 |  | Johns are jerky little GI Joes... |  |
`Undercover' seems to be a love it or hate it album for many fans. I feel it is their best album of 80's recorded music (meaning `Tattoo You' had been recorded over my 70's sessions but is a much better record.) I think it is also better than `Emotional Rescue' which isn't too hard (not one of my favorites). The record has been praised as one where the Stones took chances and experimented with different styles and I agree. Hard rock, soul, funk and reggae all make appearances but I think it is the overall sound of the album then the types of songs that make it different as the Stones had always done songs in those styles. Maybe working with Chris Kimsey, an outside producer for the first time in a decade made the band more adventurous. The title track is a very good song, a minor classic which is funky and rockin' at the same time ("heard the screams in Center 42"). "Undercover of the Night" is also a tone setter for an LP full of songs with violent lyrical matter. "Too Much Blood" is definitely a highlight with Mick using his mockney accent to complain about the gore in a certain classic low budget American horror film while also telling a tale of a cannibalistic friend. The horns sound downright scary...much like the voodoo congas of "Sympathy". "She Was Hot" and "Too Tough" are fine rockers but nothing that the Stones hadn't blown away before. "Feel On Baby" has its moments as well but seems to meander a little too much for me. `Undercover is a good latter-day Stones record and they really have made any much better since. In the end, they could not chew me up......
September 16, 2008 | | Undercover Is The Best Of '80s Stones! | |
The title of my review pretty much says it all. I think Undercover is the best the Stones could do in the 1980s. I don't know why so many are convinced that Tattoo You was the last Rolling Stones masterpiece. Yes, "Start Me Up" is classic! But, most of Tattoo You kind of drags along. Undercover, on the other hand, rocks throughout, without even one ballad. It is high-energy and fun, musically speaking. I do have to agree with other reviewers, however, that the lyrics are sometimes more "perverse" than, say, gangsta rap, on occasion. I can't say that I recall any expletives, but one particular song is downright gory! Anyway, I tend to listen to music more for the sound than the meaning, though I do appreciate more insightful lyrics. However, I never listened to the Stones for their "message," just rock and roll!
September 10, 2008| | | Why...so divine...the pain of love... | |
Although not NEARLY as evident as on "Dirty Work," ennui (to phrase it somewhat mildly...) was setting in amongst the Stones, here, BADLY. Still...as in most everything they've ever done (with the glaring, very SAD exception of "Bigger Bang"), there is/was always one or two little stone TREASURES that made up for the rest of the album(s)' shortcomings. And "She Was Hot" is a flat-out rocker, comparable to almost anything off the "Sticky Fingers/Exile/Goat's Head Soup" trilogy - the Stones' apothesis. Two things: a very definite "Keith/lead guitar" solo. And it was the very last (well, "audible," anyway) Stones' song that featured original Stone/the irreplaceable Ian Stewart. And despite the fact that 75% of all the guitar on "Tie You Up (The Pain Of Love)" was Ron Wood, just the lyrical content is enough to make the song a classic: "You dream of it passionate/you get a rise from it/feel the *** *** drippin' down your thighs from it/why so divine the pain of love?" I mean, take THAT, Billie Jean while you're taking every breath, riding around in your little red Corvette, I know there's something going on, and yes, I really want to hurt you, maneater. See what I mean? 1983 will never win any prizes for "musical perspicuity" or anything...
June 19, 2008| | | The Terrain Gets Rocky For The Stones | |
The battle for leadership in the band exploded in the early-1980s between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, with it spilling onto the vinyl in this November 1983 release.
At its best, the politically-charged, Undercover in the Night, midnight rambling of She Was Hot and It Must Be Hell are solid additions to the legendary discography.
But the posturing on cuts like Tie You Up (The Pain Of Love), Pretty Beat Up and All The Way Down sound more in tune with the self-indulgent silliness of any number of generic arena rock bands of this era.
And where the merging of rock, reggae/disco, and new wave was successful in the 1978 album, Some Girls, the pulling from this wealth of musical sources for Undercover sounds - at times - to be very forced.
A transitional album in many ways, it is one of the more frustrating and fascinating releases in the band's historic career.
May 7, 2008the stones myth is tattoo you is the last great stones album and that was made up of castoffs of others albums,
think..bout how many great albums they produced year after year,where as nowadays bands take 3-4 years to get an album out,
Undercover is a great funny slightly odd album,i listen to these more than the 60's 70's albums..dirtywork well was a bit poor,but steel,vodoo,bang,bridges,emotion etc are not bad albums there just not exile!
March 8, 2008More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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