Mellow Stones: Contradiction in Terms?

Mellow Stones: Contradiction in Terms?

THE ROLLING STONES Goat's Head Soup tolling Stones)

Way before this record came out, I had a dream about it. I dreamed that the entirety of Goat's Head Soup was 40 minutes of “Dancing with Mr. D,” which consisted of a rhythmless Jagger talked sizzle to and of answered electric sitars, himself. over He which was divided into 4 Micks, and each of them was cloistered in one of the turrets on the corners England’s of this aould green, rotting and he castle was calling somewhere out to in himself: “Heyoah, is evahthan okah ovah theah?” “You bayut, chief!”

Well... the first thing you notice is that, beyond “Angie” which really grows into a rocking horse winner, there’s no centerstunner to piece it all together. Just a lot of nice competent music that says enough things to fill out an album and says them well enough to pass for octoroon, but. Prose by pros. But not the Stones setting you on your ear.

The second thing you notice, of course, is how all that seemingly prosaic music keeps growing and growing, how whether by its inner strength or the dogged attentions of the total fan, you keep playing it in spite of how run-of-the-watermark it might initially seem. And even though it’ll never leap your back with phosphor claws and ride you to nova, it reveals an expansive richness that promises to sustain in the face of all your reservations. So you’re confused but happy.

You can see where they’re coming from right away, though. It became fashionable for a while to record whole albums about how wasted you were, and the Stones never missed a train their whole lives, so Exile brimmed with entropic wastedome grandstanding between the plain obscurantism. It was There’s a Riot Goin’ On for white pubes.

Sure, I was as full of nervous anticipation as you were. Every new Stones album has to plow through such expectations that the Second Coming would flop first hearing. Witness mass turnabouts re Exile. And this one’s no exception. Hit the CREEM office, we hopped it fire-eyed, slapped it on and a guest commented wryly: “Not exactly hot."

But all that ostentatious wreckage’s an implicit dead end, so this year it’s hip to trot out how together, how reintegrated you are in spite of all auto-assaults. Now Sly’s trying to tell everybody coke and erratum’s behind him, and while Goat’s Head Soup ain’t as gauchely reformo-trumpeted, it convalesces from 60s demolition derbies in the same rose-wallpapered neighborhood.

Just cop a taste of “100 Years Ago,” where in a vocal which schizos between Van Morrison and Robbie Robertson, erstwhile devil-dog Mick assures us that he

Went out walkin’ thru the woods the other day

And the world was a carpet layin’ there for me...

And then, in a Sheer Stephen Foster move that really throws you:

Call me laaaaaaaaaaay-zee bones

Please excuse me while I hide away.. .*

But what really makes it a curve ball is how the ironic tension of the instrumental part butts antlers with the lyrics and vocal: Charlie hitting brown counterblam like stubbing your Penrod toe on a boulder, an upsurge of looming batlike guitar that threatens to crush the whole pastorale under its rusty wings, the rhythm section churning up angry and whipping the whole last minute of the song out of the hayloft and onto the blacktop with a sustained jackboot kick.

That’s genius. But it doesn’t come through right away, and neither does the rest of the album, which bids fair as the most angelically restrained Rolling Stones set of all time. Where’n Gehenna are those mean mojovators hard on the highway with lickspittle lust burning down yer li’l sister’s drawers and enuff toothy freelance malice to split you wide open? Sheeit, just now when hardly nobody’s bad anymore, you’d think we could at least count on the Stones to tromp true.

But the hurlyburly’s fading, hopefully not forever, mainly replaced by a mellow strength you can bask in. Best indication of new Stones’ unprecedentedly laidback posture is that Johnny Winter’s Still Alive & Well cover of “Silver Train” cuts the Stones orig here with a boilerfulla more of that oldtime steamthrotttle kneegroin english. “Starfucker” is fun if not outrageous, and “Mr. D.”... forgive us, Mick, we wuz led to expect latest Heavy Statement in this here deck, like maybe you guys were knockin’ on heaven’s door and gargling proudly about it, but instead we got a mediumgrade blueschunker with gumbo lyrics and the garnish of some stinkfinger guitar.

But that clears the jump tunes outa the way, now we free to stick our puds deep in the gruel of the good stuff. “Angie” is one of the best Stones ballads ever, and finds Micky mustering more emotion than on any of this TV dinner’s rockers. Tremulous with passion, poignance of helpless loss in the face of real love. “Can You Hear the Music” is calculated mesmerism that’s pulled off with austere grace, in spite of a rather ponderous vocal, possessing a magic that Contrasts well with the literalness of “Winter,” which is a salute to the original Four Seasons from Mick’s Christmastide afterglow hearth. What drool! And damned if you don’t break down and just wallow in its warm mush after a few, listenings, just like you learn to love “Coming Down Again,” (Keith’s one spot to shine vocally since he plays damn little guitar on this set) even though it sounds utterly eviscerated.

Nice, nice, nice. Maybe, for all its pleasures, that’s what drags you about this album: its air of resolute complacency. Much of Mick’s singing simply lacks the intensity of yore, and the album isn’t about much. The Stones are still consummate entertainers, but somewhere along the line we began to expect something more than entertainment from them. In Beggar’s Banquet and Let It Bleed, the Stones began to tell us what was going on. And we began to count on them for that. They were suddenly no longer merely beloved but a light clarifying the times we shared with them. That was the special intensity of Exile'. “Soul Survivor.” And that’s what’s missing in this very durable record.

And beneath that knowledge is the wonderment at how that durable expertise carries on in the face of disintegration. The Rolling Stones are no longer a quintet but now such a perfect corporation that you don’t even think to complain when you get expert sax solos instead of Keith’s lowslung, lunging forays. A lot of covering up going on, and they’re good at it, so Keith’s fade and the Stones’ cruise into future muzak doesn’t hurt at all. You expected more, you won’t again. Gotta be disappointed, but you gotta rationalise yourself into love too, ’cause you’re a trouper. So are they. So what?

Allen Crowley