WOW I cant beleive I am enjoying this CD and have listened to it TRACK for TRACK 3 times. There are 16 tracks in all, and not all are Top Notch, but I must admit this CD surprised the Hell out of me, I wasnt even going to get it, because between there last Studio albums through the Last 15-20 years and Boring Live shows, I had given up that this Band could SOUND Fresh, instead of sounding Like they were working in seperate studios and basically Phoning it in. Hopefully this is a sign OF GOOD THINGS to come, this has Been possibly the WORST musical year, Someone asked me my top 5 CDs of the year and I couldnt think of any that I would put in there. But with this CD and the Fall schedule of things to come MAYBE it can be saved.

Oh I forgot the New CLAPTON cd is pretty good too.


STILL TO COME THIS YEAR

PAUL McCARTNEY 9/13
PUSSYCAT DOLLS 9/13
BON JOVI 9/20
MADONNA 11/15
ELTON JOHN 9/27
RYAN ADAMS
MYA LATE 2005
A-HA 11/7
DEPECHE MODE 9/20
DURAN DURAN 10/25


Im sure Im forgetting something, but I know for sure that the A-ha CD is gonna be in my TOP 5 without a doubt, even though i havent heard a second of any new tracks, thats the way i like it...surprise.

I look forward to this one. I don't think I have any studio albums by the Stones. Terrible, isn't it?

VinnyM27 said:

Well sort of I guess, EXILE on MAIN street one of their best Ever. But trust me Im not a Huge STONES fan by any means. And they have never been able to SHAKE their phase of BAD albums, McCartney has, Elton has, and Finally the Stones have.

Hearing about 4-5 songs of it live a few days ago, it seems wonderful.

i'm looking forward to it... but i do think the Stones have had a couple good albums in the last 20 years. I really loved Steel Wheels

A fabulous 4 star review from AMG.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Eight years separate 2005's A Bigger Bang, the Rolling Stones' 24th album of original material, from its 1997 predecessor, Bridges to Babylon, the longest stretch of time between Stones albums in history, but unlike the three-year gap between 1986's Dirty Work and 1989's Steel Wheels, the band never really went away. They toured steadily, not just behind Bridges but behind the career-spanning 2002 compilation Forty Licks, and the steady activity paid off nicely, as the 2004 concert souvenir album Live Licks proved. The tight, sleek, muscular band showcased there was a surprise — they played with a strength and swagger they hadn't in years — but a bigger surprise is that A Bigger Bang finds that reinvigorated band carrying its latter-day renaissance into the studio, turning in a sinewy, confident, satisfying album that's the band's best in years. Of course, every Stones album since their highly touted, self-conscious 1989 comeback, Steel Wheels, has been designed to get this kind of positive press, to get reviewers to haul out the cliché that this is their "best record since Exile on Main St." (Mick Jagger is so conscious of this, he deliberately compared Bigger Bang to Exile in all pre-release publicity and press, even if the scope and feel of Bang is very different from that 1972 classic), so it's hard not to take any praise with a grain of salt, but there is a big difference between this album and 1994's Voodoo Lounge. That album was deliberately classicist, touching on all of the signatures of classic mid-period, late-'60s/early-'70s Stones — reviving the folk, country, and straight blues that balanced their trademark rockers — and while it was often successful, it very much sounded like the Stones trying to be the Stones. What distinguishes A Bigger Bang is that it captures the Stones simply being the Stones, playing without guest stars, not trying to have a hit, not trying to adopt the production style of the day, not doing anything but lying back and playing.

Far from sounding like a lazy affair, the album rocks really hard, tearing out of the gate with "Rough Justice," the toughest, sleaziest, and flat-out best song Jagger and Richards have come up with in years. It's not a red herring, either — "She Saw Me Coming," "Look What the Cat Dragged In," and the terrific "Oh No Not You Again," which finds Mick spitting out lyrics with venom and zeal, are equally as hard and exciting, but the album isn't simply a collection of rockers. The band delves into straight blues with "Back of My Hand," turns toward pop with "Let Me Down Slow," rides a disco groove reminiscent of "Emotional Rescue" on "Rain Fall Down," and has a number of ballads, highlighted by "Streets of Love" and Keith's late-night barroom anthem "This Place Is Empty," that benefit greatly from the stripped-down, uncluttered production by Don Was and the Glimmer Twins. Throughout the album, the interplay of the band is at the forefront, which is one of the reasons the record is so consistent: even the songs that drift toward the generic are redeemed by the sound of the greatest rock & roll band ever playing at a latter-day peak. And, make no mistake about it, the Stones sound better as a band than they have in years: there's an ease and assurance to their performances that are a joy to hear, whether they're settling into a soulful groove or rocking harder than any group of 60-year-olds should. But A Bigger Bang doesn't succeed simply because the Stones are great musicians, it also works because this is a strong set of Jagger-Richards originals — naturally, the songs don't rival their standards from the '60s and '70s, but the best songs here more than hold their own with the best of their post-Exile work, and there are more good songs here than on any Stones album since Some Girls.

