Text "Dirty review" (Manfred Nitschmann)
Almost two and a half years (!) since their last studio workout UNDERCOVER having passed (and the desperate but dedicated fan meanwhile asking himself what the hell this bunch of crazy millionaires called "The Rolling Stones" is doing all the time), the World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band unleashed their new product DIRTY WORK to the unsuspecting public.
So what have we got (besides the knowledge of having ten dollars less in our pockets) after buying this record?
First catching the fan's tired eyes is the album's package (courtesy by CBS Records), which is just great and shows us that finally here we have a record company really trying to sell their goddamned product!
The album comes wrapped in a bitchy, dark red plastic foil, thus hiding the true colours of the front and back cover. A sticker, neatly attached to the plastic foil, indicates the "hits" which are supposed to be included on the record. The sticker also shows us this brutal female gym instructor with a whip in her hands (nice idea! God bless the Austrian aristocrat Leopold knight of Sacher-Masoch and the well-known sexual pleasures - or should I say deviations? - which are named after him!). This nice little gym instructor better should have whipped the Stones so we would have gotten this album much earlier!
But let's go back to specifics! The real fan of course will avoid destroying the beautifully composed album's package by tearing this red plastic foil! Instead, to get a glimpse of the album's true colours, the real fan will buy another (!) album, tear the plastic foil and finally see the Stones, settled around a couch, all dressed up in flashy but absolutely tasteless coloured suits! Especially barefooted Jagger's Mick, sporting yellow trousers, orange shirt and pink jacket attracts attention. Oh my god, Jerry! Did you see him?
Anyway, the colourful record labels, complete with nice photos of the Stones (Woody doing headstands - maybe to get another point of view?) and the famous "Lapping tongue" finally back again, are simply great!
So "Round one" clearly belongs to CBS Records for giving us what we need or shoulda say deserve - a new album and a great package!
But of course it's inside the album what really counts! To make a long story short - the album's first single "Harlem shuffle" (a cover version!!) backed with "Had it with you" (weakest track on the whole album - a joke?) is lacking inspiration, to say the least. Have the Stones forgotten about their continous tradition of great singles?
"Winning ugly" and "Back to zero" (programmatically titled?) by the way, ain't doing much better.
But the rest really is the best! All remaining tracks of the album, with the exception of the ballad "Sleep tonight" (nice vocals, Keith! Yes, sweet dreams are made of this!) and the nicely done reggae song "Too rude" (again - thank you Keith for giving us your voice!), are hard, fast paced rockers, demonstrating great guitar work plus fantastic drums! No small thing. Charlie fanatics - hi Mick! - have been told that, for the sessions which produced this album, they have tuned Charlie's drums for the very first time (!). It didn't change a thing about Charlie being great as ever!
Interestingly enough, the album's complete running time is about 38 minutes (all intervals included).
Considering the fact that CBS Records is paying this bunch of lazy millionaires millions of dollars for each album (or should I say for having a good time?), this means a very nice per hour income...
Mmmh... will the next album play for 30 minutes only? I don't really understand why the Stones obviously think their fans don't want to hear more of their music! I might have an answer to this question, guess which? No, I dare not tell you because all you other dedicated fans out there (by the way: hi everybody!) would probably kill me!
So what do we finally hold in our hands? Well, DIRTY WORK is just another good Stones album, comparable to such albums as UNDERCOVER or EMOTIONAL RESCUE - maybe even better than these. But it's certainly not a classical Stones album. And also it's certainly not the definitive Stones album Keith always dreams of making (and we all all hoping for!). I am still waiting for that album. But please hurry, Stones! Time waits for no one.
Publication
| 1986 unreleased |  Charlie is good tonight nr. 5
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