Pre-production:
January
11-19, 1985: Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris, France
January
23-February 28, 1985: Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris,
France
Recorded:
April 5-June 17, 1985: Pathé Marconi Studios,
Paris, France
July
16-August 17, 1985: RPM Studios, New York City
Overdubbed
& mixed:
September
10-October 15, 1985: RPM Studios, New York City
November 19-December 5, 1985: Right Track
Studios, New York City
Producers:
Steve
Lillywhite & The Glimmer Twins
Chief
engineer:
Dave Jerden
Released:
March
1986
Original
label: Rolling Stones
Records (on CBS)
Contributing musicians: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Ron Wood, Chuck Leavell, Bobby Womack, Ian Stewart, Don Covay, Ivan Neville, Anton Fig, Steve Jordan, Jimmy Page, Alan Rogan, Charley Drayton, Philippe Saisse, Dan Collette, John Regan, Marku Ribas, Tom Waits, Jimmy Cliff, Patti Scialfa, Janice Pendarvis, Dollette McDonald, Beverly D'Angelo.
One Hit (to the Body)
Fight
Harlem Shuffle
Hold Back
Too Rude
Winning Ugly
Back to Zero
Dirty Work
Had It with You
Sleep Tonight
Dirty Work was the most troubled period of our entire voyage. You can tell that because I've got four songs on the record - which is a clear sign that Keith and Mick's songwriting engine was not functioning properly. Things were getting increasingly worse between them, especially around the recording sessions for the album... On Undercover I had been more or less in the hands of Mick, who would come in with his skeleton of a song, which we would then work with. On Dirty Work it was very different - Keith and I were very tight. Although this period was a bad one for the band, it turned out to be great for Keith and myself. It was a time when I got married to Jo, and Keith was one of my two best men - Charlie was the other one. I was renting a house in Chiswick, where I had a piano and guitars, and Keith and I spent a lot of time hanging out there, working on songs for Dirty Work, designing and planning and zeroing in on the riffs for the album.
As a matter of fact, I think Mick's album
was released on or near the same day we started. So in the early
stages,
we didn't see a lot of him. Ronnie and I had been working for a
solid year
on riffs, parts and things, you know, we just keep right on
going. Ronnie
and I can hardly talk to each other; we just tell each other
jokes and
keep right on playing.
I've written a lot of stuff. I've always got
tunes. Keith's got a lot of tunes.
Mick had virtually used up his entire output
of stuff for his solo album. Then, because of the time of its
release conciding
with the start of the Stones' recording sessions, and THAT
coinciding with...Ronnie
and I working together and having a whole load of stuff as a
result, I
just went ahead and got the band worked up on the stuff I'd
written.
I would think that at least half the album
will be Jagger/Richards/Wood. There's no doubt about it,
manily
because Mick was very busy on his own - which is his lookout.
(On the) Dirty Work album, Mick and
Keith were at a low writing ebb, and they gladly accepted my
songs.
It started off kind of slow but that's
because
we hadn't played together for a while, and we live in different
countries.
So, it's like, Hello, mate! What's you been doing? How's the
wife? How's
the kids? Oh, the kid passed some test at school, you
know, you get
all that jive. And then you just sit around and jam for 3 weeks
or something,
play a lot of early blues and '50s stuff, Eddie Cochran, Muddy
Waters blues.
You just play anything that comes into anybody's head. And you
just JAM
and get your chops back in. And then you start laying down rough
ideas
for songs. And then you just go through those and then you
slowly pick
out and play odd demos more and more and more...
The great thing about Ronnie and me is that
we really don't stop working. We're pretty much around the
corner from
each other all the time, and he LOVES playing. So we've made a
point in
the last year or two - this is what I mean, we did our last tour
THREE
YEARS ago - of going around to each other's place 2 or 3 nights
a week
and play. That way, we've kept the playing and the ideas
flowing, so that
there's much more CONTINUITY in the things we're doing. At least
that's
what I feel: we didn't just arrive cold turkey to start this
record. The
only difference was changing from acoustic to electric. It took
me a couple
of weeks to get used to the POWER of an electric guitar,
especially full
blast in the studio.
