The Rolling Stones: Some Girls - 1978
"The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town" - Mick Jagger
In 1978, the disco boom had taken over the charts, thanks to the previous year’s Saturday Night Fever and everyone, it seemed, from Abba to Roxy Music were encouraged to put out a disco influenced single. Why, even The Stones got in on the act.
Although recorded in Paris, it is very much a New York album, with Big Apple references prevalent throughout. Indeed, Mick Jagger said of it - “The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town. I think that gave it an extra spur and hardness. And then, of course, there was the punk thing that had started in 1976. Punk and disco were going on at the same time, so it was quite an interesting period”.
Overall, Some Girls is considered to be the band’s best offering for six years, since 1972’s Exile On Main Street, although personally I prefer its three predecessors. It taps into the contemporary disco vibe, but also features keyboards prominently and also exploits a bit of punk's attitude and energy. It is probably the least "riffy" of the band's albums, with guitar work giving way to grooves, to an extent. Despite that, as any Stones trivia-nut will tell you, this was also the first album to feature Ronnie Wood as an official full band member.
Now, where's that whip......
The result of The Stones' dabbling in disco was the extremely impressive bassy disco-funk groove of Miss You, which showed people that they were fully able to diversify. The track has a totally sumptuous bass line and a superbly catchy chorus backing vocal. It was a huge hit, gaining the band a bit of a new audience along the way.
When The Whip Comes Down took The Stones to the disco to the S & M chambers now for this decadent bondage-inspired number, although its seediness was hidden by an upbeat vibe and catchy tune. Thinking about bondage, I've never really wanted to whip anyone or be whipped. Each to their own I suppose, but it has never done it for me. I remember once a girlfriend asking me to whip her with a camel whip I owned (a present from my Dad who had been to Bahrain). After a few very tentative whips from me she said "forget that love, it bloody well hurts...". Back to the song, it has loose, bluesy feel to it and is one of the album's best.
Like 1974's Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Just My Imagination (Running Away From Me) was a solid cover of a Motown song, again from The Temptations. It's nowhere near as good as the original, of course, but Mick and the boys managed to put their stamp on it and it sat well on the album.
Some Girls has a slow, sensually chugging beat to it that always drags you in. Jagger's vocal is delightfully louche. It also merges acoustic and electric guitars with a slow, sexy funk groove to great effect. It was a red rag to a feminist bull (if there was such a thing!) with its dodgy but smuttily glorious line "black girls just wanna get fucked all night, I just don't have that much jam". Anyway, enough of that lustily naughtiness and back to the song - it was a fine grinder of a track that invariably gets me thing sexual thoughts. Oh dear, there I go again...
Lies is a frantic, almost punky rocker which sort of acknowledges the contemporary taste for fast guitar-driven rock. There is a strong case towards the view that Jagger wrote a lot of this material on his own, with possible help from Wood, as Keith Richards was pretty drugged-up and embroiled in court cases at the time. It is very much a Mick album, isn't it?
Jagger reprises his Dead Flowers from Sticky Fingers country-hick voice on Far Away Eyes, an oddly appealing number. Yes, Jagger's voice sounds utterly ludicrous as he tells us about driving through Bakersfield listening to the radi-oh but it has an easy melody and also one of the album's warmest bass lines. I can't help but like it
Mick is in full-on leery mode as he lusts after those lovely society women once more on a lively piece of cod-funk in Respectable. It was released as a single but didn't do nearly as well as Miss You. The song contains some fine Jagger enunciation (or should that be "enunciashowwwn"?) in "respectabowwwwl" and "delectabowwwwl".
Keith's first lead vocal since Exile's Happy, Before They Make Me Run is a song motivated by drug problems - now there's a shock - Keith having been in serious bother the year before. Musically, it was a lively number that didn't feel out of place on the album. It is probably one of Keith's better efforts for the Stones, although it is not particularly riffy it does have a catchy, croaky chorus.
An invigorating and totally captivating soulful groove, Beast Of Burden is a really good song, one of The Stones' best from the period and it has long remained a favourite of mine. Jagger controls the song with consummate ease. It was The Stones great late seventies classic. Its sound harks back to those earlier in the decade and is by far the superior song to more punchy numbers like Respectable and Shattered. Oh, and I love it dearly.
