hackneyreviews

[hackneyreviews]

- The 2nd half of the song is the good stuff. Rock and Roll. I can wax poetic about that if you want.*

- The lyrics are a reminder of why some of the best Stones songs bury the vocal so it blends into the rhythm section. The delivery is peak Mick, but to what end?

- I miss the now dead drummer Charlie Watts. I'll never forgive the band for not retiring the name of the Rolling Stones when he died. ** Can I really tell the difference or is it just the narrative? Does anything in pop music exist without the narrative?

- I do admire them for not writing an obvious song. Do they have an agent? I imagine the agent saying "Write a big one! You've been the devil, you've got the giant lips. Yer the OG rockers. Lean into it!"

- A lot of their hits have this quality of being off and sideways. The devil one is a Samaba. (I can wax poetic about this too)***

- Still for all that... the first two mins of the song are petulant and small. It's musical virtues are buried. It's lyrical content amounting to: My partner is mad at me and I don't know why and I don't really care to find out why? Just no there there for me.

- C -

- Having Sydney Sweeney star as the male gaze object in the music video was a very savy move. A different actress and I think it this plays much worse. Total understanding of zeitgeist

- B+

* At min 2, the guitar takes center stage, and it is the sound that reconfigured my brain. The sound of rock and roll. The mystical amalgamation of kinetic energy and languid phrasing. Of deep passion and hunger. Of indifference that promises inner peace.

The sounds mesh with the rhythm section, elevate it, are of it, and pull it's themes into a blurry focus. Before the drums and bass were a little funky, now you can hear they have been in the pocket all along.

It contains contradictions without a care or second glance. Let other art forms be coherent.

The guitars are not soaring. They are gritty and sporadic, coming in and out. Not promising anything or leading anywhere. Simply being.

But with an attentive passion that fact is mesmerizing. These notes could be your life.

The music is as if it was always meant to be there. As if rock and roll was not created but found... found to be the heartbeat of the universe.

In other words, it's the Rolling Stones doing what they do, what they make seem easy, and what few others have achieved.

**What is that sound? From the telegraph: "In other words, it’s an unconventional set-up. This means that the bass player in the Stones must act as a kind of flexible glue, bonding these elements together.

In a band, the drummer and the bass player meld to provide a solid rhythm section, a foundation on which the rest of the band can lay their sound. Jones and Watts did this in the Stones but there was a catch: the jazz-loving Watts always used to play just behind the beat. And Richards has always played his guitar in a languid blues-influenced style that flits between rhythm and lead guitar and has always been characterised by loose phrasing."

For the first two mins most of these musical charms are hidden. If you listen carefully they are there, but not easy to detect.

The funky baseline, the slightly odd drumbeat, even Mick Jaggers *almost but not quite* a parody delivery are all buried by the insipid lyrics that are put front and center in a pop song that says too much and yet not enough.

Is this song just a long whine ?

A repeating riff. If I work at it I can find the interesting dynamic core, but why would I work at it?

To a casual listen it sounds innocuous and inoffensive. Like something cooked up in 10 minutes at a rock and roll guitar camp and then copy and pasted a few times using Garageband.

If it wasn't the Rolling Stones it wouldn't get a second listen.

*** Wild Horses is great, but listen to those words... it's not a love song I would want to play at my wedding.

The philosophy of You Can't Always Get What You Want is deep but full of strange asides and unsatisfying conclusions.

Gimmie Shelter is about how love and war are just a kiss away - which feels right but... What does that even mean. Etc...

#music