(It')s very nice to be back with the
familiar
faces, back to all the jokes you have and the grooves and tunes
you can
say Let's do that one! There's hundreds of tunes that
the band can
play. So that's nice... There's a certain kind of tension at the
beginning
of any recording session, even if it's the Stones. How's it
going to
work out? Until you get something under your belt you're a
little nervous.
But the demos were pretty good. I like having good demos. It
makes the
band say, Fuck that - we can do better than that garbage!
Even though
the players on the demos might have been really good. You don't
always
tell the band who they are. That sounds really good, Mick!
Who's that?Oh...
just some guys - when it's really some star drummer who
dropped by.
Mick didn't seem to be enthused at the
beginning.
He just wasn't himself. We'd be saying, What's on Mick's
mind? He'd
be sitting there reading a paper or something and we wanted to
rip it out
of his hands and say, Get up here! That's all he
needed, was a little
kick and a little bit of support from the band. At first there
were a few
cold silences when we got together, but he got into the flow of
it and
he pulled his weight real well.
We messed around for weeks because Mick was
still buggering around with his solo album instead of working
with us.
He would fly back to London in the middle of it which, I might
add, is
a thing that nobody else has ever done, because when it's Stones
work,
everybody drops solo projects. It kind of caused a bit of
resentment in
the band.
The Rolling Stones will probably use a
producer
again at some point, but to produce a band like the Stones isn't
easy.
There's not that many guys who can really do a good job. A lot
of guys
who call themselves producers are really engineers. A producer,
to me,
is someone who has the authority to change an arrangement, a
tempo. A lot
of these guys are really just engineers who want to be called
producers
on the label. They don't have the authority to turn around and
say, Hey,
Mick, that's a bunch of shit, like Nile (Rodgers) or Bill
(Laswell)
would.
I think it was quite hard (to make the
album) because we spent longer getting into it this time, didn't
we? Sort of playing again - we hadn't played for 4 years. It
usually takes like 10 days, 2 weeks to sort of get back into it
and it took about a month really this time. That was the only
thing, it just took longer to get warmed up.
We were always on call. Ian Stewart would
call up and say Well, it's time. Keith has just gotten up.
So we
knew we had two hours. We'd get up and go eat. But usually by
the time
we got the studio it was pretty late. Midnight would be a normal
call.
Sometimes it was later. Then we would work until whenever.
Sometimes it
was a couple of days before we left.
Mick and I suddenly realized that it had
been
a long time since we'd had a real outside influence in the
studio helping
produce records - ever since Jimmy Miller left in 1973, really.
Mick and
I talked about it. We had Dave Jerden - Bill Laswell (who
co-produced 6 songs on Mick's solo album She's The Boss)'s
guy - engineering. He and Steve Lillywhite turned out to be an
incredible
team. The first day Steve walked into the studio, I said, Maybe
you
don't want to be the meat in this sandwich. But he
handled every aspect
superbly. It was very interesting to watch him build up respect
from the
band. It didn't take him very long to establish his credentials.
He didn't
jump up and down. We might do a great take and he'd say, Okay,
that's
it. None of this raving about, which would have been
embarrassing for
everybody. He was very cool. It didn't take long before
everybody was going
Yup (mimics nodding and winking). Surprisingly enough, we
were LISTENING
to this young kid!
Steve
Lillywhite, who had been working with Peter Gabriel, U2 and
Simple Minds,
came in on that album as the co-producer. That was essentially
the result
of some of Mick's investigations: he is always on the lookout
for a new
producer and a new angle to develop the band's sound for
whichever decade
we happen to be in. Using Steve was a Mick move and, as it
happened, it
turned out to be a good one... I think that Keith eventually
took his hat
off to Mick for bringing Steve into the frame, because he's
still a good
friend - although it's funny that we never actually worked with
him again.
