Posted by Steve Cronen Child of Your Emotional Rescue on May 01, 2000 at 06:21:37:
In Reply to: Album which best defines the Stones sound posted by The Midnight Rambler on May 01, 2000 at 05:42:19:
: Which, do ya think, is the album which best defines the Stones sound?
: I mean, for example "Between the Buttons" is great, but I don't think that it's the sound of the Stones...
: My vote goes to "Sticky Fingers", that album is pure Stones (and it's not my fave album): powerful riffs, lyrics 'bout sex and drugs, poweful solos, great vocals....if an alien came here and asked me: "How do the Stones sound, how is their real music and sound?", I would give him Sticky.....and Brown Sugar is the song which best defines what the Stones are!
That's a toughie. I mean, they've had several different "sounds," as far as their career goes. There was the sixites era, and I think the record that best defines that sound is Aftermath. You get a good mix of the experimentation they got into later on, yet you still retain the bluesy sound, as well.
In the seventies, I don't think I could go with an album like Sticky Fingers or Exile for the pure fact that, they're one of a kind, each in their own manner. They're not what I consider "seventies" albums, really. The sound that defines the Stones' seventies career, for me, is IORR. There's rock, there's ballads, there's funk, there's swinging stuff... that's the seventies Stones in a nutshell. Exile and SF, on the other hand, are like two moments frozen in time; they are not sixties, or seventies, or anything afterward. They're both in their own, perfect world.
In the 1980's, I'd say the definitive Stones-sound record is... Undercover, just barely. There's a mix of rock, disco beats, and 80's synth-pop, all of which the Stones practiced in the 1980's. All we're missing is a good ballad. So maybe we could substitute Emotional Rescue instead.
The 1990's were never really characterized, were they? Voodoo Lounge and B2B sound like completely different timeframes, don't they? Truthfully, I don't think they had a definitive 90's sound. It was just an amalgamation of everything thus far, not to mention something new.
You know what? I want Love You Live right now like nothing else. That, and Pete Townshend's All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. And a whole lotta KEEF!