Category Archives: deep dive

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Song of the Day #5,561: ‘Time Waits For No One’ – The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones continued their torrid pace of (at least) an album a year, dropping It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll in October of 1974. The album was produced by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards under the pseudonym “The Glimmer Twins.” The pair would go on to produce or co-produce every subsequent Stones album.

This was the band’s final release to feature Mick Taylor on guitar. He left after a dispute with Jagger over songwriting credits. All of the album’s original tracks are credited to Jagger and Richards, while Taylor maintained he made significant contributions to several songs, including today’s SOTD. Taylor is behind the mesmerizing guitar solo that closes out this epic track.

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Song of the Day #5,560: ‘Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)’ – The Rolling Stones

Doing chronological deep dives really allows me to appreciate how new material from great artists was received in context. Listening to 1973’s Goats Head Soup on its own is one thing, but hearing it as a follow-up to the four classic albums preceding it puts it in a different light.

For fans and critics expecting The Stones to build on the legacy they’d constructed over those four masterpieces, Goats Head Soup must have been a major disappointment. This isn’t a towering achievement. It’s… fine.

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Song of the Day #5,557: ‘Loving Cup’ – The Rolling Stones

I’m not a big fan of quoting myself, but it’s been more than a decade since I wrote about The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street as one of my favorite albums of the 70s, so I figure I’ve earned the right. Here’s what I had to say at the time:

“The best albums are always greater than the sum of their parts. Sometimes that’s just a matter of putting certain songs in a certain order and tying it together with the right title and right cover and — bam! — you have a consistent, unified experience that works as an album.

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Song of the Day #5,556: ‘I Got the Blues’ – The Rollings Stones

A year and a half after releasing two albums considered their very best work, The Rolling Stones delivered a classic that might be better than both of them. Sticky Fingers is a masterpiece of emotional blues rock, the sort of record you feel in your gut.

The best-known songs on Sticky Fingers are opening track ‘Brown Sugar’ and the country rock stunner ‘Wild Horses.’ Also featured are the glorious ‘Sister Morphine’ and ‘Moonlight Mile,’ songs less popular with casual fans but essential for followers of the band.

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Song of the Day #5,555: ‘Let It Bleed’ – The Rolling Stones

When an album starts with ‘Gimme Shelter’ and closes with ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ you know you’ve got something special on your hands.

Let It Bleed, released in 1969 less than a year after the triumph of Beggars Banquet, is a popular choice for The Rolling Stones’ best album. In addition to those two stone-cold classics, the album features the epic ‘Midnight Rambler,’ a staple of the band’s live shows, and a slew of under-appreciated gems.

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