It's Only Rock & Roll - Rolling Stones (The) (CD 1994)

By 1974 The Rolling Stones had almost completely changed their original sound. A few years before, they had reached the peak of their talent (with inspiring albums like Let It Bleed and Exile On Main Street). I'm not sure whether or not founders Mick Jagger and Keith Richards decided to totally abandon their earlier dirty blues sound, but on It's Only Rock 'n Roll they sound like a band at the crossroads. There are a few great tunes on this album but for the most part it's full of schlock mainstream, and the evil glimmer of the darker disco years that were now in the visible future.

This album ushered in the end of producer Jimmy Miller's collaboration with the Stones. The new production by The Glimmer Twins seems dead and lifeless; interestingly enough quite a bit like Miller's Goats Head Soup sounded a year before.

If You Can't Rock Me starts out with a signature Keith Richards guitar lick, but when Jagger's voice joins into the song, it sounds processed and clean. Unfortunately, this theme repeats itself throughout almost every other song on the album. My take is this: Mick Jagger doesn't have the strongest voice on earth - far from it. One of the things that made the Stones so wonderful at one time, was their ability to come across as snarling and cocky - almost unpleasant to the ear. They truly were the animals of rock music, and at one time had the dirty urgency to make you believe in rock and roll. With the advent of processed vocals and toned down edge, the Stones lost their urgency.

The two major highlights from It's Only Rock 'n Roll are Ain't Too Proud To Beg and the title track It's Only Rock 'n Roll. Both tracks bring back glints of past glory. Ain't Too Proud To Beg is a cover version of the Whitfield/Holland classic, and is updated nicely here. This might be the strongest version of this song recorded. The sound is sparse and clean, but when Jagger warbles the line "Love so deep / in the pit of my heart / every day it grows more and more" in his usual delivery it just sounds magical. It's Only Rock 'n Roll is the one that's been heard by everyone. It's the only true hit off this album, and deservedly so. From the opening drum beat and riff you know you're hearing classic Rolling Stones. "If I could stick my hand in my heart / spill it all over the stage / would it satisfy you? / Would it slide on by you? / Would you think the boy is strange? / Ain't it strange".

Another highlight of this album is the fact that Charlie Watts was finally growing into an exceptional drummer. Don't get me wrong, Watts had always been strong, just never exceptional. It seems ironic that when the rest of the group was slowly slipping into mediocrity, he was just beginning to rise to the occasion.

Till the Next Goodbye is a typical Stones acoustic ballad complete with slightly "off" harmonies from Richards. This would be an incredible song if it lasted about half as long. One of the unfortunate recurring themes on both this album and Goats Head Soup is the length of the songs, which all eventually break down into uninspiring jams. The boys should have taken their own advice on Time Waits For No One, perhaps if they'd hurried it up a bit, it wouldn't have dragged on forever and ever. Another quiet, acoustic tune - again it could have been better if cut down to three minutes instead of 6:37. It also sounds as if Mick Taylor was listening to a lot of Carlos Santana at the time, because the solo in this song sounds startlingly like it's him.

Both Luxury and Dance Little Sister are harder rocking, but neither of them are particularly memorable. "On Thursday night / she looks a fright" - lyrics such as these fill the minutes as you wait for the next tune and pray that something better might turn up.

It does, but it's only a slight improvement. If You Really Want To Be My Friend starts out beautifully, with some obvious chord changes and the warm vocals of Jagger. The music has just enough of a mix between blues and ballad that it keeps your attention for a few minutes - of course, that's not enough because they've stretched this poor song out to over six minutes.

Short and Curlies (any guess what this is about?) is refreshingly - well - short. It has a nice bluesy piano part from Ian Stewart, and it fits the mold of older Stones material with lyrics like "She's got you by the balls / she's nailed you to the wall".

You may as well skip the final track, Fingerprint File. It's the first glimpse of Stones disco, and frankly I hate it - it sounds like an unholy marriage between Miss You and Theme From Shaft.

I would only recommend this album to die-hard Rolling Stones fans. If you're looking to buy it solely for the title track, don't do it. Buy some of the great 'later years' collections that have been put on the market and save some money. I'm going to give this album a better grade than it really deserves for the simple fact that it has a few great song ideas on it. If they had shortened down all the tunes, and put more material on the album it would be so much better. As it is, it's probably the Stones disc that gets the least rotation in my collection.

OVERALL GRADE: C-