Customer Reviews

Sticky Fingers

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I have to agree with the other comments about the re-mastering here. I was quite surprised how hot it sounded. "Wild Horses" in particular, sounded like it was distorting at times. I checked my levels, and it wasn't my gear, so just out of curiousity, I opened the file in Logic to see what the waveform looked like. I knew without checking that it must have been a recent digital re-master, because it's hot as all hell, and clipping significantly on the choruses. Made me realise that for old 60s/70s music, I should really be looking for the 80s/90s cd versions I guess, or analogue. Really kind of sad, given that the 70s were so obsessed with recording quality, that all that love and care is being lost just for loudness, which you can get by turning up your amp or iPod anyway. Really don't get it... I thought the "loudness war" was limited to recent releases, quite saddened to see it's even being applied to re-masters of old music.

Great music, possibly The Stones' best album, but this is not the version to buy.

I don't know why the previous posters are impressed with this re-master. Sticky Fingers is my personal favorite Stones album, and if you don't have it, get it, but I recommend you seek out the 1994 re-master on Virgin Records. This re-master distributed by UMD has compressed the top end, probably to hide tape hiss, and boosted the instruments up louder to near distortion levels. On headphones certain higher pitched sounds like the piano on Moonlight Mile are eardrum piercing, and the organ solo on I Got the Blues is particularly horrid sounding on headphones or open speakers. On open speakers, the overall poor quality is even more apparent. While certain sounds, particularly opening guitar riffs, stand out more than before, once the entire band kicks in, the compression leads to a dull thuddy sound, particularly in the drums. The one song that overall sounds better than before is ironically my least favorite - Sister Morphine. It now has a menacing quality that has been missing from previous CD masters, but it opens with a clumsy fade-in on the guitar, again probably to mask tape hiss. Perhaps the most disappointing part of this re-master is that one of my favorite moments in this album - the sudden surprising swell of strings near the end of Sway - is completely buried now.
Some have complained about a high end "harshness" to the Virgin re-masters but to me those are more open and crisp. If that's your taste, that's what you want. If you prefer a more bassy limited sound, you might prefer the new re-masters. As for me I will stick with what I have and not purchase any more UMD re-masters.

Why the Stones felt the need to compress these new remasters to make them so much louder is beyond me. This CD has a dynamic range of about 8db. Everything has been compressed to make the average volume louder. Try the new Rod Stewart remasters of A Night on the Town and Atlantic Crossing, which were not compressed to increase the volume, to see what might have been with these new Stones remasterings. I actually like the EQ choices Stephen Marcussen made in the remastering of this and the other Stones remasters, but the lack of dynamic range and compression ruin it. No bonus tracks and a loudness war remastering make this one a loser for me. Stick with the Ludwig remasters from '94 or the original CBS/Columbia CDs (the latter of which are unfairly maligned IMHO). Let's not reward this type of remastering.

I agree with the previous posts that correctly note that the new mastering on this CD is much too loud, often bringing the music to near distortion levels. One need to simply compare the waveforms (with any wave editor program) of the 94 Virgin releases with the new remasters. The 94 remasters still leave room for the music to "breath." The new remasters don't breath at all...they are in your face the whole time.

Yes, you can hear sounds in these remasters you haven't heard before. And while that is sort of neat (especially in the quieter passages), it's simply because the volume level of the quieter sounds has been significantly increased...while the louder parts have been limited to allow to bring everything to the brickwall without distorting. The end result is something the Stones never originally intended. In essence, it's like some strange sort of remix of volume levels.

And quite honestly, these remasters are painful on the ears. The lack of the dynamics of earlier issues means your ears are getting assaulted non-stop by artificially loud music. The problem is that when you remove the "quiet" from the music, you also essentially remove the "loud." The new remasters ultimately lack the punch of the 94 Virgin issues and sound shrill in comparison (even if the bass is indeed louder).

The good news is that the 94 Virgin CDs should now start showing up used more frequently as fans dump them in the mistaken notion that they are getting better sound with the newest remasters. One should be able to build up a collection of 94 Virgin CDs rather cheaply as a result.

In this day and age , why would anyone compress the sound levels just to gain a louder pressing. The virgin pressing is better. Someone needs to step in and redo the Stones catalog properly.

All I want to say is these new Stones remasters are brittle...washed out...compressed...totally distorted and unlistenable. Do not buy these...stay with your Virgin Records versions...worst I have ever heard. I'm being liberal here folks...it's your money though.

