The albums Keith Richards said Mick Jagger ruined: “Not the best”
Many artists would consider themselves lucky if they even got a half-decent record out during their lifetime. As easy as it looks in the movies having a bunch of people behind the glass trying to put together a masterpiece, it takes a lot of time and energy to go from a small idea to a massive piece of music that can keep audiences on the edge of their seats at every turn. The Rolling Stones could be proud to have a few albums like that under their belt, but Keith Richards felt that Mick Jagger ruined a number of their projects once the 1980s got started.
At the same time, it’s hard to ask a band that’s been around as long as The Stones to tone things down a bit. They had their sound down to a science on Exile on Main St, and regardless of the Beatles connections, they were still one of the most in-demand acts of the 1970s because of their track record for bluesy rock and roll.
That wasn’t what was going on at ground level anymore. In that same length of time, the public was experiencing years of everything from disco to prog rock to punk to even the beginnings of hip-hop towards the end of the 1970s. The Stones weren’t afraid to take a few chances with new genres on tracks like ‘Respectable’ from Some Girls, but Jagger seemed to be looking beyond just rock and roll.
There were already inklings that the frontman wanted to play with more mainstream textures, but once they hit albums like Emotional Rescue, things began getting out of hand. There were still fantastic songs to be found, but they weren’t all suited for The Stones, almost like they would have fit better if given away to other artists like Jagger and Richards had done in their early days.
But things were only going to get worse before they got better, with Undercover and Dirty Work featuring the corniest tracks they had ever made. If the early Stones material was rudimentary, much of their output in the 1980s looked like they were style over substance, especially once they began to break out the pastel-coloured outfits.
Keef didn’t even attempt to take the blame for the group’s fall from grace during this era, either, saying, “Undercover of the Night, Emotional Rescue, these are all Mick’s calculations about the market. And they’re not the best records we’ve made. See, Mick listens to too much bad shit.” However, once they reached the 1990s, they found a firm middle ground.
Voodoo Lounge was the most in-tune they had been since Tattoo You, and even though experiments like ‘Might As Well Get Juiced’ from Bridges to Babylon should really be forgotten, it did feel like it was coming from a place of creativity rather than just an excuse to make a pop hit.
But compared to where all of the other Stones projects stack up in their discography, there’s a reason why Emotional Rescue and Undercover aren’t exactly up there with Sticky Fingers. If anything, it does give a little bit of merit to John Lennon’s crack that all that Jagger does is absorb what’s around him and copy it.