This is the first time since Goats Head
Soup, since Jimmy Miller left us, that Mick and I have
worked with
another producer. We'd always thought we'd do two or three
albums by ourselves
and then get somebody else in, because you CAN'T be on two sides
of the
glass continually; and suddenly we realized it'd been TEN YEARS
(laughs)
we'd beeen sitting there saying we really should bring somebody
else in...
Having an outside opinion helps too, because it can get really
incestuous
at times, trying to produce yourself after five or six albums.
Again, you
can't really go LOOKING for somebody and find them; they just
turn up.
Steve virtually just turned up in Paris for a couple of days
when we'd
already been cutting for a couple of months. Then he called when
he got
back to London and said, Yeah, I think I'd like to do it.
They'd done about 3 months in Paris when
they
got me in. I started in May. When I got there 75% of the songs
had been
written. A few more came out after I got there. I think I
brought them
together and played on the strength of the what the band has.
After a few
weeks working with people you find out who does their best work
when. I
found that all of them were pretty good early on: first, second
or third
take. It was really a case of keeping the early ones and
remembering where
all the good bits were. It got a bit crazy, so you had to log
things in
your mind. The sessions were always based on work and jamming.
It wasn't
as if everyone stopped if one of them wasn't there. They'd
always be playing.
If Mick wasn't there, Keith might sing. If Charlie wasn't there,
Ronnie
might do some drums.
Charlie's not a guy who really likes to tune
his drums; he's a rhythm man. But Dave (Jerden) would tune his
set every
day, depending on what song we were doing - which was great.
In the end I tried to keep it as basic as
I could, 'cause that was what fit the music. Why change
something if you
know when it's right it's good? Normally Charlie would be the
happiest
when he worked out his own groove. Sometimes I actually got him
to play
MORE cymbals, accent a few things more. He'd play them and look
in the
control room at me.
Steve would encourage us, arrangement-wise,
to put in a break. Whereas by ourselves we might try it once,
say, It's
too much goddamn trouble, and just steamroll through it.
He'd encourage
us to get it right. It's dynamics. When you don't use a producer
those
are the things you allow to escape. It's just too much trouble
to play
it and be in the control room listening to it. When you're
leaping about
doing two jobs at once, dynamics and arrangements are the first
things
that suffer...
Speaking for myself, this is one of the best
teams I've ever worked with, Dave Jerden and Steve. THEY haven't
worked
together before either, so that magical mixture, the chemistry
behind the
board, has been one of those things that comes along for the
Stones once
in a while, like with Miller for Beggars Banquet.
When we were mixing in New York, Steve
Lillywhite
changed the speed in one song, sped it up a little bit, and it
was hardly
anything. Keith walked in and he just went ballistic. He goes Nobody,
fucking
nobody, fucks with the Rolling Stones! That tempo was cut at
that
speed and it stays at that speed!
Keith had a baby in the middle of the
sessions,
and Charlie cut his hand opening a miniature bottle. We didn't
think we
could drum for some weeks. All the frustrated drummers in the
band thought,
Now's
my chance! and rushed to the drum kit. Mick would keep a
rhythm going,
and Simon Kirke (of
Bad Company)
played a bit. But nothing he did was used on the album. No,
Simon has been
coming along to Stones sessions as a mate for years. If you
recall, Charlie
came home from Paris because he damaged his hand, and had to
rest. When
he got to the airport, the press jumped on this absurd story
that he'd
walked out on the sessions and wasn't going back. It had
absolutely nothing
to do with that.
A few times Keith and I felt like killing
people, but we picked up our guitars and wrote songs instead.
That's how
we came up with Fight, I've Had It with You and One
Hit
(to the Body). We've all been spared long jail sentences
by being able
to play our music.
I also still play a lot of bass (with the
Stones) - four numbers on Dirty Work.
As far as who played what, it was largely
a matter of first come, first serve. Bill came in, did some
lovely bass
work. I think Ronnie's on three of four tracks. He's sort of
taking over
Brian Jones' old job, which was just to flit around from
instrument to
isntrument and pick out the necessary thing.
