The Rolling Stones: Dirty Work - 1986
"Mick is more involved with what's happening at the moment. He has to go backwards and compare himself to who's hitting the Top Ten at the moment" - Keith Richards
Widely considered by most to be the worst Rolling Stones album, by far.
It genuinely had a lot going against it - a fractured band with its main protagonists pretty much functioning completely independent to each other, with even comparatively mild-tempered Charlie Watts falling out with Jagger, a musical trend of the time in synthesisers dominating everything and, yes, a bloody awful cover. Let me try and "accentuate the positives" with this review. It is had too much negativity over the years, probably correctly, but oh well, here goes.....
One Hit To The Body is a rousing, impressive opener employing that old acoustic-electric guitar riff intro again and some impressive guests like Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Bobby Womack, Patti Scialfa and Kirsty McColl. It is as good as anything on Emotional Rescue or Undercover to be fair. Fight is a bit more of a Stones-by-numbers track with Ronnie Wood on bass (unusually), it is lyrically bland but has a killer riff opening.
A Keith Richards-influenced and now seemingly obligatory reggae number, Too Rude is highly enjoyable too. I always like these. Jimmy Cliff appears on backing vocals. It was a cover too, of a Jamaican song originally titled Winsome, by Half Pint.
Winning Ugly was a track whose accursed synthesiser riff is also rescued by a funky bass and drum underpin taken, in my view, from Don Covay's Northern Soul number, It's Better To Have (And Don't Need). Strangely, Covay appears on this album on backing vocals on One Hit and Sleep Tonight. Maybe he had some input? Jagger also attacks this enthusiastically, going falsetto in places again.
Back To Zero has a delicious funky intro and, yet again a good Jagger vocal. The guitar and drums are great on this and, yes, it is a good track. Hints of dub reggae in its skanking guitars in places too. This would have sounded great on Undercover, with its political undertones about the world's impending meltdown. Ronnie Wood's bass on this, again, is impressive. You know, I'm enjoying this re-listen quite a lot... This is possibly the best track on the album.
Dirty Work is pretty much a typical mid 80s Stones cut. It is ok, but that's about it. If you like The Stones you can listen to it and there are good parts, the chorus is catchy. A lot of people have moaned about the 80s drum sound on tracks like this, and, although it is a loud attack, at least they are proper drums and not a drum machine. Had It With You features Ronnie Wood on saxophone, would you believe, but has a lazy Jagger vocal and a general unremarkableness pervades. A blues-influenced "bridge" sounds pretty terrible, to be brutally honest.
Probably the album's low point now. Richards' affecting low-key ballad Sleep Tonight finishes things. Good old Ronnie is now, unbelievably, on drums, not very impressively, it has to be said and Keith's vocal is unsurprisingly laconic.
Yes, this is probably is their worst album, but, as a Stones fan, I will try to derive something from it and the occasional forty minutes listening to it every few years is enjoyable enough.
