(Album) Got Live If You Want It!

Got Live If You Want It!

Released
December 10, 1966

But recorded all over the place

     This album has a lot going against it. Enough going against it that I’ll have to separate my anger into a number of areas.

     First: The name of the album has already been used. By them. Nineteen months ago. Any relation to the previous album, a live EP, is just in name and the idea of “live.” This is not a case of small differences between a UK and a US release; both are different albums, with somewhat similar album art. It’s a serious case of laziness on the part of the US side of Stones record releases. Let’s not get hasty though; it’s not the Rolling Stones’ fault, it’s their record company.

     Second: Overdubs. There’s enough here to split into two.

                One: Studio overdubs. They fix the problems and make a live album seem pointless. At least for me. In my opinion, a live album only works if it’s, you know, live. Fixing a live album is to ruin its raw magic, and create a sort of pseudo-music. If you really want perfection, we have studio albums for that.

                Two: Audience overdubs on studio tracks. No. No, that’s wrong in so many levels. Trickery is wrong. Passing these tracks as live, to the unsuspecting buyer, is very wrong. Those are tracks that could be used on a real album. Instead, you’re going to go ahead and put crowd noise over it and ruin the magic that could be an album track. The worst part is that at least one of those songs that are studio tracks sound pretty good. It’s a shame they had to ruin it just to put out a “live” album. They said they had live, and they aren't even delivering.

     Third: Even The Rolling Stones don’t agree with this album. They didn't want it, and have since disowned the album. When even the band themselves hate an album, what does that say about it? Nothing good at all.

     Fourth: Not a big problem, and maybe not a problem at all, but the large jumps of time between recording of the songs. Ranging from mid-1965 to late 1966, and even 1963 for the songs recorded in studio. The problem with this is that it doesn't properly represent the Stones’ live repertoire. Some of the songs have since been dropped from the live setlist. This is easily looked past, as the album didn't promise a full live concert of live songs in any sort of chronological order. They also promised live songs and they only partly succeeded on that promise.

     I think I've pushed out enough anger into these paragraphs to actually listen to this album now. I feel like I wrote more here than I could about the songs themselves.

Under My Thumb

·          Recorded: October 1, 1966 (or October 7, 1966, as the re-release states)

·          Overdubs: Possibly Lead vocal.

     This songs turned into a hard rocker, instead of the soft, beautiful songs I used to know. However, it somehow works live. They did a very good job with this, with Charlie Watts giving 110%.

8.75 / 10

Get Off of My Cloud

·          Recorded: October 1, 1966

·          Overdubs: Lead vocals, and Backing vocals by Jagger & Richards.

     Average performance, nothing too flashy. Comparable to the studio version, just faster. However, I’ll stick to the vocals at the studio version.

7.5 / 10

Lady Jane

·         Recorded: October 7, 1966

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal, and guitar by Richards.

     Unlike Under My Thumb, this stays quiet, which is very rare for rock concerts of this time. Luckily, Jagger was able to hold off his signature crazy energy to stay soft with this song. Also, they overdubbed both lead vocals and guitar, which pretty much makes this pointless, but I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about stuff like that here.

8.5 / 10

Not Fade Away

·         Recorded: October 7, 1966

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal

A very weird transition from the last song. A quick song and quick performance, which just makes this song sound like a time killer. But, it was a fast performance and everyone stayed in line, and for that I thank them.

8/10

I've Been Loving You Too Long

·         Recorded: May 11-12, 1965

·         Overdubs: It’s a studio track, so audience.

     When The Stones gets blues right, they hit it dead on. This is a beautiful blues rock ballad with touches of electric, which sounds like a Bob Dylan fan’s nightmare. I’m going to ignore the fact that this isn’t even live.

9/10

Fortune Teller

·         Recorded: July 9, 1963 + 1966 overdubs

·         Overdubs: It’s a studio track, so audience.

     I probably could care less about this “performance” of the song. Maybe it’s the audience. Maybe not. I’ve always been pretty hard on early Stones for some reason.

6/10

The Last Time

·         Recorded: October 1, 1966

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal, backing vocals by Jagger & Richards, and possibly a tambourine.

     They kinda did satisfaction before this song, or maybe it was Valleri by The Monkees. You know, two years before it was released by The Monkees. Then it randomly cut into The Last Time. I really life the feel of this song. It’s rushed, but it adds some extra power to it.

