Growing up, I believed that the music you listened to was a product of your chronological age. In younger years, you gravitated towards rock ‘n’ roll (the idea of “pop” didn’t even occur to me, and anything Black – soul, R ‘n’ B, blues – simply did not exist as a category in my corner of the world), followed by a dalliance with country before you settled into old age – which I suppose I imagined began around 50 – with the kind of stuff that Marg Ellsworth played on CHER on Sunday mornings, which was what Johnny Fever was rebelling against on that classic first episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati”. Classical and jazz were not considered – I knew they existed, but no one I knew was listening to them openly to any significant degree.
So, now that I know that all of that is a lie, and that I was not in fact destined to become musically boring, I am still left with the question of what it means to “act your age” musically. My father would sometimes say to me that I had to grow up and stop listening to that noise. Keep in mind, I was, like, 15 at the time, and years away from growing up. But that message fed into my mindset about what kind of music was proper at a given age.
Thankfully, The Rolling Stones never met my dad.
What are we to make of an ass-kicking band of actual and borderline octogenarians? Well, first there is a sort of amazement that they are even doing this, no doubt with their hearing aids cranked up to 11. The Stones will, like all successful acts, be faced with the reality of being compared to the better records they made when they were younger, and, god, I am so over that garbage. Yes, this is no “Sticky Fingers” or “Exile on Main St.” or whichever album tops your ranking of their canon. But, dear god, I had fun listening to this album. It’s a saggy balls out, smash/bang howl of a record, and if the Stones are now little better than a honky tonk bar band playing the nostalgia tour (and I don’t necessarily share that assessment), they are still the very best at that. The songs have solid melodies, Mick still sounds great, and Keith, Ron and the rest of the band deliver on every track. My favourite tune is probably the British grannies bitch slap “Bite My Head Off” with Paul McCartney, but you could talk me into favouring the opener “Angry” or “Whole Wide World” or “Live By The Sword”, the last of which includes contributions from former band mates Bill Wyman and the late Charlie Watts. Even the slower tunes, like the Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder team up on “Sweet Sounds Of Heaven”, should feel no shame when sitting next to “Angie” or “Wild Horses”.
This might be their last gift to us – ending with an honest cover of the Muddy Waters classic that gave the band its name seems a signal – and, if so, it’s a very honourable ending. It’s a good record, even a great one at times, and if you disagree – I’m looking at you, Pitchfork – please, for your own sake, pull your head out of your ass and give it another spin.
PopNotes 