(A)part from Winning Ugly, (Keith)
used his blonde '59 Tele almost all the way through.
The record took a year to make, and it was
hard. It wasn't an easy record to make. Mick and Keith were at
loggerheads
at times.
(Mick and I) hardly got the chance to
fucking
fall out, he was there so infrequently! It was just Charlie,
Ronnie and
me trying to make a Stones record. It was very unprofessional of
Mick.
Very stupid.
I thought they were going to break up. They
were having a lot of problems, a couple of the guys were
stretched out,
probably Charlie more than anybody at that time. They were
working separately...
The peacemaker that kept that group together, as far as I'm
concerned,
was Ronnie. He just had that extra spirit and life that it takes
to be
in a band. Plus he was younger, he had the energy, and he was
willing to
take the beating and be the fall guy for whatever that went
down.
I must say that while Mick wasn't there at
the VERY beginning, he's done a great job on the lyrics, and a
lot of the
musical ideas that we had already built up, he changed 'em all
around and
did a lovely job on them.
I think (Bobby Womack) gave Mick some advice
on the vocals for a number of the other songs on Dirty Work
- Back
to Zero, Winning Ugly and One Hit, as well
as Harlem
Shuffle. Mick would ask me, Do you think Bobby would
help me?
and I'd say, He'd LOVE to.
I don't think there was really a lot of
extra
tension on this album. Maybe there were a couple of more
incidents, mainly
to do with the timing of Mick's solo album and so on, and Mick
wasn't there
very much at the beginning so there were a couple of
misunderstandings.
But nothing more than usual. It just seems everybody knows about
our problems
this time (laughs).
I... it's strange, 'cause I usually like to
talk about an album I've just made, but with this, I just feel
as though
I don't want to say so much. It is Keith's album to a great
extent. I mean,
he wrote those songs because of Mick's solo commitments. I would
definitely
say it was a Keith Richards-inspired record. Mick did a little
bit as well,
but all you need to put about this is that it was a Keith
Richards-inspired
record.
Let's put it like this. It's a Stones album.
If I've had a little more to do with it and a little more
control over
this one, it's the same to me as the middle-70s when Mick would
cover my
ass when I was out of it. Because of the timing of Mick's solo
album, he
wasn't there as much as the rest of us in the beginning when the
mood was
getting set. In that sense, yes, I took over the job. The same
way he would
do if it happened to me. We cover each other's ass. We've done
it very
well for each other over the years.
(W)ith Dirty Work, I built that to
go on the road. It was like Some Girls. Deliberately
structured
so that every song could be played live, simply, easily. Then we
finished
the record and Mick suddenly said (Jagger impression) I
ain't gahn on
nah fakkin' rawd. So that was the plug pulled from under
me.
(Ian Stewart would) encourage me to carry
on with Dirty Work, to get the record finished. He
wasn't too happy
with it, either. Making a Stones record had always been a
breeze, a laugh.
It had never been a hassle. But he was still there every night,
never giving
up.
I wanted to put out a real STONES album, which we always manage to do in odd periods. This was a real concentrated effort. We left a lot of good stuff, interesting stuff, in the can because everyone wanted to - if we could, if it could be done again - make a classic Stones record with certain themes that have recurred over the years, both musically and lyrically... The fact that everyone has been active has given this record much more of an edge, more of a defined FEEL as the Rolling Stones, because we didn't have to go in there and start from ground zero. It has a sort of coherence about it, more than anything since maybe Some Girls, for me.
