canon, almost as a
sort of detour. It's easier to approach it that way, since you therefore
won't judge it by its lack of the swing and the funkiness that a listener
almost unconsciously expects to hear in the Stones. As Keith Richards said
when looking back on the album, "When I listen to rock, I've gotta hear
Chuck Berry coming through it. Part of me was digging what we were doing at
the time, but the other part of me was going, 'Yeah, but where's Chuck
Berry?' It's gotta connect."
On another point, Ronald Sanchez notes that the Kinks "couldn't hold
people's attention through the late sixties." Well, the fact that the band
was prohibited from touring the States from 1966 to 1969 had a lot to do
with that. In terms of evolving during that period, the Kinks held up quite
nicely when compared to their peers. In fact, the late-sixties albums that
the Kinks put out while they were stuck on the eastern side of the Atlantic
(*Face to Face*, *Something Else By the Kinks*, *Village Green Preservation
Society*, and *Arthur*) represent an amazing blizzard of musical gems from a
band that always seems to unfairly get short shrift when compared to the
other great bands of the British Invasion.
Gregory Sager
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