Of Give 'Em Enough Rope, Lester Bangs wrote "though it sounds a bit overworked, contains more evidence that The Clash are the greatest rock n roll band left standing. There are nods to Mott the Hoople and reggae, but their most characteristic sound is built on martial drums and Mick Jones's Keith Richards in "Cracked Actor" guitar blasts, the feedback filtering through like smoke.'
The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (Epic) 30;
Ramones: Road to Ruin (Sire) 20;
Joe "King" Carrasco and El Molino: Tex-Mex Rock-Roll (Lisa) 15;
David Johansen (Blue Sky) 5;
Bob Seger + the Silver Bullet Band: Stranger in Town (Capitol) 5; (Bangs is also from Detroit)
Lou Reed: Street Hassle (Arista) 5;
Television: Adventure (Elektra) 5;
Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Blank) 5;
Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island) 5; No New York (Antilles) 5.
Among the albums to not make Lester's list is Some Girls by the Rolling Stones. In 1980, Bangs would reconsider, writing that it had taken “ten thousand varyingly voluntary rehearings” for him and a friend to actually like it. The pair discussed whether the band should break up on such a high note and Bangs’s friend said it would be better if the Stones were still “grinding away at the same Chuck Berry licks when they’re 60 years old!” (60! Can you imagine? Keef turned 75 yesterday)
Bangs added, “Go ahead and laugh, but they’re probably going to do exactly that, and after panning just about everything they released in the ’70s I’ve had a change of heart. You tell me whether it has something to do with turning 30 and all that, but what I said to another friend the other night in a similar conversation was, ‘Shit, yeah, let’s all grow old with the Rolling Stones. I can think of worse things.’ ”
The Rolling Stones had already sold more than two million copies of Some Girls, when EMI ran into legal issues with the sleeve. It was reported that Raquel Welch and Lucille Ball both objected to being on the cover. Also pictured were Farrah Fawcett, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe.
They may have remembered the notoriety the Rolling Stones gained with the S/M campaign for Black and Blue two years earlier. Keith Richards' heroin bust in Canada and Mick Jagger's affair with Canadian first lade Margaret Trudeau were both more recently in the news.
While the objections were made in the US, EMI halted worldwide production of the album. The album was quickly re-issued with a redesigned cover that removed all the celebrities (except George Harrison). The celebrity images were replaced with black and punk style garish colours with the phrase Pardon our appearance – cover under re-construction
On June 9, 1978 The Rolling Stones released their last great album, Some Girls. This was my entry point into the entire Stones legend, followed shortly by Hot Rocks and then More Hot Rocks. Rather than leading the way, the Stones take their cues from what's happening around them : disco ( "Miss You"), punk ( "Lies") and country ( "Far Away Eyes"). The title track may have been a joke, but it went over my head and upset various groups.
If Richards was absent from his usual contributions, he showed up in first on "Before They Make Me Run", an all time favorite often covered live by Steve Earle.
Great album to play on your earphones as you're wandering around New York City.
From Paul Nelson writing for Rolling Stone :
Q: Do you think the music of the Rolling Stones has an overall theme?
A: Yeah. Women.
- Keith Richards
With Bob Dylan no longer bringing it all back home, Elvis Presley dead and the Beatles already harmlessly cloned in the wax-museum nostalgia of a Broadway musical, it's no wonder the Rolling Stones decided to make a serious record. Not particularly ambitious, mind you, but serious. These guys aren't dumb, and when the handwriting on the wall begins to smell like formaldehyde and that age-old claim, "the greatest rock and roll band in the world" suddenly sounds less laudatory than laughable, you'd better dredge up your leftover pride, bite the bullet and try like hell to sweat out some good music. Which is exactly what the Stones have done. Though time may not exactly be on their side, with Some Girls they've at lest managed to stop the clock for a while.
