It's catchy, but it makes me miss Charlie. The man with the simple kit who seemed to fade into the background but ultimately was the underpinning, the driving force of the Stones. The driving beat here is the antithesis of what Charlie would play. It's mechanical, soulless, like too much of today's made for the Spotify Top 50 music.
And there's a sheen, the surface is smooth, akin to metal, whereas the feel of the best Stones material has a porous quality, and it's these holes that capture you, that make the song interesting, it's the difference between wood and steel, between mystery and obvious, between dark and light, between the ability to add your own thoughts and feelings and them being excluded.
But "Angry" is much better than what we anticipated. I played it once and it stuck in my head, ergo the "catchy" comment above. But I cannot write about the track without speaking of the execrable press conference hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Fallon is the antithesis of credible, sunny when the Stones specialize in dark. To see these eighty year olds riff with Fallon was like seeing your grandpa trying to be cool with a guy who has no idea what cool is. Who thinks smiling and cracking jokes makes you so. Jimmy is the class clown. The Stones were the silent art kids in the back of the room, if they attended school at all.
But at least there's new music.
Yet by employing Fallon it demonstrates how out of touch the marketing mastermind Mick Jagger now is. If he wanted to be au courant, he would have been interviewed by an influencer, posted to TikTok, and then cross-posted to Instagram and YouTube. You know Mick is dying to look young and hip and with it, but employing Fallon shows a lack of understanding of the marketplace. I doubt Mick watches Fallon, nor does he know that almost no one does watch these late night shows. And when it comes to music you use the other Jimmy, Kimmel, not Fallon.
And at this late date, the simplistic lyrics of "Angry" make me wince. The audience, the Stones fanatics, got older, yet the Stones are stuck in time. I mean you've lived for eight decades on the planet, and the only wisdom you can impart is "Don't get angry with me"?
But that's the chorus, the hook. The verses made me wince. Barely superior to what a seventh grader would come up with. Sure, the blues format is historically simple, yet when you've got a rich man sticking with tradition it's akin to slumming. The modern day bluesmen, the rappers, they do just the opposite, they boast about what they have, at length and oftentimes eloquently. Which makes the Stones appear out of time. Then again, that album track from 1967's "Flowers" was better than "Angry."
We're all old now, we've all grown up, we're experienced, we've matured, but too many of our acts have not. Give Peter Frampton credit, he lost his hair and owns it. And his great triumphs of recent years are instrumental albums, demonstrating his guitar prowess. Frampton is exploring, growing, stretching, whereas the Stones seem incapable of this.
Yes, we've seen the classic rock acts over and over over the past decades. First to remember, and then not to forget. Yes, we've got to see them one last time before they die. But they've too often become calcified. They get plastic surgery, wear hairpieces, do their best to look like they did in the seventies when we, the audience, are in our seventies. It's like watching a movie as opposed to something that lives and breathes.
The Stones had an opportunity. And they punted. They used Andrew Watt, hitmaker du jour, and "Angry" sounds like it, something was lost in translation, from yesterday to today.
Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. Don't say I can't criticize Mick and Keith. If we don't point out their flaws, then they can't get angry and deliver something that will be remembered, as opposed to that which is momentary. "Exile On Main Street" was released in 1972 and almost promptly forgotten. Then Linda Ronstadt resuscitated "Tumbling Dice" and the double album was in the marketplace long enough for people to penetrate it. Sure, there are tracks like "Satisfaction," that you only need to hear once to get, then there are others that need to marinate to reveal their excellence. Meanwhile, "Satisfaction" was a detailed statement, whereas "Angry" is almost an abdication.
So rock is still dead. We're waiting for someone to bring it back. But in order to do this you've got to forget about commerciality. "Angry" isn't going to be on Top Forty radio, it's not going to be a hit, it's going to be forgotten almost instantly. But the Stones can still sell tickets. Now is the time to stretch out, take chances, when no one is paying attention.
As for producers...
The Stones would have been better off with Rick Rubin, who is not a knob-twirler, but someone who haunts you psychologically until you deliver your best work. Rubin is an arbiter. He tries to get you into the head of when you were best. He wants you to resent him. But Rubin is the audience, he can separate the wheat from the chaff. That's what a producer does, inspire. There are a zillion people who can spin the dials, but there are a limited few who can inspire.
Music is personal. We want that which inspires, which we want to embrace, hold near and dear, to carry us though this life fraught with challenges. The Stones made a record for those who don't exist...young people who want oldsters making rock music with today's sheen. There's almost no market for that. But there is a market made up of those who don't care about the hit parade, who lived and died for music and are just looking for new stuff to satiate, to debate.
"Angry" isn't it.
Stones with Fallon: tinyurl.com/2xv9jzbr
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