There was no doubt about it: The Rolling Stones were in a creative glut. Their last two albums \u2013 at least to this reviewer’s ears \u2013 were scraping the bottom of the barrel.<\/p>\n
So what made Some Girls<\/i>, their 1978 effort, a step in the right direction? A lot of the credit can go to the full integration of Ron Wood into the band. Yes, he had been on their previous album Black And Blue<\/i>, but now with some time with the Stones under his belt, he felt like a natural addition to the band, and his guitar work seemed to breathe new life into the band. <\/p>\n
This album is noteworthy for many reasons \u2013 not including the controversy surrounding the original cover and the lawsuits it provoked. First, it featured Mick Jagger and crew partially embracing a more modern sound to their music, as disco was the invasive sound on the radio around this time. The opening track \u201cMiss You\u201d is the closest that they come to disco, per se, and it doesn’t lose any of its rock sensibilities, but it does lay down a more funky groove for both the band and the listener to follow, along with some good harmonica work from Sugar Blue. There’s a reason this track is still well remembered to this day. <\/p>\n
I can’t, though, say the same about the closing track, \u201cShattered,\u201d which has become a classic rock radio staple. Simply put, I hate this fucking song. The rhythm track is incredibly simplistic \u2013 moreso, in fact, than many of the Stones actual hit songs from the ’70s and beyond \u2013 and Jagger just seems to be screaming his lyrics instead of singing them. If I never hear this song again, it will be too soon. <\/p>\n
Other tracks on Some Girls<\/i> fare far better. \u201cBeast Of Burden\u201d is another hit which has a good groove to it, locking the listener in to its seductive beat. Likewise, \u201cWhen The Whip Comes Down\u201d has got a great rhythm track that captures the listener’s ear quickly. The title track may have been very controversial due to its reference to black women and, aah, their penchant for \u201clate night activities\u201d – check out the Wikipedia article on this album if you have no idea what I’m talking about \u2013 but it’s actually a good song. <\/p>\n
If only the remainder of Some Girls<\/i> was able to maintain that momentum. It’s not that tracks like \u201cLies,\u201d \u201cRespectable\u201d and \u201cBefore They Make Me Run\u201d are bad; it’s that they don’t live up to the expectations that most of the first half of the album set for them. \u201cFar Away Eyes\u201d just feels like a throw-away track that could have easily been cut from this one\u2026 and why the Stones still feel the need to do cover songs, such as their inclusion of \u201cJust My Imagination (Running Away With Me),\u201d I can’t explain. <\/p>\n
The Stones hadn’t fully gotten the disco concept out of their system\u2026 whether that would be to their advantage or their detriment, you’ll have to wait and find out. But Some Girls<\/i> was a good, if flawed, move in the right direction for the band. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5665],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-44980","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-rolling-stones","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44980","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=44980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44980"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}