Amazon.com essential recording
Before this 1965 blues-rock masterpiece, the Stones were the best of the many British bands living out their
Muddy Waters dress-up fantasies. They continue giving new life to old songs, such as Arthur Alexander's soul tearjerker "You Better Move On" and the
Nat King Cole standard "Route 66," but there are several exciting new developments. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger discover their songwriting talents, coming up with the enduring "Get Off My Cloud" and "As Tears Go By" as well as the underappreciated "I'm Free." And drummer Charlie Watts focuses the swing-jazz fills that have defined the Stones as much as the writing, voices, and guitars.
--Steve Knopper
Amazon.com
Dig how even a tossed-together cash-in by the Stones' U.S. label--the group's third American album of 1965--ends up smoking like all but their very best. They invent thrash with the opener, "She Said Yeah" (a Specialty Records obscurity penned, under a pseudonym, by Sonny Bono!) before laying down a leering "Talkin' 'Bout You," a frenetic "I'm Movin' On" and their most consistent, varied list of originals yet. Dig, too, how even "As Tears Go By" sounds like a sneer in the midst of "Get Off of My Cloud," "Gotta Get Away," "I'm Free" and the dourly off-key "Blue Turns to Grey."
--Rickey Wright
(22)
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