On the new album the Stones have stripped down to the archetypal sound of two or three guitars, bass and drums, and it's wonderful to hear the group blazing away again with little more than the basics to protect them. Everything's apparently been recorded as close to live as we'd want it, and the overdubbing and extra musicians have been kept to a minimum. "Respectable" takes a close look at the peculiar position of the Stones, circa 1978, and boasts lines like these:
We're talking heroin with the President
Yes it's a problem sir, but it can be bent...
You're a rag trade girl, you're the queen of porn
You're the easiest lay on the White House lawn...
before it inexplicably begins to lose interest in itself. "When the Whip Comes Down" and "Lies" are a neat combination of white heat and old hat, while "Miss You," "Imagination" and "Shattered" are a good deal better than that. And the title track is every bit as outrageous ("Black girls just want to get fucked all night/I just don't have that much jam") as everyone says. This song may be a sexist and racist horror, but it's also terrifically funny and strangely desperate in a manner that gets under your skin and makes you care. On "Some Girls," Mick Jagger sounds like he's not only singing like Bob Dylan, but about Bob Dylan: "I'll give you a house back in Zuma Beach/And give you half of what I owe."
"Before They Make Me Run" and "Beast of Burden," Some Girls' hardest-hitting songs, are sandwiched between "Respectable" and "Shattered" on side two. It's probably presumptuous to suggest that these four tracks are about the present predicament of this stormy band, but I think they are. When Keith Richards sings, "Well after all is said and done/Gotta move while it's still fun/But let me walk before they make me run," there's no doubt he's talking about the music, his drug bust and the possible end of the road, about which he writes brilliantly ("Watch my taillights fading/There ain't a dry eye in the house..."). And when Mick Jagger implores,
Ain't I rough enough
Ain't I tough enough
Ain't I rich enough
In love enough
Oooo, ooh please.
he's got to be thinking about himself and the Rolling Stones, among other things. It's too bad the answer to all his questions isn't an unqualified yes. In a better world, it should be.
From Robert Christgau writing for the Village Voice :
The Stones' best album since Exile on Main Street is also their easiest since Let It Bleed or before. They haven't gone for a knock-down uptempto classic, a "Brown Sugar" or "Jumping Jack Flash" -- just straight rock and roll unencumbered by horn sections or Billy Preston. Even Jagger takes a relatively direct approach, and if he retains any credibility for you after six years of dicking around, there should be no agonizing over whether you like this record, no waiting for tunes to kick in. Lyrically, there are some bad moments -- especially on the title cut, which is too fucking indirect to suit me -- but in general the abrasiveness seems personal, earned, unposed, and the vulnerability more genuine than ever. Also, the band is a really good one -- especially the drummer. A
It is the summer of '78 and my dad has dropped me off at a bowling alley in West Haven with friends so he could spend more time with a Swiss woman who would become my step mother. I've got enough money for a soda or candy, but not both, and there's no way I'm going to break 200. But I can beat my sisters with my eyes closed.
All of a sudden this song comes on. All I'm hearing is the bass and drums at first, a disco beat that doesn't do anything for me. Then comes the chorus with its "Oooh oooh oooh oooh" and EVERYBODY in the place is singing along.
What the hell is this? It's the new Rolling Stones single, THE song of the Summer of '78, which broke into the Billboard Hot 100 at #76 on May 28, 1978. It would hit #1 in August and so would the album Some Girls.
That was the Summer I returned from boarding school needing a tutor for Algebra I/ Symbolic Logic and Introductory French. The Summer my dad and his Swiss friend and all of our families lived together in a rented beach cottage. Like cats introduced in the same house all at once, we hissed . We fought. We found our quiet places. It was also the Summer I would bike over to the next town to hang out with a friend who had a guitar and was willing to write songs with me.
When his dad caught us sitting around, he'd call us over to do some yard work. We'd muck the one horse stable or chop wood. Writing songs in the basement was the best way to avoid that work. We decided to call the band Split Wood.
