Ever look at the cover of Black And Blue<\/i> and wonder why Mick Jagger and crew look like they\u2019re at a funeral? Just listen to the album to hear how bored they sounded.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the debacle that was It\u2019s Only Rock \u2018n Roll<\/i>, one would have thought that the Rolling Stones would have taken some serious time to regroup and re-tool their songwriting. Well, one out of two isn\u2019t bad \u2013 the group welcomed in new guitarist Ron Wood (who had contributed to their previous album), and relocated to \u00a0<\/p>\n The end result, Black And Blue<\/i>, sadly continues the downward slide into self-parody that the Stones had been on since Goats Head Soup<\/i>. Relying too much on the local ambiance, the reggae style makes its way into a good amount of the music \u2013 if only it added something enjoyable to it. In the end, this disc is a throwaway \u2013 albeit a tiny step up from It\u2019s Only Rock \u2018n Roll<\/i>, maybe because it features only eight songs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Things could not have gotten off to a worse start than they do with \u201cHot Stuff,\u201d a track that almost sounds like it was recorded during a stream-of-consciousness writing session. It\u2019s half-baked, it\u2019s half-heartedly performed \u2013 it\u2019s totally<\/i><\/b> rubbish. The failure right out of the gate leaves the Stones in a deep hole they must try to extricate themselves out of for the remainder of the disc.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Yeah, if only they had tried. Cuts like \u201cCherry Oh Baby,\u201d \u201cHey Negrita\u201d and \u201cMelody\u201d all continue in that off-the-cuff style that, frankly, does not work for Jagger and company. One has to assume that the two years between albums did absolutely nothing to re-charge the creative batteries of Jagger and Keith Richards, \u2018cause this stuff is some of the most boring material the Stones ever put to vinyl.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Highlights? Well, if you can call them that, three tracks stand out as being not as painful to listen to. \u201cHand Of Fate\u201d seems like it\u2019s the kind of track that could have been something special had it been given a lot more attention and TLC than it was; as it is, it\u2019s okay, but it sounds underdeveloped. Likewise on \u201cMemory Hotel\u201d and \u201cCrazy Mama,\u201d the latter being the only real song where it sounds like Jagger and company may be close to breaking out of the musical doldrums they had been in for three years. One wishes they had.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By this time, there was no denying it: the Stones were on the verge of becoming has-beens. Black And Blue<\/i> is exhibit A in that trial, and it leaves the listener feeling like they\u2019ve been on the wrong end of a one-sided prize fight. Fortunately for the Stones, a little bit of musical salve was just around the corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5665],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-40132","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-rolling-stones","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40132","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=40132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40132"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}