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May 15, 2017, 07:00AM

Young Fellow Catalogues Stones’ Output

Provides history’s proof the boys have lasted.

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Black and Blue is one of my favorite Rolling Stones albums. In fact by now it may be my favorite, given that I listened to it three years ago. I can’t remember the last time I listened to Some Girls or Exile on Main St. If I did listen to the second, I think my spirit would curl at the edges. Not that Exile is bad; I bet it’s good. But there’s so much of it, and I heard it so many times. I was a Stones fan my first couple of years in college, and logging hours of Exile time was probably the chief form my fandom took. Of the albums I liked, it was the longest and most touted, and I felt good about liking a classic. I cooled off during my junior year; decades later, I remain cooled off. I want to keep the Stones around, but I want to shrug at their classicness. Black and Blue—their brief, mid-70s album with the guest guitarists and patched-together tracksis the Stones album that I still like the way I did before, back when I was in my dorm. People, or rock critics, didn’t think much of it back then. They still don’t. But I like every track, and “Hand of Fate” is my favorite.

That one, at least, has crawled into respectability. I point to a long piece at Vulture, “The Complete Works: Ranking All 374 Rolling Stones Songs.” There at 107 we find “Hand,” which is described this way: “Keith’s riff is massive, the choruses stick, Mick sings the murder-story lyrics with resigned desperation. And Charlie puts a bow on it.” The Vulture round-up is by David Marchese, who looks like he was born during or after my dorm years. Perhaps Mick was recording She’s the Boss, perhaps rumors of Steel Wheels had begun. Let’s take a step back. The Stones’ museum period (by my count it began with “Start Me Up” and the Jovan sponsorship deal, in 1981) has lasted so long that people born during this stretch can now serve as president, not to mention senators. They can also be Park Slope information professionals with laptops and Twitter accounts. One of the people belonging to this second group has decided to survey the career output of a band that stopped mattering before he even breathed.

I like that. I see it as a sign of how much the Stones mattered back when they did matter (1963–1978, with Some Girls providing the last triumph). I can shrug at their classicness, but at the same time I know it rests secure—look at that young fellow beavering through his 374 tracks. As I see it, he demonstrates that I wasn’t wasting my time back when I loved the Stones. David Marchese is history’s proof that the boys have lasted. I’ll add that Wayne Perkin’s guitar solo on “Hand of Fate” reminded me of lit electrical filament somehow coiling in the air at right angles. Make of that what you will, but it’s some solo.

—Follow C.T. May on Twitter: @CTMay3

Discussion
  • I don't care, I'm gonna start. The Beatles never mattered. When the Stones mattered, their next album mattered like the next Don DeLillo novel, but more, at least with a better beat and easier to dance to. I'm OCD enough to be curious about the YF's C. And yeah, I guess I wore the hell out of Exile as much as anybody, and Some Girls was peppy enough for the Crazy Pops to hold their own. By gee, Those Guys.

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  • You're just stirring the pot, Jeff. Of course The Beatles mattered. No Beatles, probably no Stones. There was equal anticipation for the next Beatles release, just didn't last as long. And they never touched Exile on Main St. (Stones last great, great record). Buttons and Revolver, Beggar's Banquet and the White album. Some Girls was a last gasp, and for me, the only track that endures is "Beast of Burden."

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  • SHATTERED

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  • Start Me Up. Hand of Fate. Beast of Burden. Brian Jones would be rolling over in his grave. Their last great RS songs were probably Shattered and When The Whip Comes Down. "Not that Exile is bad?" How old are you, kid? I'll take the Mick Taylor period myself. The boys went into decline shortly after Taylor left...

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  • Miss You, Before They Make Me Run, Beast of Burden -- all great tracks off Some Girls, and there's a bunch of other good ones, Maybe I'm prejudiced, since Some Girls was the first Stones album I listened to, not counting Out of Our Heads and The Rolling Stones Now! (if I have the title right).

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