7.5/10

19^th Nervous Breakdown

·         October 1, 1966

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal ON TOP OF the original vocals, backing vocal by Jagger & Richards.

     Well, the rhythm started out pretty shaky. Their fast speed is finally catching up to them. It does go back to normal, though, so the whole song isn’t ruined and awkward. You can’t blame them, it’s hard to hear certain instruments right now, so it was impossible to hear anything when you’re there. Some fancy bass work, and hard rocking drums. However, even disregarding the rhythm mistake, the extra speed added onto this song hurts it in my opinion. Also, the volume of drums really hurts this song the most, as although I like drums, I also like to hear other instruments.

6/10

Time Is on My Side

·         Recorded: March 5 – 7, 1965

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal over the original.

     Unfortunately, the guitar is soft in the mix, even during the guitar solo. It’s not lost, just I’d prefer it louder. I’ll be fair with this; I didn't like the performance, but they kept themselves well.

7/10

I’m Alright

·         Recorded: March 5 – 7, 1965

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal over the original

     A screeching guitar that tries to reach the surface of the mix. Good performance, although Jagger is a bit lacking in my opinion.

7/10

Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?

·         Recorded: October 7, 1966

·         Overdubs: According to the Internet, this is most likely another studio track. We’ll keep that in mind.

     It’s loud. It’s an average performance, nothing bad about it, but I can’t really pick out anything. I can say that there’s a nice bass on this song.

7.25/10

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

·         Recorded: October 7, 1966

·         Overdubs: Lead vocal, Backing vocal by Richards

     It’s a hard rocking song, and I’m surprised they didn't rush this song too much. It’s straight ahead, and a very good closer. However, a fade out? Really?

8/10

                The album is full of fixing up. If the album’s goal was to make money, then maybe it succeeded. If the production’s goal was to fix an album up out of scraps, they succeeded. More than likely, this album sounded better than the raw concert. What I heard sounded pretty good.

                But it’s anything but a live album. An overdub to fix sound issues? I can look past that. Editing to create a Frankenstein of an album? You keep your hands off. Back then, maybe all the fans didn't care, but everything here is just plain wrong. The worst is the usage of studio recordings, with audience overdubs to fool us. That’s not right.

     A live album is supposed to bring the live experience into your home. This is not that. In case you didn't realize by now, I hate everything behind this album.

     However, the performances themselves sound really good. The mix has the drums dominating, which works well until about halfway through, where they even start to drown out the guitar. Vocals range from average and uninspired to very good. In my opinion, the b-side of the album is the weak point.

                Everything was performed at a faster pace, which brings a new spin to some and hurt others. It’s a hit or miss. Even through this, the band keeps together (except for the beginning of 19^th Nervous Breakdown), despite the odds being stacked against them.

                Finally, despite the editing attempts to make this album as perfect as possible, there are random cuts that sound unnatural, and as I said, the drums dominate too much.

                And finally, if you’re going to promote this as a pure live album, don’t have Mick Jagger overdub his vocals on top of himself. Having two Jagger’s is not live.

                I will hate this album for the foreseeable future. A pity, because the performances themselves are very nice and rose far above my expectations at times.

     Suddenly the songs’ individual ratings don’t matter, because I’m giving the album a 30/100.

The performances themselves I give an 86/100.

And finally, if you do count the songs’ ratings, It would be 75%, which is just a little too low for me.

*Review* Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) [UK]

Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) [UK]

Released

November 4, 1966

This album pisses me off a little bit. It’s the UK version of the Greatest Hits album Big Hits, and it’s very different. Why not make it a different album all together? There are two extra songs compared to the US version, bring the total count from 12 to 14, and also three songs were removed from the US version for the UK version. Because of the large gap of time between the US and UK versions, they decided to put in Paint It Black and Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, which were songs released after the US Big Hits. When there’s that big of a gap, just make a new album.

Here’s the track list and the numbers I gave it before.

·         Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? – 8 / 10

·         Paint It Black – 10 / 10

·         It’s All Over Now – 7.8 / 10

·         The Last Time – 8.5 / 10

·         Heart of Stone – 8.5 / 10

·         Not Fade Away – 7 / 10

·         Come On – 8 / 10

·         (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – 10 / 10

·         Get Off of My Cloud – 9.5 / 10

·         As Tears Go By – 10 / 10

·         19^th Nervous Breakdown – 10 / 10

·         Lady Jane – 9 / 10

·         Time Is on My Side – 8 / 10

·         Little Red Rooster – 3 / 10

                                                             

Total: 117.3 / 140

4.5 / 5 stars. (Look, stars!)

