The Rolling Stones – It's Only Rock 'N Roll

This is such a ridiculously underrated lp. Almost every track is great. Really brings it home what a loss Mick Taylor was but he shines here.
You like classic stones this is right up there.

This may not be a masterpiece, but it's an excellent rock album by the Stones regardless, and I still love giving it a spin-- to this day!

I have pretty much everything the Stones recorded from their debut through Undercover-- from there they became a touring band that was not nearly as focused on creating new material as they had been. So I'm less familiar with their work from the
mid-eighties up until Lonesome & Blue-- an excellent blues covers album, and Hackney Diamonds-- an undeniably excellent Stones album that I'd say is at the level of Some Girls or Tattoo You.

It's Only Rock & Roll is underrated and it still seems to be fashionable to trash this gem of a record. Goat's Head Soup also falls into this category IMO. Another excellent and underrated Stones album from the prior year. There was no way that anything the Stones did after Sticky Fingers or Exile on Main Street was not going to feel like something of a disappointment to many who perhaps expected nothing less than one flat out masterpiece after another. I was perhaps a little guilty of this attitude myself when I was a kid buying these records. Yet, going back and listening to their mid seventies albums over the last couple of decades I've changed my mind. That run of records from Goat's Head Soup through Tattoo You is pretty damn great. The Stones were still growing and experimenting musically and I've come around to realize that It's Only Rock & Roll is a solid album loaded with excellent tracks. 'Time Waits for No One' is a classic, stunning track, and Dance Little Sister, Till the Next Goodbye, Fingerprint File-- all excellent!

You can still get a first pressing of this LP pretty cheap these days. It's worth owning!

Fantastic Rock "N" Roll Album By The Stones, Not One Of Their Masterpieces Though But For The Life Of Me It Does Have Several Of My Favourite Ever Stones Songs. The Album Is Very Promising With Killer Songs Like If You Can't Rock Me, Till The Next Goodbye, Time Waits For No One, Luxury And The Magnificent Hella Funky Fingerprint File. The Rest Is Unfortunately Abit Too Meh, If Only They Had Included Outtakes Like Through The Lonely Nights And Drift Away The Album Could Be Significantly More Balanced Quality Wise. I Have A NM First UK Pressing And It Sounds Pretty Good Although It Seems That The Mixing On This Album Is Quite Inconsistent With Some Songs Feeling Too Muddy And Cluttered And Others Very Nice And Detailed. All That Said However This First Press Is The Best I Have Ever Heard This Album.

Come on let’s stop this continuous slagging of great albums. Sure it wasn’t Exile but after a run of some of the best albums ever committed to record isn’t it about time we stood back and acknowledged that a lot of bands would kill for a record this good including the Stones themselves. They weren’t alone Floyd,Bowie,Dylan etc all had to run out of inspiration eventually. Let’s look back from an historical perspective and see what these albums were , great by anyone else’s standards. Just think the alternative was to split and do a Beatles and we’ve all heard what a solo Mick Jagger album sounds like.

Saying that this was a prosperous and pretentious era for The Rolling Stones is not an understatement, yet in that same breath I kept holding out hope that they would return to some sort of values that I recognized, something akin to Let It Bleed or Beggar’s Banquet, where their music was fresh, opened new doors, give me something I could sink my teeth into, and a banner that I could fly. But they were now moving far beyond anything serious or inspirational. Take the title track, “It’s Only Rock And Roll,” where they seem to marginalize the music, in effect saying ”Hey, it’s rock and roll, what do you expect?!” And in answering I’d say, ”Much more please, there are thousands of groups out there who are delivering no substance.”

Think what you will about Exile On Main Street and its valueless personification, in any respect, it was the final great Stones album of all time, from a band who’d become rich and bloated, accustomed to each having their own limousine, and private dressing rooms, about which Keith said, ”I haven’t been in Mick’s dressing room since 1969.

Listen, I have no issues with The Rolling Stones loving American R&B, but at this stage of their career, they should have been penning their own, not covering the Temptations … and it matters not to me that there are those who would claim that in doing so, they were adding their own distinctive flair, because I for one don’t care; it all simply sounds lazy. There are also those who will say that on this album Mick Taylor began pushing Richards be be a more professional player, delivering notes with greater sonic depth, where he and Richards could be a foil for not only each other, but for the vocals of Mick Jagger. And to that end I’d say again, it matters not that the music is done flawlessly, what matters is if the music is important or not, and no, there’s nothing important or challenging to be found here, just an album that came out in the mid 70’s, reflecting those values, where not only the Stones, but fans alike, put themselves in a stupor with barbiturates, and then instantly made themselves awake with a hit of the white powder. And the fact that this release is now into it’s second remastering, where it is even more clean, more crisp, and more in your face, only makes me rub my eyes in disbelief.

I know, I can hear you … there are many who came of age during this time and the album’s overt excess, along with the dancing beat that spoke to them, but I’m not talking to the Johnny come lately-s here, I’m talking about the fans who were there from the beginning, people who relished in the mystique of their drug use, no its matter of factness. Actually, Mick and Keith began thinking that they could do it all, that their Glimmer Twins pseudonym meant that they no longer required great producers in the spirit of Jimmy Miller, with Mick and Keith claiming that he was disinterested, that his enthusiasm had waned, though in reality, I believe that the man just threw up his hands and walk away, knowing that there was nothing he could do to shine a light on this material, and make it great. And that to me left this album feeling unfinished, as if it were a work in progress, or outtakes. All this sparks me to say that people didn’t recognize a good song from a bad one in those days, with that aspect being self evident if one simply looks at Led Zeppelin and the poor shows they were putting on, while adoring fans screamed in delight at missed notes, lost lyrics, and speakers designed to hold Jimmy Page upright, instead of delivering quality sound.

But this is all just me, I’ve no idea if I’m preaching to the converted, or making the readers mad … I will say that there were far worse albums by the Stones on the horizon, where with their attitudes and demeanor, I too threw up my hands and walked away, privately playing my older Stones’ material, and still delighting in the magic of “Gimmie Shelter” and “Midnight Rambler.”

*** The Fun Facts: The album jacket pretty much says it all ... Now for something completely different, this time a painting by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert, capturing the Stones as rock deities adored by Grecian handmaidens. David Bowie was so taken with Peellaert’s work that he got him to do ‘Diamond Dogs’ and rushed it out four months before the Stones got their act together.

Rock royalty ... not gunslingers, not outlaws, just rich, pale skinned limp wrist-ed out of touch waste-olids.

Review by Jenell Kesler

The Stones best days were well and truly behind them, I quite like "Time Waits For No Man" but the rest is just a bit dull.