Rather like Respectable, Shattered had a frantic, pacy and punky street vibe to it, lots of lyrics about sex, success, the Big Apple, Manhattan and being shattered, and that winning "shuh-dooby" bit as well. Again, it was a bit of a masterclass in Jaggerisms.
Despite the album coming out at the height of punk, the music cognoscenti respected it, so too did the punks. So much for “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones..” - it seemed some of the contemporary trend for criticising The Stones was waning, giving way to an "elder statesmen"-style respect and a kindred spirit love for Keith. The album also attracted some mainstream and disco fans along the way too. It seemed to go down well with everyone.
The album has always had something of a tinny sound to it, however, and no amount of remastering seems to be able to correct that. The current (2009) remaster is the best to date, but it still comes off worse in comparison to other Stones albums either side of it. It was probably recorded like that and that is that, like Goats Head Soup (until recently - 2020), just not a great one, sonically. I just wish it could up the bass and lower the treble a bit within the recording. This can be remedied slightly by turning up the bass of my thumping sub-woofer. The tinny treble is still present though. Maybe The Stones were simply looking for that harsh, punky sound when the album was recorded. I just find it difficult to get past that awful, harsh sound, though.
Everything Is Turning To Gold was the 'b' side of the Shattered single. It was a reggae-influenced. slightly edgy and earthy number featuring some wailing saxophone and a bit of the 1978 white reggae/punk fusion feel to it.
Black Limousine, Start Me Up and Hang Fire - tracks that ended up on Tattoo You, were originally from this album's sessions.
The extra tracks released on the “deluxe edition” of Some Girls were controversial for being enhanced versions of original out-takes and demos from the original sessions given a contemporary makeover by the Stones in 2010. Personally, I don’t mind this at all, it has allowed some previously unheard material to be given new life - fair enough.
What is also notable is that the sound quality on these new tracks is far superior to the tinny sound of the original album. It is like having a new Stones album and doesn’t detract from the original Some Girls at all.
Claudine is a rollicking piece of catchy, piano-driven bar-room blues and is a great start to this collection of songs. So Young is a solid piece of Stones rock, apparently it had been around on bootlegs for years and this latest recording doesn’t sound much different. It has a loose, rocking, Exile On Main Street feel to it. In fact, it rocks harder and more urgently than anything on the original Some Girls.
Do You Really Think I Care? has the country rock vibe of Faraway Eyes but it is faster in a sort of Shattered way. Jagger sings in that silly country voice again, something we have all just got used to and happily accept. Nobody else would get away with it would they? But it’s Mick Jagger, so we’ll forgive him most things. It is actually a really appealing track, so there you go.
When You're Gone has something Some Girls lacks - some copper-bottomed Stones blues. It is a bit like Back Of My Hand from A Bigger Bang but faster. No Spare Parts is a country style slow number sung in the same style as Do You Think That I Really Care? but it is another strong song. There is a real vibrancy to some of this material, you have to say. Don't Be A Stranger is a vaguely reggae-sounding upbeat number with a summery breeziness to it.
Time for a Keith song - We Had It All is typical Richards, being a slow, sleepy romantic ballad.
Tallahassee Lassie is a very lively, southern bluesy cover of the old Freddy Cannon number. The Stones do it really well, full of vigour and enthusiasm with a hint of Creedence Clearwater Revival about their guitar sound. I Love You Too Much is a riffy, sensual Stones rocker in their late seventies/early eighties style. Keep Up Blues is a more than welcome delicious helping of grinding, bassy blues. This is The Stones at their best and it is as good as anything they recorded in this period, to be honest. It has a great full sound to it too.
You Win Again sees the group go back to that good ol’ country bar. It is like the sort of song that Elvis Costello did on Almost Blue. It is an old Hank Williams song and was also covered by Van Morrison and Linda Gail Lewis on their album of the same name. Petrol Blues is a throwaway bit of piano and vocal blues that sounds like one of those early Dylan songs. I’m sure that is what Jagger is trying to sound like, in a very tongue-in-cheek way.
I have to say that listening to this side by side with Some Girls, this is by far the better collection of songs. It has far less of that 1978 cod-disco synthesiser-style backing and far more of a rootsy Stones sound. I guess the former was thought to be more popular in 1978, hence the make-up of the eventual album. Give me these other songs any day, though, and their warmer, fuller, bassier sound.
