Customer Reviews

Flowers

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Flowers is a compilation of Stones singles, b-sides and songs that were omitted from the US versions of Aftermath & Between The Buttons. "Let's Spend The Night Together" and "Ruby Tuesday" are well deserved classic, but other lesser known Stones songs shine. The caustic, feedback drenched "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadows" is a 60's gem and "Mother's Little Helper" is a sarcastic ode to the modern day housewife. "Out Of Time" is an almost forgotten song that could have easily been a huge hit had it been released. "Ride On Baby" and "Sittin' On A Fence" are solid tracks while "My Girl" is a competent cover of the Temptations classic that doesn't match up to future covers they would do of their songs. Flowers is one of the better compilations to be released by the band as it combines the well known songs with lesser known ones to make for an interesting listening experience.

OK...To understand Flowers, you have to first realize the context in which it was released. Flowers was released as an American only album of material that was not issued on previous albums, material that was cut from the American versions of albums released in their full 14 track format in Britain, or singles that had not made it into an album yet. Also don't forget that the Stones weren't touring at the time, attempting to find the same refuge that the Beatles had in their studio to try some experimentation a la Sgt. Peppers which became Satanic Majesties. Now that the proper context has been established, this album finds the Rolling Stones at the peak of their mid-60's creative power. Group founder Brian Jones had not yet cashed out on his drug and alcohol binges and he was totally into what has retrospectively been dubbed "flavoring" the albums and tracks that the Stones were putting out. The album is strung together with singles: "Ruby Tuesday" b/w "Let's Spend the Night Together", "Have You Seen Your Mother?", "Mother's Little Helper", and "Lady Jane". This material coupled with the leftovers from the British releases of Aftermath and Between the Buttons helps make this album somewhat eclectic like the other two albums but no less entertaining. The psycho-Bo Diddley "Please Go Home" is great 60's style garage-psyche rock. Anytime the Stones go Bo Diddley is worth listening to, by the way. "Out of Time" is a great companion piece to "Under My Thumb" from Aftermath, as it features much of the same instrumentation, with Brian Jones anchoring the song on his marimbas once again. "Back Street Girl" and "Ride on Baby" both fall into the same vein, with the use of the classical instruments on the rock tracks for that mock-Baroque feel that many of the 60's bands like the Kinks and Yardbirds went for with their use of harpsichords, etc. "Sitting on a Fence" and "Take It or Leave It" are also like songs, with similar feels and good acoustic guitar work. "My Girl" to me is the one oddity on the album but somehow it works with the eclecticness of the finished product.
This album was one of the first albums that I ever bought when I got into the Rolling Stones. It was also the first Stones album that I bought my fiancee when we were 16. We both loved it and I have never regretted that choice. For me, the albums Aftermath and Between the Buttons represent height of the Stones in the 60's before they changed directions forever. This album, Flowers, bridges the two in the same way that Rubber Soul and Revolver were bridged by Yesterday and Today. These albums form critical trilogies of albums at points where two bands were reaching critical mass just as the dream of the 60's was ending for so many.
Now for the disclaimer: as some reviewers have pointed out, this album is not part of the canon of Rolling Stones albums. That may be true but when you compare this album to others such as Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers or Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, but you are essentially comparing different bands and different times when holding Flowers against these rockers. Flowers is a great album that is completely misunderstood and underestimated. This album came out in 1967 and when compared with other albums of that time and place it shines with the best of them.

One of the greatest of all Stones albums, "Flowers" is often hailed as an expression of psychedelia. I think this overlooks the sheer rock feeling on some of the songs and their diversity, as well as Jagger's great shading on his strongly accented voice: Never has he sounded so wonderfully British (with a nod to Chicago blues singers).

The album blasts you with one great single after another: "Ruby Tuesday," "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow" (foreshadowing their later involvement with big sounds and horns), the superb, defining "Let's Spend the Night Together" with its Beach Boys background vocals," Jagger's great wry tones and the harpsichord sounds on "Lady Jane," and another signature tune, "Out of Time." (Jagger is so expressive on the unusual "Lady Jane," you can almost picture him in ruffled sleeves, suavely exiting from his courtesans.) What's amazing is the band's uniformly superb musicianship. The songs are textured with flute, accordian, marimba, and other instruments, the bass and drums are tight and driving, and the guitars add nuance as well as bite. Then...then, there's "My Girl, " as bad as its reputation. The band actually gets much of a Motown feeling on the preceding "Out of Time." Maybe someone else knows why "My Girl" is so completely flat: Was the production rushed, were they over-awed by the original? I don't know, but the rest of the album more than makes up for this basically boring cover.

