Blue & Lonesome (2016) – The Rolling Stones return to their Roots

I think the Rolling Stones are an overrated band. I think the Beatles are an overrated band. That’s the kind of terrible person I am. The best work of these two and many other bands of that time was mainly on the first albums, when they did mostly covers of the rock and roll hits of the guys who came before them. There’s nothing wrong with that. At that time, everyone was playing covers of old songs, and the same fresh track, popular with the people, could be produced by three or four musicians at once. And is that a bad thing? I can listen to Heeby Jeebies endlessly, in all styles, performed by each musician of this world in turn. It’s impossible to ruin this song, am I not right?

Yes, yes, I’m wrong. As much as I would like to believe otherwise, there are some musical styles that I don’t like and that’s it. There aren’t many of them, but they are there, and I’m unlikely to listen to Heeby Jeebies in the cloud rap variation. And it’s not that I’m comparing rock music from the 70s to the 90s with cloud rap, no. I can’t stand cloud rap, but all this heavy rock, early punk, and more – they’re not exactly genres that I don’t like, but… they are too standard. All that disappeared from them… The rhythmic wildness and novelty of the rock’n’roll of the 50s and 60s, instead of the pleasant sound of the double bass, tasteless heavy electric guitar riffs appeared, sounding the same everywhere… In addition, at the same time, psychedelic music and funk first appeared with them, and these guys were head and shoulders above them, and a little later the rockabilly revival began… And before the advent of alternative and other genres of the 90s, rock music would have time, among other things, to lose ground to then-fresh hip-hop and electronica.

This does not apply to the Beatles – rather, on the contrary, they got too involved in experimentation and avant-gardism and did something completely unimaginable. But the Rolling Stones, yes, I find them too empty. Gray, against the background of all the other musical madness that was going on in those days. That’s why my acquaintance with their discography ended about ten years ago, around their fifth album, and I went to listen to James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. And just this winter, I was sitting in the kitchen listening to my favorite Jazz radio, picking up the tracks I liked one by one. And among them I see the artist’s name: The Rolling Stones. My first reaction was like, ‘Fuck it, this can’t be happening.’

It turned out that it still can. In just three days, The Rolling Stones recorded one of the best albums in their history in my highly respected opinion. It’s only 43 minutes, consisting entirely of covers of legendary blues tracks, but I wasn’t the only one who liked it. Blue & Lonesome scored a huge number of A and 4/5 ratings, and, as it turned out, became the band’s first studio release in 10 years.

Inside this release, we are simply waiting for an incomparable quality of blues rock. The sound is so dense that it seems a little more, and you will be able to reach out and touch the music flowing like a river from your speakers. Guitars, harmonica, keyboards, drums – all instruments come close, extremely close, but at the same time they are heard very clearly and do not overlap each other, but complement each other. And on top of all this is the vocals, recorded in a deliberately bluesy, slightly low-key manner. The only exception to this rule is the last few seconds of the track Just Like I Treat You, where the instruments and vocals momentarily creep over each other, but it feels like it was done on purpose. And it works when it’s a feature, not a rule. Is that how the Rolling Stones play these days? Probably, you should start listening to their discography from the end.

Using the example of the Commit A Crime track, I’ll compare the cover and the original, just because I love Howlin’ Wolf and his style of performance. The Rolling Stones left the root motif, although they brought a couple of new nuances to it. Nevertheless, the basic guitar part is easily recognizable. The sound gained a deeper bass and overall became fuller, matching the rest of the tracks on the album. Mick Jagger loses somewhat in hoarseness and soulfulness to the Howling Wolf’s voice, but he more than makes up for it with the power of his vocals. And the end of the track, which goes into the echo, is generally excellent. So, on the whole, we have a decent cover that corresponds to the blues-rock genre: a little less soulful, a little more incendiary.

Eric Clapton visits us on the tracks Everybody Knows About My Good Thing and I Can’t Quit You Baby. He was just recording his album in the same studio as the Stones, and the guys asked him to play, and… um… Thanks for coming by. Don’t get me wrong – Clapton is a good blues guitarist, and his solos sound great, but… No more than that. There’s nothing in his performance that would make me exclaim, ‘Oh my God, that’s Eric fucking Clapton!’. Any other good guitarist could have been in his place, and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. In the track Everybody Knows About My Good Thing, I generally listened more to the piano, which floated very melodically from the background to the foreground.

I Can’t Quit You Baby, along with Blue And Lonesome, is the track on which Mick Jagger captures the entire show. His vocals are really very diverse, and it is in these songs that Mick gives his best, complementing his efforts with work on the harmonica. And we also have Hoo Doo Blues, where Jagger’s voice goes into the bass and, damn, how great he did it. By the way, as it turned out, this is the first album since Dirty Work 86, on which Mick is completely devoted to vocals and harmonica and does not play guitar. Maybe that’s their secret? Or maybe it’s because it’s the first album since It’s Only Rock. The 1974 ‘n Roll where Richards doesn’t touch the microphone? Although I’ve always liked his vocals…

In general, I don’t know what exactly the team changed, but it worked one hundred percent. In addition to the overtly bluesy and unhurried tracks on the record, there are tracks I Gotta Go, Ride ‘Em On Down, Hate To See You Go and Just Like I Treat You, performed at a faster and more lively tempo, as a result of which we are thrown out of the blues a couple of times and transported to pure classic rock and roll. It’s very, very pleasant, as if I’m listening to the first recordings of The Rolling Stones again, which I like so much. And I also can’t help but mention the fact that the track Ride ‘Em On Down gave us a video clip in which we can admire a real beauty for almost two and a half minutes. I’m talking about a blue 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback with discs that look like a Torq Thrust – oh yes, this car is just super sexy. However, I almost died laughing from that pretentious gearshift shot, considering that one of the first plans they show us is an absolutely automatic transmission and a parking one is in top gear. And it would be fine once, but they repeat- okay, okay! I’m already stopping writing about the car, I’m writing more about music. Here’s a clip for you, by the way. I suggest you appreciate for yourself the charm and curves of the lines of this beautiful track, the power of the guitar, the power of the vocal coupling with the instruments – this is pure blues, baby.

Of all this superiority of the blue record, only the tracks All Your Love and Little Rain stand out, which are performed in slow motion.And if All Your Love breaks out only slightly, and he just doesn’t really like the electric guitar treatment, then I frankly didn’t like Little Rain. For the most part, only guitars and vocals remained on the track, and even the drums were gone until the first minute, and as a result, all the magical sound density inherent in this record disappears. There is a huge void between the vocals and the music, which fiercely demands to be filled, but… this is not happening. If I had chosen a track that didn’t allow Blue & Lonesome to reach 5/5, it would definitely have been Little Rain.

That’s what The Rolling Stones’ latest album is at the moment. If you’re a fan of the band, you’ve probably appreciated it for a long time. If, like me, you haven’t seen anything special in their music for a long time, then maybe it’s time to put on the bluest glasses and look at their work from a slightly different angle.

1. Just Your Fool
2. Commit A Crime
3. Blue And Lonesome
4. All Of Your Love
5. I Gotta Go
6. Everybody Knows About My Good Thing
7. Ride ‘Em On Down
8. Hate to See You Go
9. Hoo Doo Blues
10. Little Rain
11. Just Like I Treat You
12. I Can’t Quit You Baby