“Beats ‘Rip This Joint'”: The fastest song The Rolling Stones ever made
Rock and roll was never a genre meant for middle-of-the-road tempos. Going as far back as Chuck Berry, this music was about making something much more energetic than what had come before, so it made sense to kick up the tempo to get everyone out of the lethargic coma they got into listening to people like Bing Crosby. The Rolling Stones may not have had that much of a problem kicking up the BPM when needed, but Keith Richards thought they never got any faster than when they worked on ‘Flip the Switch’ in the 1990s.
By the time they entered their third decade, though, any other band would be getting used to slowing things down and making more breezy music. Hell, the Eagles had been around for a decade less than The Stones had at that point, and yet they were putting out the equivalent of adult contemporary songs like ‘Love Will Keep Us Alive’ alongside passable dad rock like ‘Get Over It’.
As the grunge era emerged, The Rolling Stones found themselves in need of returning to their roots. The 1980s had seen them venture into some of the most unusual directions of their career, and many believed they were at risk of becoming a mere sideshow of their former selves. However, Voodoo Lounge marked a return to form, bringing them back to the sound that defined them, with Keith Richards particularly happy to reconnect with their rock foundations.
Once Bridges to Babylon came out, the pendulum started swinging back the other way. There was still the Stonesy blues rock that most would come to expect, but there were also tracks like ‘Might As Well Get Juiced’, which sounds like the equivalent of The Chemical Brothers reaching middle age and trying their best to sound dangerous.
The album itself is a bit of a grab bag, but ‘Flip the Switch’ at least starts things on a high note. Compared to the other straightforward rockers on the record, the band start things off by going from zero to 100 right out of the gate, with Charlie Watts especially kicking ass on the drums as Richards puts different guitar stabs in between.
Listening back to the tune, Richards considered it one of the group’s fastest tracks, saying, “Beat-wise the fastest track the Stones have ever cut or any other rock and roll song. It even beats ‘Rip This Joint’, which is always considered to be the fastest track ever cut (laughs). But to me the real pleasure is playing with Charlie Watts, who is right on the top of his game. And that makes it much easier for me.”
In fact, there are a lot of moments on here where Watts seems to give other seasoned pros a run for their money. While he was never known to be the flashiest to ever pick up two sticks, there were still moments when he could surprise the listeners by pulling from the world of jazz to get some of those intricate fills.
Although Bridges to Babylon didn’t exactly make them superstars in the same way ‘Start Me Up’ might have, it stands as the 1990s equivalent of Some Girls, given its choice of both classic tracks and ones that deserve to be skipped. And just their 1970s album had ‘Respectable’, ‘Flip the Switch’ is borderline punk in terms of speed.
