Customer Reviews

Primitive Cool

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

lOVE THIS CD. Mick sings up a storm and the writing is soooo Mick and sooo rock....we completely love this CD....it rocks.

but sometimes appreciation is all in the location. I've just purchased this album, after not hearing it since the Summer of '93. I'd gone to stay with my sister in her house north of Barcelona (Spain) where she was in the middle of a painful divorce. I had the whole summer ahead on the Costa Brava to console her and explore my own desires. In her SUV a Toyota Terrano, were three old tapes: Sade - Diamond Life, Culture Club (not sure which) and Mick Jagger's Primitive Cool. I ended up driving all over Barcelona and Catalunya that summer listening over and over again to 'Primitive Cool'. It became a signature for the cities, towns, highways, beaches, mountains and sunsets of that part of Spain. I don't know whether or not it's a good Mick Jagger album. All I know is I love it. I'm currently living temporarily in Tucson Arizona and something about the desert has brought out a longing to hear it again, so I just purchased the downloads. Can't wait to get it in the car.

Mick's second solo record is very good. Some songs are better than others but it's overall a little better than She's the Boss. Say you will should've been a hit. Check out Mary Chapin Carpenter's version of Party Doll.

This is one top quality album! Throwaway is great, Let's Work is better, a real singalong rocker, and Say You Will is even better -- a rousing piece done with real emotion and soul. War Baby, Party Doll and the title track are also good. All in all a solid album with memorable melodic rock songs.

C'mon people!!! As a musician, I do not expect any deviation of
Stones fans ( I love the Stones myself!). But this is another
case in point of a front man (Jagger--and a damn good one) want-
ing to go out and do something beyond the limitations of what he
could accomplish with the Stones. I love Charlie Watts to death
but he is no Simon Phillips. Primitive Cool has a hard rocking
edge to it (Throwaway in particular) that could never be emula-
ted in the Stones. They are the blues rockers (and damn good ones at that). Mick wanted to explore beyond what the Stones
could give him and you have to give him that whether you like this album or not. Mick has always been about high energy and he had a chance to generate this energy beyond the Stones. Mick will always be Stones. But try to escape the Stones if you can
and listen to Mick outside of the Stones and the great playing behind him on this album. Yes, it is different, but I really be-
lieve that is what Mick was going for. He needed something be-
yond where he had been for so long. And let us not forget, he came back where he belonged. Long live the Stones and Mick for
the courage to escape and come back.

Nice record with a few duds. Mick seems to have gone thru a redundant dance song phase which kills the momentum a couple of times, but much to like. Party Doll is one of the more beautiful songs I have heard. Better than She's the Boss by far. Add a few more great songs and it would be up there with Wandering Spirit.

Following the Stones' Dirty Work, bickering amongst the Stones prevented them from having the anticipated quinquennial tour. Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards decided on solo albums, creating speculations whether the end of the Stones was nigh. Such wasn't the case however.

But Mick Jagger's second solo album, Primitive Cool, went more on a harder-edged guitar rock sound than the pop polishings of She's The Boss. All songs were produced by Mick himself, with assistance from Keith Diamond and Dave Stewart, and he brought back Jeff Beck on lead guitar.

That's not to say that some of the pop polish was gone. The first single, "Let's Work," his simplistic solution on killing poverty, went to #39. The song seems to be a mean-spirited hit against welfare recipients, but maybe against those who take advantage of the system-"can generosity bring you humility?"

The second single, the #67 "Throwaway," owes a bit to the Stones, but is more typical of Mick's new hard-driving sound, but the theme of a "been there done that" greasy Casanova who finally wants some true love has been done before. "Radio Control" is even better, featuring some hard guitar riffs. Living Colour's Vernon Reid has guitar chores, so I wonder if it's him here.

The title track is an amusing commentary on how the young ask those who lived in the 50's and 60's if they lived the history of those times, be it fashion or political upheavals, as they learned it in school or saw on TV. I shudder to think of the time when it comes my turn, when some whippersnappers ask me of the 80's, "It all seems so primitive, how did you survive? It all seemed so different then. How did you stay alive?" His easy answer is to tell them what they want to hear, "Oh yeah," but sardonically telling the whippersnappers "Well I think you've got it figured out/go check it out for yourself/cause I've had it playing teacher for today."

"Kow Tow" is a song on taking a stand against a lover gone bad, refusing to be bound to the past or being blackmailed, with some crunching guitar on the chorus. The jumping "Shoot Off Your Mouth" comes closest to the Stones-like nastiness, and is a harder-edged Little Richard/Elvis-type song slamming another ex who not only puts him down but becomes like the proverbial rat on a sinking ship when things go bad. And when he gets stronger, "who are you to shoot off your mouth?" he demands. The most energetic song here and a fave.

The bittersweet ballad "Party Doll" sees Mick visiting country since "Faraway Eyes." More an acoustic piece than country, it shows the disillusionment that sets in once the giddy party days are over, especially when the other half "wants to live in clover." Paddy Maloney gives an Irish flavour with the Uileann pipes. Mary Chapin Carpenter later covered this on her greatest hits album.

"I was born in a war, that's why they call me a war baby" sings Mick in the sobering anti-war "War Babies. The poverty experienced by the Brits, the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day is juxtaposed with the Cold War arms race, with a faint background sound effects of air raid sirens, bombs, and machine gun clatter. "Why can't we hope to find a cure" be it to war, poverty, and security, is an oft-cried question, with a solution that can be either an impossible dream or a darker one.

A few filler songs fail to dampen a stronger solo album from Mick, who despite revisiting familiar themes, is has a reflective side on the title track and "Party Doll." It would be after another Stones album before Mick would go for round three with Wandering Spirit.

This collection of songs stays with you....
I find myself silently singing them in my head at the
strangest times. This is a good thing !
Upon living through that day 911,War Baby sounds like Mick could have written it today not a few years ago!
"I was born in a war and they call me a 'war' baby
I was born in a war but that don't make me war crazy

A little history lesson.
War Babys were born during ww2
Baby boomers came after it was over.

I have never found Mick to use words just to hear himself sing.
"he's not one for "cheezy" lyrics.
Its not all about the "groove" with Mick
he's saying something! Ya gotta listen. !!

When this album came out, the Stones hadn't recorded in years and lots of critics were expecting this to be Jagger's "do or die" release. Though a big swaggery (this is Jagger, guys!), the CD wins due to songs like "Party Doll" and "War Baby." Well worth checking out...just ignore the weird cover illustration of Mick with Yoda ears.

I also bought this album (CD) when it first came out in the late 1980s, starving for something from the Stones. I actually liked She`s the Boss and hoped that this one would be equal to it, but perhaps a little more up-to-date. Boy, was I wrong. I think that, apart from one or two tracks, most of it`s garbage. Listen to "War Baby" and I keep expecting to hear bombs go off and the sounds of sirens.
I guess the thing is with Mick is that he was in a class of his own and did not have to produce this kind of stuff. I am sure he really does not like it, and he certainly did not need the cash. Pass on this one and buy Waundering Spirit instead.