To cite "Backstreet Girl" as an example of the Stones' enlightened treatment of women (as one reviewer did here) is ridiculous; although Jagger's has an unusually tender vocal, he clearly relegates the song's subject to his hidden life. "Please Come Home" has a great surf-like bass/drum riff and some mini-pychedelia in the guitars and echo-y back-up vocals. Not memorable, but fun. The sardonic opening guitars, clever lyrics, and a great hook ("Doctor please, some more of these...") highlight the melodically weak "Mother's Little Helper." Finally, I enjoy the moody, petulant vocal on "Take It or Leave It" (Gee, don't ya feel sorry for him!), backed by textured percussion and jangly guitar. The album closes on the very strong "Ride On Baby," ("you make look pretty but I can`t say the same for your mind."), and the reflective cynical mood of "I'm Just Sitting on a Fence" ("but there is one thing I could never understand, some of the sick things that a girl does to a man...").

This album shows the group at or near its peak, before the 70's brought such overproduced songs as "Brown Sugar" and Tumbling Dice" (I know, some people love these) and the guitar riffs were often clichéd. Their blues roots are intact (with a nice dose of pop/rock), the songs are spare yet subtly textured, and the band seems fresh and eager to experiment. Very highly recommended!!!

NOTE: The "enhanced" version of the CD does not play on my computer's (Dell Optiplex) CD drive, but sounds great on other CD players. Also, like others, I wish the original liner notes had been included.