Same complains from the US version. Because of the time gap, you can include things like Paint it Black and remove things like Good Times, Bad Times, which wasn't much of a hit. If you were going to choose a version, US or UK, go with the UK.
And why isn't You Better Move On on this.

Also, I boosted Lady Jane up from an 8 to a 9, because I like it more since it's grown on me. It seems to be a common theme with Rolling Stones songs, you have to melt it into your brain.

*Review* Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) [US]

Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) [US]

Released
March 28, 1966

Here’s where things start to get interesting. A compilation album: now how would I even start to review this? I won’t do this song by song, but instead talk about it as a whole because that, in my mind, works a lot better. And if you don’t like that, hunt for the songs: I’ve reviewed every song on here before.

One thing I’ll just say is that I have the 2006 remastered version, so I have stereo mixes of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Time Is on My Side, It's All Over Now, and Heart of Stone. At any other time that would be fantastic, but I’m supposed to pretend I’m a little Stones fan from the 60’s and there was no stereo mixes. Oh well.

Also I find it funny the US got this first.

·         (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – 10 / 10

·         The Last Time – 8.5 / 10

·         As Tears Go By – 10 / 10

·         Time is On My Side – 8 / 10

·         It’s All Over Now – 7.8 / 10

·         Tell Me – 8 / 10

·         19^th Nervous Breakdown – 10 / 10

·         Heart of Stone – 8.5 / 10

·         Get Off of My Cloud – 9 / 10

·         Not Fade Away – 7 / 10

·         Good Times, Bad Times – 7.8 / 10

·         Play with Fire – 8 / 10

Three out of the twelve songs are covers, and one song was by Jagger / Richards and Andrew Oldham. That backs up my feelings on the Stones own songs vs. the Stones covers. They seemed to ignore EPs, because You Better Move On isn’t here and that disappoints me, because Good Times, Bad Times made it. Not to say it’s a bad song, but it’s not as good as quite a few songs that were glossed over. If You Need Me would’ve been a good song, and Route 66 if they were trying to include older pieces as well. Other than that, you have the standard songs you’d expect; Satisfaction, As Tears Go By, Time is On My Side, songs we still know today that haven’t been pushed to obscurity by the bigger songs.

The album contains the majority of what is needed on a Stones Greatest Hits album at this time, and while it’s definitely missing some songs that would’ve made it better, it’s still a great album.

102.6 / 120

I think that brings this to be the highest rated 12-song album from the Stones, but we’re not going to count it. But we’ll keep it in mind in case things get ugly, which I don’t expect it to do.

*Review* (Single) (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / The Spider and the Fly

*This is part of my ongoing, personal project of listening to every Rolling Stones material released, posted onto this blog for everyone to read and for opinions to flourish. The rating doesn't mean much, because I hate ratings, but might as well.*

17/20

I’ve already went over both songs, so I thought it was a bit pointless to go over them again. Of course Satisfaction is one of The Stones’ crown jewels, and a lot of people like The Spider and the Fly, so that’s good for them. I like The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man better as a b-side, but I guess if you were going to pick another break-out song from Out of Our Heads it would be The Spider and the Fly. So overall, great single, but I personally like Satisfaction's original single.

You might want to check out both Satisfaction's original review and Spider and the Fly's review.

*Review* (Single) (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man

*This is part of my ongoing, personal project of listening to every Rolling Stones material released, posted onto this blog for everyone to read and for opinions to flourish. The rating doesn't mean much, because I hate ratings, but might as well.*

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

(Jagger / Richards)

I’m not going to pretend I’ve never heard this song before. Also, I guess this marks the era of Stones that get major radio play. But the song has a nice drum part and guitar and vocals that aren’t too demanding, but fun. I’m also going to disregard the fact this song is overplayed.

10/10

The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man

(Nanker Phelge)

Interesting little piece with harmonica, giving it a blues feel while keeping a fast tempo. Understandably buried underneath the success of Satisfaction, this doesn’t bring too much to the table but is a good song never less.  

8.5/10

18.5 / 20

So fantastic single. It’s really hard to review a song that’s had its guts dissected and reviewed countless times. So I’ll just say that the a-side is fantastic, and the b-side is fantastic for a b-side.