In most respects I'm happy with the album
but it's not my album. It's OUR album. So there's obviously
things I see
differently. So does everybody. Of course I haven't been
involved in the
final decisions. It's always been like that with this band. In
the old
days, we were all there and got too many opinions. I mean, I
would've liked
more bass on this album. I would've mixed it differently. But
it's not
my album and Mick and Keith are the co-producers. That's the way
they want
it, that's the way the get it. But I genuinely like it, I'm just
picking
hairs. All my work was done in Paris in 5 or 6 months. I did
come to New
York in August to do some tidying up - editing 10-minute songs
into 4-minute
songs to the point where my original bass line was gone, so I
had to redo
it. From then on, Mick might come up with better lyrics and a
song I knew
in Paris as Dirty Dog might be released as Back in
the USA
or something. My job is as bass player. That's what I do. Also
some synths
maybe. But I don't mix, master, or choose the LP covers. If
someone PUSHED
themselves in situations like that, this band wouldn't be around
any longer.
It would have folded up 15 years ago. You can't have too many
egos in the
same band. You gotta just swallow your pride. We know who's who
in this
band, and it works well that way. We're all trying to make the
best record.
Besides, the songs really choose themselves. Out of 30 songs we
record,
the best 7 will just rise to the top. Then there's the narrow
gray area,
so we'll start saying, Oh, let's save this slow one when we
need a slow
one, 'cause we have too many here.
This is the first album in a new contract.
We'd be IDIOTS (not to tour). It'd be the dumbest move in the
world not
to get behind it. We've got a good album here! Spent a year
making it and
putting our backs to the wall. Why toss it away?
I think Dirty Work is a great record
but, I mean, there are other things to do in life (besides go on
tour).
Does it sound good, then?
Dirty Work I built pretty much on the
same idea as Some Girls, in that it was made with the
absolute idea
that it would go on the road. So when we finished the record and
then...
the POWERS THAT BE - let's put it like that (laughs) - decided
suddenly
they AIN'T gonna go on the road behind it, the team was left in
the lurch.
Because if you didn't follow it up with some roadwork, you'd
only done
50 percent of the job. (The album didn't do all that well
because) there
was no promotion behind it. As it came out, everyone sort of
said, Well,
they've broken up or They're not gonna work. So
you got a lot
of negativity behind it.
I was really looking forward to doing (the
album). I mean the fact was that it was really a bit long in the
making. And it wasn't always that great fun but I think the
actual album is really good.
The album wasn't that good. It was OKAY. It
certainly wasn't a great Rolling Stones album. The feeling
inside the band
was very bad, too. The relationships were terrible. The health
was diabolical.
I wasn't in particularly good shape. The rest of the band, they
couldn't
walk across the Champs Elysées, much less go on the road.
(It's n)ot special.
(The '80s was a d)ifficult period... There's a couple of good things on Dirty Work.
Touring Dirty Work would have been a nightmare. It was a
terrible period. Everyone was hating each other so much: there
were so
many disagreements. It was very petty; everyone was so out of
their brains,
and Charlie was in seriously bad shape. When the idea of touring
came up,
I said, I don't think it's gonna work. In retrospect I was
100%
right. It would have been the worst Rolling Stones tour. Probably
would
have been the end of the band... (Charlie was doing drugs and
drinking.)
Keith the same. Me the same. Ronnie - I don't know what Ronnie was
doing.
We just got fed up with each other. You've got a relationship with
musicians
that depends on what you produce together. But when you don't
produce,
you get bad reactions - bands break up. You get difficult periods,
and
that was one of them.
The group's twin-guitar firepower hasn't sounded half as grungy or as lethal since Exile On Main Street. With the exception of a ballad, a reggae-style number and two funk tunes with big, booming bass parts courtesy of guitarist Wood, this is shaping up as an album of driving, uptempo rockers. It's all in a more contemporary vein than Stones purists are used to - there isn't one remotely Chuck berry riff to be heard anywhere, and the closest comparison might, in fact, be to Hüsker Dü. Stones associates are beginning to call the as yet untitled record Keith's Album because of the large amount of work Richards has put into the project...
For rock to grow up doesn't mean it has to
be pompous, tootless or cowardly and the Dirty Work-era
Rolling
Stones are none of those things.
I never thought I'd get off on a new Stones
album this much again. After almost two decades on top, they
seemed too
convoluted to come out with such direct, hard-driving music, but
it's folly
to underestimate their survivorship, so I'm not surprised that
they did.