"Flowers" holds the same place in the Stones' U.S. catalog that "Yesterday...and Today" held in the Beatles' - until the CD era, when the Beatles eliminated those bastardized US Capitol releases with UK editions of all catalog titles up to "Sgt. Pepper's", for it was those UK Parlophone albums that the Beatles and George Martin meticulously prepared and programmed. (This international uniformity lasted until enough time had elapsed to allow for nostalgia and commerce to warrant repackaging those American Beatles titles in expensive boxed sets).
But the Stones' UK catalog was never so clearly superior; the British Deccas are not necessarily superior to their US counterparts. Certainly original Decca vinyl was sonically preferable to London's 'fake stereo' in the '60s. Otherwise, however, the biggest difference was cultural: hit singles have always sold albums in the States. In England their inclusion on LPs was seen as redundant. If the Beatles always produced their albums in England, by 1964 The Stones were recording - in superb stereo - at Chicago's Chess Studios, and soon they stormed the charts and defined their times with 'The Last Time', 'Satisfaction' and other classics recorded at RCA in Hollywood. Partly this may have to do with Andrew Oldham's awareness that his role as producer was limited, and that to make great sounding records the Stones needed terrific engineers like Ron Malo (Chess) and Dave Hassinger (RCA). Which brings us to the rather maligned US-only "Flowers", like "December's Children" a hodge-podge that has steadily gained the status of near-classic, an album that sounds remarkably vital forty years after its release.
Not really, contrary to general assumption, a 'compilation', "Flowers" was issued in June 1967, the same month Brian Jones escorted Nico to the Montery Pop Festival where, still the wizard and true star ahead of the curve, he appeared onstage resplendent in his baubles and singular finery to introduce his friend Jimi Hendrix, who had returned to the States to make history that night. But it was also a period of stress and crisis in the Stones' world, with the band in legal limbo and unable to tour - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones (along with various friends and family) had all been busted for drugs during the preceding months, and the completion and release of "Their Satanic Majesties Request" would be delayed until November; radiant doomed Brian Jones was privately in the midst of a free-fall that would lead to his inevitable dismissal from the Stones, followed, just weeks later, by his death July 3, 1969.
At the time of release most of "Flowers" was new to the US audience (which might explain why it was another smash hit, reaching # 3 in "Billboard", during a 35 week chart run), containing tracks from UK versions of "Aftermath" and "Between The Buttons" that had been deleted from US editions, along with two classic late '66 hit singles previously unavailable in album form. Three tracks had never been released anywhere by the Stones. As such "Flowers" at first sounds somewhat like a cross between the two previous studio albums. It was, and remains, however, oddly flawed by the inclusion of three hits already available on the US editions of "Buttons" ('Let's Spend The Night Together,' 'Ruby Tuesday'), and "Aftermath" ('Lady Jane').
Musically 1966 - 67 was the period during which Brian had lost interest in the guitar, instead coloring each song with an array of different instruments that always seemed to deepen the mood and power of the music. The Stones, with Ian Stewart and Jack Nitzche helping out, were experimenting, moving away from the classic American blues/r&b/soul/country forms that had inspired their first five albums. The music here is detailed and carefully textured, the songwriting sharp and acerbic, though often here with an introspective, late-night ambience that distinguishes it from the more willful "Buttons". "Flowers" does finally establish its own identity disctinct from the the two earlier classics, as exemplified by the English-folk/Appalachian tone of the exquisite closing track ('Sittin' On A Fence'). One is struck by the band's effortlessly great songwriting and ability to create fresh settings for each track. 'Sittin' On A Fence' is a brilliant example of the Stones' ambivilance (remember "Salt Of The Earth" or "Street Fighting Man")as well as a dramatic and effective climax to a great set. Elsewhere, 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby' remains a work of blistering power and density, its amphetemine fueled roar of guitar feedback, Wyman's impossibly heavy bass, and otherwordly pop-art horns concealing a dazzling lyric of Freudian sexual repression that demands to "tear through the shadow..." during its bridge. 'Out Of Time,' is both shorter and in a different mix from the UK version. The sole cover, 'My Girl' is lovely but minor, a bit too respectful of the Temptations' original to be considered inspired (compare the band's brilliant 1978 re-invention of 'Imagination'). Side two (of the vinyl album) provides one gem after another, from the waltz-time class analysis of 'Backstreet Girl', with Brian's gorgeous accordion and Mick's brutal yet tender vocal; 'Please Come Home' is 'Mona' on on acid, its relentless, hypnotic Diddleybeat transformed by Brian's theremin and what sounds like either synthesizer or mellotron, Keith's virtuosic guitar swirling through the mix atop Charlie Watts' perfect drumming (and, by the way, Shirley Watts makes a singular appearance here on backing vocals). 'Mother's Little Helper' is of course a classic single and another masterful track, with the droning guitar and Brian's sitar(?)providing a sense of dread and foreboding while Mick's vocal projects absolute confidence. 'Take It Or Leave It' is a pensive jewel, 'Ride On Baby' a unique rocker on which Keith's guitars are restrained but trenchant while Charlie's congas and Brian's harpsichord, bells, and harp (not harmonica) stand out as especially inventive.
Why not five stars? As stated, the three re-runs are simply lazy. Let us rewrite history by replacing them: open this album with another non-album single from '66, 'Sad Day'. Replace 'Let's Spend the Night' with 'Mother Baby's' B-side, the psychedelic blues 'Who's Driving Your Plane?' and insert the hotel room insomnia and restlessness of 'What to Do' as track five (in place of 'Lady Jane'). Now we have an album that is thematically and musically a far more cohesive statement...This is my five star "Flowers"
1 Sad Day 3:03 ("The Singles Collection/London Years")
2 Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby 2:35
3 Who's Driving Your Plane? 3:15 ("Singles Collection")
4 Out Of Time 5:37 (longer UK "Aftermath" version)
5 What To Do 2:35 (UK "Aftermath" or "More Hot Rocks")
6 My Girl 2:37
7 Back Street Girl 3:27
8 Please Go Home 3:18
9 Mother's Little Helper 2:47
10 Take It Or Leave It 2:50
11 Ride On, Baby 2:53
12 Sittin On A Fence 3:02
voila! With the superbly remastered Abkco CDs and a multi disc changer anyone can program the album this way, and it's how I now choose to listen to it.
It doesn't matter anymore if this album was put out as stopgap. The 1966-67 Stones were in constant creative motion, and made accomplished, frequently startling music that can't be categorized as merely 'transitional'. Some of the best of that material appears on "Flowers". Finally, ponder the album jacket - on the front cover, Brian's is the only flower whose stem is without any leaves at all...

Great piece of their early work.
In slower songs like "Back Street Girl" and others in this CD you hear a young and romantic more innocent Mick.

It's very charming, very different from their more "established" tough sound.

Highly recommended!

