In a sense, you had to have some sympathy for the Rolling Stones in 1967. Mick Jagger and crew finally felt comfortable enough as a band \u2013 and especially Jagger and Keith Richards as songwriters \u2013 that they left the rhythm-and-blues covers they had started their career with and began to search for their own unique voice in the rock world.<\/p>\n
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They couldn\u2019t have chosen a worse time to do so. The British Invasion of the early- to mid-\u201860s was in its last gasp, and the psychedelic era began to come into focus. It would have been difficult for any band to find their own unique voice in these circumstances \u2013 let alone having to face a world that was bookmarked by Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i> on one side and Dylan\u2019s Blonde On Blonde<\/i> on the other.<\/p>\n
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Say this much for the Stones: they tried. Between The Buttons<\/i> is that proof \u2013 and the fact it still spawned two hit singles is evidence that they succeeded in certain aspects. But overall, the record is stylistically all over the place, and ends up being one of the most disappointing efforts from the group to date.<\/p>\n
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If anything strikes me about this disc as being odd, it\u2019s that it really seems like the guitar work of Richards and Brian Jones is pushed to the background \u2013 or even completely out of the mix at times. Granted, the band had found themselves experimenting with instrumentation on Aftermath<\/i>, but to have a real lack of a solid guitar line is a bit shocking.<\/p>\n
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The two hits that everyone remembers off Between The Buttons<\/i> \u2013 \u201cRuby Tuesday\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Spend The Night Together\u201d \u2013 haven\u2019t kept as much of the shine as other early Stones hits have over the years. This is interesting, simply because I wouldn\u2019t rank these among those that get the heaviest airplay (at least in Chicagoland). The daringness of \u201cLet\u2019s Spend The Night Together\u201d (which would win them infamy when appearing on Ed Sullivan\u2019s show) is the one thing that keeps this track sounding fresh today \u2013 as well as the driving piano lines.<\/p>\n
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Admittedly, I\u2019ve never been a fan of \u201cRuby Tuesday\u201d \u2013 it always had a bit of a sloppy feel to it, much like The Monkees\u2019s \u201cDaydream Believer\u201d.Yet one could almost see this track as the Stones\u2019s answer to \u201cLucy In The Sky With Diamonds\u201d in terms of gentle grandeur \u2013 and in that regard, the Stones win that race by a nose in my book.<\/p>\n
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If only the remainder of Between The Buttons<\/i> were as memorable. Oh, make no mistake, there are some great tracks on this disc, such as the gently driving \u201cCool, Calm & Collected,\u201d \u201cMiss Amanda Jones\u201d and \u201cShe Smiled Sweetly\u201d. I\u2019d easily select any of these three to represent the Stones in terms of forgotten or overlooked classics.<\/p>\n
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But for each success, there is a major slip in quality and direction. \u201cYesterday\u2019s Papers\u201d probably was supposed to have some kind of a moral to it, but the song ends up being forgettably annoying. Likewise, tracks such as \u201cMy Obsession,\u201d \u201cComplicated\u201d and \u201cConnection\u201d just feel like the Stones are musically meandering their way through the album, not quite knowing which direction to commit to.<\/p>\n
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But in retrospect, is the fault of this disc\u2019s failure merely the work of the Stones? After all, they struck out on their own musical journey just as the road was not only being dug up in front of them, but was being dynamited in several different directions. That kind of musical upheaval would have sent any band scurrying for shelter, so some credit does have to be given to the lads for trying to weather the storm \u2013 and even making some notable music in the face of the changing winds.<\/p>\n
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Between The Buttons<\/i> is one of those discs that will tend to confound the listener on nearly every turn, even after repeated listenings. The Rolling Stones\u2019s foundation was on shaky ground \u2013 and the earthquake wasn\u2019t done just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5665],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-40111","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-rolling-stones","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40111"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}