The Stones: A Near Miss for Me

If you’re a Rolling Stones fan, I’m going to apologize up front. I have never before listened to the Rolling Stones and I am probably not very well-versed in all of their singles and albums. But… there is no changing my opinion that at least their first album, “England’s Newest Hit Makers” was nothing more than a jamboree of random instrumentals and jumbled, overpowered vocals. I personally don’t even understand how the Rolling Stones can be said in the same sentence as the Beatles. To me, there is absolutely no comparison on any level; vocals, instrumentals, OR songwriting. On a vocal level, the Beatles are capable of hitting incredible harmonies while I feel Mick Jagger’s voice was very weak and had a lack of presence throughout basically the entire album. He sounded overpowered by the band and was too afraid of his own shadow to burst out into a prominent melody! Next were instrumentals. I thought of the instrumentals as a much more jumbled mess. There is no arguing that they had musical talent; but a) I felt a lack of organization and b) they nowhere near compared to the versatile skills of the Beatles and others of their time. Lastly, their songwriting was almost not even there. What was it? Oh yeah that’s right, that ONE song that they ACTUALLY came up with. Real creative minded people I guess. I might just have been in a bad mood when listened to them, but the Rolling Stones were definitely slacking on a variety of fronts.

I feel that the Rolling Stones released their first album too early. I feel that they needed a little more practice for their strengths to meld into a great album. Because of all the anticipation and hype that I’ve heard from hard-core Stones fans, I figured I was going to be blown away by their sheer talent and awesomeness. Because of all this suspense, I think I felt a little let down or something. To me, the Stones threw in a bunch of great aspects (such as a variety of instrumentals, melodies, and catchy rhythm) and, instead of getting something perfect, they just got a conglomeration of aspects. It’s kind of like making a smoothie. You can have a bunch of great tasting fruit, but if you don’t mix it long enough, you end up with a goopy, nasty, sometimes chunky mess.

I almost laughed aloud at their precocious and pretentious title of their first album. I mean, who actually names their first album “England’s Newest Hit Makers”? That’s like introducing yourself at a party by saying, “Yeah I’m famous, cool, awesome, handsome, dashing, funny, lovely, cute, athletic, strong, and fast. It’s nice to meet you.” This just struck me as strange because they had never been exposed to the industry yet and they were already self proclaiming greatness. While it eventually came, this initial act seems kind of interesting and gives some insight to their personalities.

While the whole album didn’t really work for me, especially with repeated use of the annoying harmonica in EVERY SONG, there were some oases in this drought called an album. One of these oases, was a very upbeat song called “Carol”. Throughout the whole album, I think I was secretly waiting for the Stones to hit their stride. I felt they finally did through this song. It had a very upbeat rhythm and melody. It severely contrasted the other bluesy songs that preceded it in the album. Before this song, I felt like I was listening to a Country album. This song reminded me of the good old classic rock songs! It had wild guitar and instrumentals that worked well with the strong beat and the melody seemed to come straight from rock’s roots. This was probably because they covered Chuck Berry, but I think they did it well. I really enjoyed this song mainly because it was one of the few songs without a harmonica! Check it out:

So while I rip on the Stones a lot, I still feel like there may be some room for them to slowly grow on me as I listen to more and more of their later music.