The sure thing was that they couldn't make me care about it -
that no adjustment
in the music or persona could jolt what they said or how they
said it past
my sensorium and into my soul. And I was wrong. Dirty Work
is a
bracing and even challenging record. It innovates without
kowtowing to
multiplatinum fashion or half-assed pretension. It's honest and
makes you
like it. It's only Rolling Stones, yet it breaks down their
stifling insularity,
as individuals and as an entity. Since the last time the Stones
released
a surprising record - Some Girls, eight years ago now, a
third of
their famous career out the window - the Stones have turned into
exceptionally
disgusting rock professionals. That doesn't mean it's been
possible to
dismiss them or their music - what's made them so disgusting is
that you
couldn't... There's nothing pathetic about the Stones. That's
what's made
them worth hating in the '80s...
In the end it's the production that will make or break this album critically, where it's sure to put off purists, skeptics, and snipers, and commercially, where it's almost sure to pull in trendies, children, and curiosity-seekers. Not that it isn't plenty basic, don't get me wrong. Based on riffs worked up by Ron and Keith before Jagger sullied his consciousness with them, the arrangements are the simplest on any Stones album since Some Girls if not Aftermath... This record is going to fuck the heads of the young chime addicts who think U2 and Big Country are guitar bands. It's clean and even modish, but until the side-closers it's utterly unpretty, and its momentum is pitiless. Jagger bullies up into a steady bellow that has all the power of Plant or Hagar and none of the histrionics.... (T)he second side is the prize. I give you Winning Ugly, Back to Zero, and Dirty Work, their meanest political statements in 15 years, and not for want of trying. These songs aren't about geopolitical contradictions. They're about oppressing and being oppressed... For once his lyrics aren't intricately ironic. They're impulsive and confused, almost jottings, two-faced by habit rather than design, the straightest reports he can offer from the top he's so lonely at...
All that's missing, in fact, is one identiriff classic, a Jumping Jack Flash or Tumbling Dice or Start Me Up that could define a summer and shove the tough stuff - Winning Ugly and Dirty Work are two of the most unpleasant songs anybody's going to write about the '80s - down America's throat. Identiriffs are Keith's department, and thus I'm not inclined to trumpet this artistic comeback as his vindication. Sure it's his recidivist guitar that makes Dirty Work hot, but if you'll pardon my saw, it Jagger's offhand input that makes it matter. We should be thankful the old reprobate didn't lavish much personal attention on it, that he just plugged into his Stones mode and spewed what he had to spew. Let him express himself elsewhere. The individual Rolling Stones can have their own disgusting lives and careers - I don't care. What I want is the Rolling Stones as an entity, an idea - that's mine and yours as much as theirs. And it's the Rolling Stones as an idea that Dirty Work vindicates.
One Hit, a leaner, meaner, faster
take
on the Gimme Shelter riff, sets the tone here. Unlike Shelter
it never threatens to tear loose from its moorings and launch
into some
roiling, run-way Götterdämmerung (hey, it's the 80s,
remember?),
but it do kick ass. Musically, Undercover's gangaphonic
reverb bath
reverts to more familiar, scrappy rock 'n' roll, centered on
Keith and
Ron's consciously dirty guitar work. Thematically, it's more
about unconscious
aggression... Why take any of this seriously? Maybe because
Jagger sounds
genuinely frustrated, torn, awkward, and yes, vulnerable (well,
a little...),
and if you don't think that's progress, go back and hear how he
handled
Midnight
Rambler... And if Boy Id himself is willing to grapple
with the implications
of the shadow imagery he once merely mimicked and reflected,
then I say
good for him, and good for the band. Of course, as long it's
only rock
'n' roll, we'll like it anyway. But don't you wonder what Hüsker
Dü'll
be doing twenty odd albums down the pike?