This may not be a startling comeback along the lines of Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, but that's fine, because over the last three decades the Stones haven't been about surprises: they've been about reliability. The problem is, they haven't always lived up to their promises, or when they did deliver the goods, it was sporadic and unpredictable. And that's what's unexpected about A Bigger Bang: they finally hold up their end of the bargain, delivering a strong, engaging, cohesive Rolling Stones album that finds everybody in prime form. Keith is loose and limber, Charlie is tight and controlled, Ronnie lays down some thrilling, greasy slide guitar, and Mick is having a grand time, making dirty jokes, baiting neo-cons, and sounding more committed to the Stones than he has in years. Best of all, this is a record where the band acknowledges its age and doesn't make a big deal about it: they're not in denial, trying to act like a younger band, they've simply accepted what they do best and go about doing it as if it's no big deal. But that's what makes A Bigger Bang a big deal: it's the Stones back in fighting form for the first time in years, and they have both the strength and the stamina to make the excellent latter-day effort everybody's been waiting for all these years.

Rolling Stone seems to be similarly taken with it.

The Rolling Stones A Bigger Bang (Virgin)
Let's just get this out of the way: A Bigger Bang isn't a good Rolling Stones album considering their age. It isn't a good Rolling Stones album compared to their recent work. No, A Bigger Bang is just a straight-up, damn fine Rolling Stones album, with no qualifiers or apologies necessary for the first time in a few decades.

The sixteen songs on this disc, their first studio album in eight years, mark the closest collaboration between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in ages -- they wrote many of them nose to nose on acoustic guitars while waiting for Charlie Watts to recover from treatment for throat cancer. Whether fueled by their notorious competitive camaraderie or inspired by their oldest mate's brush with mortality, the results sound like a genuine band effort -- loose, scrappy and alive. A Bigger Bang recalls the best things about rough, underrated Stones albums like Dirty Work or Emotional Rescue, though it's also impressively consistent.

The key here comes from surrendering to the groove. Most of the tracks are built around the incomparable spark that's lit when Keith's guitar and Charlie's drums lock into a rhythm. There's never been another team that can drive a band quite like these two, but on their post-Seventies work that magic has usually been buried in the mix. On hard-charging songs like "It Won't Take Long" or the rave-up single "Rough Justice," the Stones reassert themselves as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band, and not just as the Greatest Show on Earth.

Mick and Keith have always said they want to grow old like the bluesmen they idolize, and on Bang they finally figure out how: The album revels in the Chuck Berry boogie and classic R&B pulse that's always been their lifeblood. The latter-day Glimmer Twins have often felt the need to coat their songs with layers of winking irony or studio gloss. Here, the dance-floor strut "Rain Fall Down" and the soul ballad "Laugh, I Nearly Died" are powerful because they're played straight, never turning cartoonish or mannered.

Jagger's voice throughout is a knockout, deeper and more forceful than seems possible after forty-plus years of rocking the mike. The subject matter on A Bigger Bang, though, is thankfully a bit less mature. The album mostly sticks to familiar, nasty Stones territory: being heartbroken and breaking hearts, the evils that women (and, sometimes, men) do. Maybe his palimony suit and much-publicized tabloid romances have given Mick some new fire -- the women on these songs have "burglarized my soul," "wipe the floor with me" and are "fucking up my life." Not that our boy is much better himself, confessing that "I took her for granted/I played with her mind" and -- leaving us to guess at the details -- "I was awful bad."

