Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [71]
The Village Voice, October 31, 1974
State of the Art:
Bland on Bland
There are two things to be said about this new Stones album before closing time: one is that they are still perfectly in tune with the times (a.k.a., sometimes, trendies) and the other is that the heat's off, because it's all over, they really don’t matter anymore or stand up for anything, which is certainly lucky for both them and us: I mean, it was a heavy weight to carry for all concerned. This is the first meaningless Stones album, and thank god. No rationalizations— they can now go out there and compete with Aerosmith, or more precisely, since just like the last two before it this album's strongest moments are Jagger singing ballads, the “adult pop” market. Barry Manilow, even.
I don’t even hate Black & Blue like the new Led Zep, which admittedly is unworthy of hatred from anybody except a true patriot who expected more than what you knew you were going to get—what you get here is sweet flow Muzak dentist office conversation piece bright eyes shining in the face of nothing at all which they will not even confront and more power to ‘em. Yeah, I watched him die. Shit, don’t even feel like a voyeur, ‘twas all done in the name of art or the roto swagger or something, sokay Mick, I still like you like an old dull friend who you keep around for purely compassionate (empathetic?) reasons and because you remember when. Like whoever it was that started the Velvets. You’re stuck in a retread, stomp on it, no, not good enough, I hear you growling but you can’t barge in, especially since you insist on invoking Jamaica/reggae which you mighta been there but on the recorded evidence you know nothing about or at least can’t translate as you used to godamighty do so well.
So you’re a washout. That's why I like you now. I identify with the wretched of the earth, like any self-respecting liberal, beyond that all my vicarious fantasies are numb null-nodes, and damn if you haven’t qualified for some time now so welcome to the museum, jump and shout work it on out goo goo wah wah pedaling backwards. All the uptempo “numbers” on this album with the exception of the of course by now obligatory “reggae” numbah and the disco chant which is not so droll nor offensive as plain palatable like okay you wanna reduce yourself to the level of the most banal music around because you’ve always tried to keep up, fine, but all the other rockers sound like waterlogged “Brown Sugar” and even that's okay because what the hell you know I mean they’re good guys even if they did fuck up Ron Wood apparently because even last tour last summer he played such monstro chunka wailout guitar with the Faces (in such contrast to how blithely he blended into the general lifeless woodwork of the Stones tour), whom he apparently hated (nobody with sensibilities intact could like Rod at this point anyway) and maybe that was why he was so good therein at least at the end, but now he's slapping palms foreheads synapses collapsed with his idol Keith (which makes him Nick Kent) and the result is that, going strictly by this album, Ron Wood is no longer a raucket guitar hero. He's succeeded in becoming as dead and anonymous as Keith. Take a gander at the cover and realize they’re even coaching him in the art of looking grim, I mean you cannot be a true-blues badass Rolling Stone and SMILE, which is further loggings of toobad toolate blues, because Ron Wood has proven himself one of the great smilers of all time. It's like he's in Keith school, and at this point the smartest move missah Richards could possibly make would be to start a mail