The first time I heard Dirty Work
from
start to finish, I couldn't tell whether I'd end up liking the
album or
writing it off... You have to learn to hear a new Stones album
for what
it is rather than for what you expected it to be; after 20
years' worth
of records, expectations are inevitable. After living for Dirty
Work
for a week or so, I like it a lot. On it the Stones do what they
do best,
and do it with drive and conviction. It's a driving, high-energy
rock 'n'
roll record, a dance record, awash in strangled moans and
snarling guitars...
Keith Richards' elemental guitar riffs have always been the
band's backbone,
though by now his playing is also tightly meshed with Ron
Wood's. One reason
Dirty
Work works so well is that the two guitarists laid
foundations for
most of the songs before Watts and Wyman arrived and while Mick
Jagger
was recording and then promoting his solo album. When Jagger
plays a major
conceptual role in the planning of an album, he tends to be
eclectic, even
experimental; he doesn't want to be accused of Just Doing The
Same Old
Thing. The resulting albums sometimes sound a bit scattered,
uneven - Undercover,
for example. But Richards has a deeply felt, single-minded
vision of what
the Stones should sound like: that sound is supercharged,
guitar-band rock
'n' roll with reggae, funk, and soul seasonings, as heard on Dirty
Work...
EVERY tune changes textures and moods to underline or contrast with the lyrics, and each has its little sonic surprises. The dub-style mixing is subtly applied to rock 'n' roll, and the album as a whole is programmed for both continuity and dramatic impact... I've been wrong before, but so far this album sounds like a keeper from start to finish.
Do we ask too much of the Rolling Stones?...
The Stones' music has sniffed at every trend from psychedella to
disco,
yet it's gone nowhere slowly; it's still basically the same
warped Chicago
blues they started with (especially on Dirty Work in Had
It with
You), plus a little reggae. Amid ups and downs, they've
always known
how to make a solid rock record in ways Mr. Mister or the Pet
Shop Boys
could never imagine. Yet every time the Stones get around to
releasing
an album, we expect them to do more – to take us by surprise,
make us laugh
and gawk, tell us what the hell is going on. Dirty Work
does that,
but only now and then; it's more like a product than a
statement, although
it's a little of both. With Winning Ugly and Dirty
Work,
this is the Stones album for the yuppie era, defining – and
defying – the
complacent nastiness of the mid-1980s as Gimme Shelter
caught the
crumbling hopes of the late Sixties and early Seventies. I
wrap my conscience
up, Jagger spits out on Winning Ugly. I wanna
win that cup
and get my money, baby; this tune won't be on the party
tape at the
business-school reunion. Dirty Work takes an extra
ironic flip.
Addressed to some hypothetical you who will sit on
your ass till
your work is done by someone else, the song runs, You're
a user,
I hate ya. Is the song about the audience that depends on
the Stones
for its sleaze quotient? About the record company? Or the Stones
themselves,
well-documented users of people and substances?...
Dirty Work could be better – more unified, less posed. But that's judging it against the Stones catalog. On its own terms, Dirty Work has its share of memorable moments... Unlike most of the hook-mad bands of the 1980s, the Stones assume their listeners can handle more than one guitar line at a time. You can take your pick: singing single notes in Sleep Tonight, reggae and blues and studioperfect hooks in Winning Ugly, overlapping country twangs in Dirty Work, sharpened rhythm chops and careening slides in One Hit. I don't find much true grit in the lyrics to Hold Back or One Hit or Had It with You, but the guitars cut through to some rock & roll essence. As the years wear on, it must get harder to be the legendary Rolling Stones, that famous band of decadent badasses. One week Jagger smiles for photographers at his baby's christening; another week he's in the studio singing, Gonna pulp you to a mass of bruises, trying to put some gumption into it. Maybe it's all some megaconcept about lack of ethics and insincerity. To me, though, Jagger's She's the Boss, with its cartoonishly cocky lyrics, and Dirty Work both suggest a 1980s identity crisis within the Stones – not as musicians but as pop guerrillas, exiles on Main Street. While Winning Ugly and Dirty Work show they're still alert, the rest of the album fudges, giving old answers to new questions. I'll still dance to it – and I'll still expect more next time.