On "Dangerous Beauty," we return to the S&M underworld, as previously featured on "When the Whip Comes Down." The CNN-ready chart-buster "Sweet Neo Con" savages an unnamed born-again, war-happy politician with ties to Halliburton -- a surprisingly direct attack from a band whose best-known political statements expressed the ambivalence of "Street Fighting Man" or "Salt of the Earth." But Jagger works up more passion concentrating on what happens when "I see love/And I see misery/Jammin' side by side." The only unseemly moments come from these sexagenarians' frequent usage of words like "cock," "tits" and "booty." (As for the line "Come on in/Bare your breasts" on the otherwise enchanting "This Place Is Empty" -- um, Keith, ick.)

Of course a disc that clocks in at sixty-four minutes (just two minutes less than Exile on Main Street) is too long. In their defense, there isn't a single track that's a real lemon, though little would be lost if the perfunctory rocker "Look What the Cat Dragged In" was left for an iTunes exclusive. A Bigger Bang may not be a perception-shattering comeback like Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind/Love and Theft combo, but by returning to their roots and embracing their age, the Rolling Stones have come up with an album that's a worthy successor to their masterworks. Jagger and Richards are still standing -- grumpy old men, full of piss and vinegar, spite and blues chords, and they wear it well. (ALAN LIGHT)

Sorry to piss all over your parade, but A Bigger Bang is crap. There are three good songs on it, and three passable ones, but no great ones. We can debate the merits of their three previous albums, but they all had at least one out and out classic on them, the sort that no one but The Stones could have come up with. A Bigger Bang doesn't have a single stand-out song; it just has six stand-ins and A LOT of filler.

Can't wait to see them when they come to the UK though. They're still one of the best live bands I've ever seen.

Shapeshifter said:

Maybe because I've just seen them is the reason I like these new songs so well.

GangstaFam said:

Trust me, most of the new songs won't stand up to more than two or three listens before you're thinking "So what?".
[Edited 9/7/05 10:17am]

Shapeshifter said:

Actually I have listened to it alot, Im surprised because I havent listened to any STONES album ALOT since the Late 70's. After that they lost me, Im not saying this album is a classic or and EXILE but its LIGHT years better than the albums they have done the last 20 years

lastdecember said:

How would you know that if, by your own admission, you haven't "listened to any STONES album ALOT since the Late 70's".

Tattoo You (1981), not Some Girls, is the last great Stones album. Emotional Rescue (1980) and Undercover (1983) may not be of the same standard as their best work, but they have their moments. Undercover is probably their most experimental album since Satanic Majesties.

This leaves the four albums in the last 20 years - Dirty Work, Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon. Of these Steel Wheels and Voodoo lounge are widely acknowledged to be the best, with Dirty Work and Bridges To Babylon competing for last place. (Bridges to Babylon wins it as far as I'm concerned).

A Bigger Bang is nowhere near as good as Steel Wheels or Voodoo Lounge. Dirty Work has three great songs on it (ok, one of them's a cover), and Bridges to Babylon has one.

A Bigger Bang, by my reckoning, has NO great songs on it, three good ones and three mediocre ones. The other ten are filler. A Bigger Bang is better than Bridges To Babylon, but the difference between them is the same as that between dog shit and human shit.
[Edited 9/7/05 12:12pm]

Shapeshifter said:

Well, like you with the new album, maybe he decided those albums were crap early on and felt no need to listen to them repeatedly.

GangstaFam said:

Exactly, the four Albums you spoke of I gave plenty of chances to. When I say listen to an album ALOT im talking 20+ times, If I cant do that without skipping tons of tracks then Im not 'liking" it. Those four Albums I felt had maybe one or two Good - Great tracks but then nothing, of those Steel Wheels probably the best one, and obviously Bridges being the worst, possibly their worst ever. If u check my first post it said First Good Stones album in 20 years, that would put us around 84-85, well past Undercover and the others mentioned which I thought were good albums too.

lastdecember said:

Ok, ok, ok. Truce. You like it, I think it's a stinker. Let's agree to disagree.

But you're spot on about Bridges being their worst. Great tour though - especially the '99 leg, which I saw in both the US and UK.
[Edited 9/7/05 13:38pm]

On my first listen of Steel Wheels the other day, I thought it was fantastic. Liked it more on second listen. But see, I'm in the zone after seeing them live last week. I'm just happy to have them around.

I like it.

lastdecember said:

Your musical year is officially fucked.....

MartyMcFly said:

lastdecember said:

Bridges is worse than Dirty Work?! No way! Dirty Work is an embarrasment. The second half of Bridges is very good. Its the first half that lets it down.