Flowers showcases the Stones at the height of their blues-to-pop transitional period. It combines the hits ("Ruby Tuesday", "Let's Spend The Night Together", "Mother's Little Helper", "Have You Seen Your Mother ,Baby, Standing In The Shadow?") with b-sides, UK tracks, and outtakes. The album starts with the subtle and beautiful "Ruby Tuesday", which sets the vibrant and colorful tone of the album. Then come the fast, horn-driven "Have You Seen Your Mother" leading to the absolute highlight, "Let's Spend The Night Together". Truly the best of the best, from the backing vocals to the boogie-woogie piano. Then we get a soft, Elizabethan treat, "Lady Jane". "Out Of Time" is a lovely, pop-sounding tune that would've been a big hit had it been released as a single. The only problem is that this version is two minutes shorter than the one released on the UK version of Aftermath. Then comes the cover, "My Girl". I disagree with the reviewers who hail it as a bad song and far unsuperior to the original. It may not be as good as the original, but it's pretty darn close. "Backstreet Girl" is a wonderful, flowery tune with its accordion. When I hear it, I feel like I'm at a bistro cafe in France sipping a cup of coffee. "Please Go Home" is a surf-like tune that's fairly catchy but fogettable. "Mother's Little Helper" is a big hit, darkened by the sitar and some clever lyricism. "Take It Or Leave" is a nice, dark song that makes you feel at peace when you listen to it. "Ride On, Baby" is very powerful with silly lyrics and a happy-sounding harpsichord. But they saved the best for last with "Sittin' On A Fence". The song is insanely catchy and is sort of folk-like. I can't understand why this song was never released as a single as it would've reached #1 easily. They've done no other song like it.

Ah man, when I was 7 years old in 1968, I had a Sears Silvertone record player that played in 4 speeds, 78, 45, 33 and 16 rpm. One of the "big records" that I had was Flowers. I'll never forget it. This album is like part of my blood. It sounds better than ever on these new SACD's too. Love it!

An excellent compilation of rarities and previously released singles. You have classic hits like the bouncy Lets Spend The Night Together, the amusing Mother's Little Helper, or the pretty ballad Ruby Tuesday. Some people dislike the version of My Girl but truthfully the band plays it close to the original as they can. Mick Jagger does not have the same style as the Temptations but he certainly gives a nice tender rendition.

Rarities such as Backstreet Girl and Ride On Baby feature nice instrumental support. I really like the accordian touches on the former piece and the energy is quite infectious on the later song. However, Out of Time is the real gem on this collection. Great lead and harmony vocals and a hook that is oh so super catchy. Now where else can you find this tune?

I liked this record when I first purchased it many years ago. Today I still find it very enjoyable as it neatly sums up many of the best songs from the Rolling Stones mid sixties period. Very useful for those seeking a quick fix compilation.

Altough not as good as the Big Hits or Hot Rocks collection, this one is still worth purchasing. It's got classics like Ruby Tuesday, Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Lets Spend The Night Together, and Mother's Little Helper. It also has songs unreleased in the US like My Girl and Ride On, Baby. All the other songs originally from here were rereleased on More Hot Rocks. Back Street Girl and Please Go Home were released on the 2002 CD of Between The Buttons UK. So overall, I'd get this album because it's a great album and because you won't own My Girl or Ride On, Baby otherwise.

Crippled by drug busts and court appearances, the summer of '67 Stones had little time to come up with new material, much less an answer to the revolutionary pop of the Beatles' just-released Sgt. Pepper. Therefore Decca records was forced to put out this compilation of hits and outtakes dating back as far as Dec. '65 ( those being "My Girl," "Out of Time," "Mother's Little Helper," "Backstreet Girl" and "Sittin' On A Fence"). But that's hardly a raw deal, as the album is in essence a mini-greatest hits of the Stones at the peak of their mid-sixties creativity:
the shimmering Jan '67 single of "Ruby Tuesday"/ "Let's Spend The Night Together" (the latter of which makes its contemporary "Strawberry Fields" sound like a druggy chore by comparison), The anarchic energy of Aug '66's "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby," the glorious chorus in "Out of Time" from the Aftermath album, and so on. But the true forgotten gems here are "Backstreet Girl," a decadent acoustic waltz with the late multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones on accordian (the fact that his flower on the album cover had no leaves was a band in-joke), with Mick's lyrics pointing the finger at the philandering of his fellow pop stars as much as himself, and "Sittin' On A Fence," Keith and Brian doing some lovely acoustic dueling as Mick ponders his old classmates and the life he could have led. An album released in summer, it's actually perfect for a cold winter's night, talented young men conjuring all kinds of visions for one's own darkness.