godspeede's Full Review: A Bigger Bang [PA] by The Rolling Stones
From first sight it is apparent that A Bigger Bang is something different. Unlike the last five or six Stones' CDs there is just a simple photograph of the band on the cover, with no logo or the usual elaborate packaging. In fact, it is reminiscent of their first two British LP albums (Rolling Stones 1 and 2), both of which featured a similar ambience. This may be in fact deliberate because the content of the new CD is a triumphant return to the kind of the honest rock music that no one other than the Stones (except for AC/DC) is capable of creating any longer.
Put simply, the songs, the performances (especially the guitar work but also Mick on the harp), the production, and the sound are outstanding and reinforce the legend of this, the premier rock band of all time. Bigger Bang is also something of a relief, as their last two cds (albeit nearly a decade ago for the last one), Bridges to Babylon, and Voodoo Lounge were competently crafted, but for the most part uninspired and boring. Bigger Bang proves that they were right to lay off for a while.
As always in their career, when they have something to prove they always respond, and they have done it again (e.g. Beggars Banquet after the weird and pointless Satanic Majesties Request and Some Girls after the equally weird and bloodless, Black and Blue). Some have compared this new CD to Some Girls, but a more accurate analogy might be to a fleshed out Emotional Rescue (without, thank God, the eponymous disco studio experiment), with a range of styles from straight ahead rock, "Rough Justice" to blues, "Back of My Hand", to ballads etc. For all of its eclecticism, however, the rock edge prevails - and it is excellent. (By the way, other reviewer, "Rain Fall Down" is not an attempt to sound "modern," it is a song style of the type that the Stones' first introduced with "Times Waits For No One" on It's Only Rock n' Roll in the early 70s!)
It is not an infrequent comment (repeated on this forum) about major groups and individual artists, that if they were not already famous their most current effort would not warrant much attention. In the first place, this is a specious somewhat asinine comment: everyone from software companies, auto manufacturers, painters, you name it, relies on the reputation of their previous work to assure a degree of receptiveness to their latest efforts. In the second place, the correct answer to the question: "what would be the response to this CD if it were a new group?", is that if some young band backed by a major label released this, it would be considered among the albums of the year. This in turn raises another question of to what do we compare Bigger Bang? Or to put it another way, is there anything to compare it with among more contemporary groups? Could anyone with any real feel for rock music try, say, to put this up against Green Day or Franz Ferdinand, or the two-dimensional jack-off music that passes for metal these days? Certainly not. The Stones can PLAY, they can also write classic tunes and make it look easy. Hell, one can take their first album from 1963, recorded on a two-track in a week, and it blows away virtually everyone out there now (don't believe me, find someone who can play cleanly -without studio garbage - and come close to the excitement they produced then, go ahead try).
There is also always some natural cynicism when it comes to a new Stones CD - so much is expected that there is inevitably a degree of disappointment upon first listening (there are New Musical Express Reviews of such classic outings as Let It Bleed from 1968, for instance, that give the album of "Gimme Shelter," Midnight Rambler," and "Monkey Man" a mediocre rating!) But give this CD about four or five listens and it will come into focus. This is a GREAT collection, and if (God forbid), the Stones never release another; it would stand as appropriately as Abbey Road did for the Beatles as a swan song to their recording careers. And think about it, Charlie Watts is 65, and Keith and Mick are 62. Anyone have the guts to step and take them on? I don't think so! Don't miss this one, it will remind you of why you love rock in the first place.
A Bigger Bang, the Rolling Stones first new studio album in eight years, is a follow up to their 1997 s platinum-selling Bridges to Babylon. The album...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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