The Rolling Stones' "Goats Head Soup" Appreciation Thread
 

No detractors allowed. Appreciators only.

This album gets dismissed routinely by fans and non-fans alike, but I personally love it. There is a little bit of filler but it also has some of the prettiest music on any Stones album. I love "Winter," "Coming Down Again," "100 Years Ago," and even "Heartbreaker" and "Angie."

good album.

dancing with Mr. D kicks ASS.

heartbreaker kicks ass too.

Reportedly Jagger says he spent more time getting the sound right on this album than any other. I don't know if he succeeded but it sure does sound sweet to me. The ballads are very lush.

i have a poster of mick jagger on the wall in my bedroom

hold on..

Where's that photo of Anita and Mick from? Or is that Marianne?

it's anita

it's from performance

i found it on google

Cool poster.

As many photos as I've seen of the Stones, it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many yet that I haven't seen.

Dancing with Mr. D is a colossal opener. so rockin', so funky...

Comin' Down Again is a bit literal, but it really has the mood...for real, for real...a gritty Keith reckoning

Heartbreaker is, again, super rockin' and super funky...
in a case of mistaken identity they put a bullet through his heart...
the "no chance/no chance" is genius...this is some of Mick's best songwriting...timelessly relevant

Angie...this is one of my favorite songs, I think, ever...and it used not to be.
I love the progression...love it, love it, love it, and it's truly heartbreakingly beautiful...wow, what songwriting, what music, what a song! Mick Taylor does some mind-blowing licks on this song live...I mean break your heart blues stuff...you can feel it way deep down in your soul

Silver Train and Star Star are pretty good...

One thing I always notice is how good the piano sounds, especially in the ballads.

And one thing that struck me this time about Mr. D--the bass sounds rather disco. And yet this was released in 73, probably mostly recorded in 72!

nothing beats the piano on sister morphine though

True.

marianne was pissed when they released that.

I've never known what to make of that. She says she practically wrote it all, Jagger says otherwise.

mick jagger is known for being a flaming douchebag though.

not that i don't like him. but he is a twat.

Yeah, he and Keith had a terrible habit of not giving other people their due credit. Mick Taylor deserves a lot more recognition than they ever gave him, in my opinion.

ry cooder got pissed off at them too, didn't he?

oh yeah Taylor parted ways over it...

As I've written before, Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed are better than Exile on Main St. and so is Goats Head Soup. Sticky Fingers is better too and maybe also the live Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out.

Anyway, in a way Goats Head Soup and Sticky Fingers are probably the two that demonstrate most that The Rolling Stones are indeed better than Led Zeppelin.

Def. a really good Stones album and a great album cover too.


But I love all that shit, fuuuuuck.


Angie = classic

mick taylor was never a stone, really. he was kind of a shoe-in for brian.

There was friction, yeah. Cooder was a huge influence on the Stones. Richards picked up open G tuning from him, and in fact there was so much tension during the Let It Bleed recording sessions that Richards often wouldn't show up if Cooder was going to be there. Again, jealous Stones not giving credit where it's due.

live they pretty much became the Mick Taylor show with The Stones featuring Nicky Hopkins as the backing band

I never saw it that way. The Stones would have sounded completely different without him (look what happened after Its Only Rock and Roll, after all). No, he may have been the "quiet Stone" but with his virtuoso guitar playing, he helped make that period between 69 and 73 so golden.

ronnie just fits in so well with them though.

Exactly. The problem was that Taylor was so much better, technically, than Richards, and Richards was jealous of this. But yeah, I can't imagine those albums without Taylor on them. If he didn't contribute directly to the songwriting, he definitely helped shape how the songs sound.

Too well, imo. He's like a copy of Richards, both in personality and playing style. What makes the Taylor-Richards era so great is that they had different strengths that perfectly complemented one another.

oh no no. keith and ronnie compliment each other, the weaving thing they do. and they're best mates. but they are completely different people, believe me, i have so many DVDs...

second time I've seen "shoe-in" used recently

(a) it's spelled "shoo-in"

(b) grammar cop here, don't be (too) upset

(c) we all make mistakes

They can lock into a groove well and all that, but Ronnie is not nearly the lead player that Taylor was. Taylor added something truly unique that wasn't there before.

oh well. you know what i meant.
he just didn't belong though. not only do you have to be able to play with them, you gotta be able to live with them.

Keith made sure with Ronnie that he would no longer be upstaged.

But don't get me wrong. I love Keith's style from the best days...there's so much to appreciate.
And Taylor was sometimes too much...sometimes he's not feeling it live or he's feeling it intermittently.

Taylor could play and spontaneously compose stuff Keith will never be able to play, but Richards is an undisputed master of simple rock creativity.

The Richards/Taylor guitar duo is integral to all their best albums though.

I kinda think the only one with Wood that's really good is Black and Blue, the first one he played on.

To Cantankerous: I do.

But I don't buy the lifestyle argument. The Stones gave him the big freeze because they were envious. But I think he was one of the best things to ever happen to them.

I think he does all right with Some Girls, too. But you can already tell on SG that the sound is more limited.

But yeah, I agree--with Wood, Richards no longer had to deal with a guitar player who was better than he was.

keith plays the solo on "cant you hear me knocking"

enough said.

As a fer instance... there's a beautiful moment near the end of Rocks Off on Exile where Taylor begins a solo that sounds like it will really soar... and the fade out starts. That has always pissed me off.

Hendrix was similarly robbed on some studio cuts.

Yeah, you're right Some Girls is good cause it's also great in parts.

No he doesn't! Not that Santana-like, fluid, flying solo after the break. That is pure Mick Taylor.

Keith does the riff, and a great one it is, but the solo stuff that makes up the long jam is all Taylor's show.

you can say it's mick taylor but i KNOW it's not.

he also plays the solo on sympathy.

fuck whoever told me it wasn't taylor because evidently it is on the record but keith plays it live these days

and fuck wikipedia

The solo on Sympathy, sure, that's Keith, and that's an incredibly simple solo. It's great, but it's simple. Keith simply could not do the complicated, virtuoso solo work that Taylor did for the ending of Can't You Hear Me Knocking. They had completely different sounding styles.

Perhaps Keith can play it today, but he couldn't back then.

It's a weird one in that it's one of theirs I rarely listen to, but whenever I do, I'm always blown away by it.