We all would just LOVE to love the new Rolling Stones UMG remasters.
Now, I have the Virgin 1994 Sticky Fingers cd, the Japanese pressings and this new UMG offering.
This new UMG release is GAR-BARGE.
The LOUDNESS WAR is on.
For example, using a waveform audio editor to look at the UMG version of Can't You Hear Me Knocking, you can see the brickwall limiting right up to 0 db full scale.
What that means is clipping, causing god awful distorion and practically NO dynamic range.
It sounds TERRIBLE folks.
The Virgin and Japanese cds are so much better.
They have good dynamic range and no clipping distortion as a result of "THE LOUDNESS WAR."
I simply don't understand the rationale behind ruining a perfectly good product with BAD mastering and processing.
Do yourself a favor. Look for the old Virgin releases.
Stay way away from this one.

There isn't much I can add that has already been said thousands of times about the Rolling Stones 1971 classic "Sticky Fingers",so I'll get to the basics here about the 2009 reissue-the remastered sound,helmed by Stephen Marcussen and Stewart Whitmore,is a big leap forward over the 1994 Virgin-both the hard-rocking "Brown Sugar" and "B*tch" have more bite,kick and snarl,the acoustic passages of "Wild Horses","Sister Morphine" "You Gotta Move" and "Moonlight Mile" sound clearer and more life-like,the bass no longer sounds like mud,and the top-end harshness of the previous CD editions is gone,balanced out to a tolerable level.The packaging is the same as the Virgin-plus no bonus tracks-so if sound quality is not an issue with you,then keep your old one.But given the reasonable price,I wouldn't deny any Rolling Stones or classic-rock fan the chance to hear this landmark album in a fresh sonic light,either!

I guess I should count my lucky stars I am not an audiophile or musician. I listen to music on my iPod (with the original cheap earbuds), in my car with the speakers it came with, or on my $100 Sony boombox. Okay, stop cringing!
So all I know is I like, love, adore, salivate over the Stones and have seen them many times in concert. I am listening to the remastered Sticky Fingers recording as I write this. I've owned this album as an LP, a tape and now the CD (along with a multitude of other Stones albums).
Unfortunately, I don't recall how Keith sounded on the LP version of an album or if Mick Taylor was better than Ronnie Wood or if the studio version of a particular song was better than the live version.
Excuse me a minute while I listen to Wild Horses.
Okay, I'm back. I am an artist/writer so I am more of a visual person than an audio expert. The sound can be somewhat harsh on the remastered albums but that is not a problem for me.
All I know is sometimes I like it LOUD and sometimes I like it as background music. But it's all good. So if you are in the same situation as I am, I recommend you buy the remastered CDs if you need to add certain albums to your collection. I am upgrading from tapes and all those LPs I sold when my record player broke.
But if you are a musician or audiophile, I can't speak for you...

A lot of folks don't seem to like this newest version due to the supposed poor remastering. Well, I don't own the 1994 Virgin version so I can't compare this to that but I do own the 1990 CBS version and this basically just sounds like that, only louder. Other than that the overall sound is cleaned up a bit and the bass and drums a bit more punchy.

Having said that, the reason I felt compelled to buy this (other than the fact that it is one of my favorite Stones LP's) is that on my iPod I have to crank up the CBS version to hear it well and that causes unwanted hiss and background noise. This UM version takes care of that problem and also more closely matches the levels of other recordings I have on my iPod giving a more consistent listen from album to album, especially when listening in my car. I think there are imperfections w/ the original recording and/or production that just may simply be more amplified here. Possibly Virgin did a better job w/ the '94 release of masking those imperfections or smoothing out the wrinkles so to speak.

As far as the actual music goes, this is one of the Stones' best in my opinion. "Brown Suger" was an instant classic upon it's original release and touches on one of the Stones' favorite subjects: sex! And in this case, somewhat taboo sex being that the object of desire is a woman of color. "Sway" is one of my very favorite Stones songs. One that I never tire of hearing. Mick Taylor is brilliant on this track w/ his tasteful slide solo in the middle and intense ripping on the outro. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" is another favorite. Mick just goes for it here. "Wild Horses" is absolutely beautiful w/ Keith's 12-string strumming. "Bitch" rocks. Another reviewer mentions how this remaster kind of made him rediscover "Sister Morphine" given the fact that this version really pops out of the speakers at you. I couldn't agree more. And Finally, "Moonlight Mile". I don't know what to say other that I really love this song. It's very intense and moving. A perfect way to round out the album.

I have to believe that it's releases like this one that help spawn and inspire the likes of the Black Crowes, Aerosmith and Guns 'n Roses. This is a great album and the remaster, although not perfect, does make the original better.