Satan's Luau

The Rolling Stones- A Bigger Bang REVIEW: B

I think a lot of reviewers get into this "oh this is the senior tour" mentality concerning certain bands, as if certain bands should be evaluated on the basis of the age of their band members ... in that sense this album is somewhere in the A range, how many other late 50-something/60ish guys are making albums, selling out tours, and making solid straightforward rock albums ... almost as if we all should pay homage to the godfathers of rock, the original bad boys, r-n-r Moses, etc. for pioneering all that is ROCK

Some have gotten tied up in trying to say what album is this one in the ballpark of ... I'm not going to go there, let's just say it's nowhere near everyone's classic ExileOMS, it may not even be near Tattoo, but it is better than everything post-SteelWs (how much more? well, let's just say I think this album has a better focus, as if they actually meant it (... outside of releasing an album to tour on)

The first thing I have to say, and this is not a knock, but in recent albums, maybe since Steel Wheels, the Stones have settled into a particular sounding song ... well produced to the max, slick, catchy, but ultimately a number of songs fall into the same sounding category. Hey, I don't knock AC for having similar sounding songs, so I'm not knocking the Stones on it either. Rough Justice, Let Me Down Slow, and Oh No, Not You Again sound in this style. The darker, slick dirty bluesy sounding recent songs are like "It Won't Take Long"

I guess in recent albums you can kind of ID the styles of song ... the handful of slick driving pop rocks songs in the signature Stones style, the dark bluesy one, the discoey one, the yearny ballad, the one with Keith on vox, the reggaeish one, the stripped down, straightup 60s blues one, the countrified pop one ... I guess if you view it this way, then this Stones album is predictable along the lines of what they have released in the past 20 years

Well, I do have this impression of it and that is that I have not ffwd-ed through any tracks, and that is not something I could say about recent efforts, where there were nuggets of goodness here and there. This album is very solid and listenable all the way around for me

I guess it really is the culmination of the post-Exile era ... or the so-called Stones pop/disco/radio hit era. It's a nice summation of what has been for most of my life. I guess in many ways I am an apologist for the RS because they are one of my favorite bands of all time. ABB is a good enough album, I think that if you liked the direction of the past 25 years, you would think this holds up well enough

And the thing is ... and it is basic to appreciating bands which have such a HUGE legacy. You're not really going to see them play for Rough Justice, are you? That's right, there is that enormous back catalog of 40+ hits that could be played. In that sense, there is nothing here that jumps at you and makes you think, add another one to the canon of immortal Stones hits

I'm not going overboard on this one, and I don't listen to it endlessly ... but I think it is solid enough, and our evaluation is that it is a very solid, respectable B.