Compiling one ceedee’s worth of the most essential Stones songs (see below) was fun (and really hard), so I decided to do another one for The Kinks:

You Really Got Me                  2:13
Stop Your Sobbing                  2:06
Till The End Of The Day            2:21
Where Have All The Good Times Gone 2:53
Party Line                         2:35
Session Man                        2:14
Too Much On My Mind                2:28
Holiday In Waikiki                 2:52
Sunny Afternoon                    3:36
I'm Not Like Everybody Else        3:29
Dead End Street                    3:23
David Watts                        2:32
Harry Rag                          2:16
Love Me Till The Sun Shines        3:16
Afternoon Tea                      3:27
Autumn Almanac                     3:05
Picture Book                       2:34
Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains   4:03
People Take Pictures Of Each Other 2:10
Victoria                           3:40
Mr. Churchill Says                 4:42
Lola                               4:01
Apeman                             3:52
Destroyer                          3:47
                                  -----
                                  73:35

This is a letter I wrote to my brother last fall after an extended email exchange about the Stones. (I eagerly anticipate another beatdown from dlwiebe.)

allow me to sketch out the 5 phases of the Stones' 
recording career: first is the pre-1965 testosterone 
overdrive--barely competent, ferocious rock and fuckin 
roll.  in short order they learn to write a song and 
enter phase 2 in which they produce Crafted albums like 
Aftermath and Between The Buttons.  (there is also a 2nd 
and a halfth phase called, oh shit the beatles changed 
the game up again!)  then comes the post-Brian Jones, pre-
disco era (3), roughly 68 to 73.  the sweet spot.  that's 
the stuff most of us like best.  then disco (4).  
"sucking in the seventies."  i have a soft spot for all 
that, and i know you do too.  some girls.  the fifth and 
final phase is evrything past Tatoo You, the 80s 90s and 
today, irrelevant at best, embarrassing at worst.

phase three, 68 to 73, is when they made their best 
albums.  i am madly in love with the early, early 
singles; but when it comes to Albums, you'll find the 
really good ones here, as most sensible rock lovers will 
agree.  there are some dissenters who might claim Out Of 
Our Heads as the best album; there are even those who 
claim Some Girls. i "respect" their opinions.

of the albums from this third and best phase, Sticky 
Fingers & Exile are the top 2.  even Let It Bleed can't 
sway me, tho when it gets to Live With Me and Monkey Man, 
i am tempted.  some incredible noise, there.  You Got The 
Silver is one of their best ballads, and like most of 
their ballads it's a little too sentimental.  granted, 
Wild Horses, the great ballad from Sticky Fingers, is 
even more so.  the guitar on Wild Horses is **really** 
nice tho.  set pieces like Midnight Rambler and You Can't 
Always Get What You Want never quite did it for me.  the 
choir is just over-the-top...but overthetopness is part 
of the band's charm.  (the better version of Midnight 
Rambler is on Get Yer Ya Yas Out, but i'm sticking to 
studio recordings here.)  Love In Vain is unfortunate, 
but i give it a pass.  you can do bad covers of your 
heroes, it's cool, you get to do that.

Beggar's Banquet has a lot of cool stuff, but it also has 
some filler.  the album's two major hits, Sympathy For 
The Devil and Street Fighting Man are good tunes, but 
they're very much of their time.  i would go so far as to 
say (were i qualified to say so) they were an eloquent 
response to the events of 1968, but that don't 
necessarily make them all that meaningful in the year 
20-whatever.  i've always kinda liked Street Fighting Man 
but it was never one of my favorites.  i thought Sympathy 
For The Devil was awesome when i was 13...didnt we all.  
No Expectations...well, you know how i feel about the 
ballads.  it's pretty.  Stray Cat Blues is the high 
point, and it's a motherfucker.  It definitly goes on my 
personal greatest hits album.  Salt Of The Earth is kinda 
silly.  The Rolling Stones (and several lady singers in 
their employ) Salute The Working Man.

with Goat's Head Soup they were heading downhill.  if i 
wernt in the mood to be nice i might call it the 
beginning of the end.  it's a *good* album by any 
standard, but there's nothing classic there, except maybe 
Angie.  Angie is the type of song you imagine a bunch of 
drunk college kids singing along to even they have no 
idea what it means.  smells of cheap sentiment to me.  
i've always liked Dancing With Mr D.  good riff.  100 
Years Ago's wacka-wacka guitar is far from keef's finest 
moment.  Doo Doo Heartbreaker comes on the radio, i'm 
happy.  Silver Train is a mere echo of the awesome 
country rock they had done a few years before.  it sounds 
like an imitation of the rolling stones really.  in fact, 
a lot of stones imitations are way better than this.  
same with Starfucker which is only famous for its 
vulgarity.  if evry copy of this album suddenly 
disappeared from the earth, it would take me a while to 
notice.

Only Rock 'N Roll has one foot in disco.  i've always 
liked Fingerprint File.  Short And Curlies is a good tune 
too.  i should note that, as with many parts of my 
musical education, i have [P.S.] to thank for 
innerducing me to the good stones material.  if i 
remember it right he gave or sold me his cassettes of 
Only Rock 'N Roll, Sticky Fingers, Let It Bleed, and 
Exile when he switcht over to ceedees.  you probly 
suggested me as someone who could take them off his 
hands.  man, that was lucky for me.

anyway.  having eliminated all other contenders it comes 
down to Sticky Fingers and Exile.  what Sticky Fingers 
has going for it is songwriting.  songs like Dead Flowers 
or Moonlight Mile, you can't beat um.  Brown Sugar/Bitch 
is maybe th stones' best 45 of all, despite the intense 
racial whatthefuckness of Brown Sugar's lyrics.  Can't 
You Hear Me Knocking is righteous noise.  I Got The Blues 
is nice, but mick is not otis.  did you hear that, mick?  
you are not otis redding.  write it down if you have to.  
truthfully, jagger is not the worst soul singer in the 
world.  i'd prefer he stuck to rock tho and left songs 
like this to guys who can really sing them.  Sister 
Morphine and Dead Flowers are Crafted songs, but maybe a 
bit too clever for their own good...and the fake twang 
mick uses on Dead Flowers is embarrassing.  (boy, most of 
my complaints come down to mick, don't they?)  these 2 
songs get to the heart of what is the real difference 
between Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street: Sticky 
Fingers has it all over Exile when it comes to 
songwriting, but i hear more real emotion in Exile.  
Sister Morphine deals with human pain on the level of a 
pulp novel.  Exile is more truthful in its treatment of 
pain, misery, regret.  just a bunch of guys working it 
out in a french mansion.

the legend of Exile's creation must be addressed...the 
heroin, debauchery, general mayhem.  some people are 
fascinated by that stuff, but i don't care too much about 
it.  i would like to think i love the album because of 
the music, not becuz all the crazy stories lend it extra 
depth, an air of wickedness.  still, i like the idea of 
this music being created amid chaos and without a plan, 
recording all night with whoever happened to show up.  my 
idea of that environment is summed up perfectly by the 
photo of mick and keef at the microphone clutching a 
liquor bottle and a tall can of beer respectively.  who 
doesnt like the masterpiece that somehow falls together 
despite everything falling apart.  bottom line: Exile 
feels raw and it feels real.  i value emotion more than 
technique.  ultimately i'll take Exile's murk over Sticky 
Fingers's polish.

here is the personal greatest hits album i mentiond, in 
roughly chronological order:

come on                      1:48
i want to be your man        1:58
not fade away                1:48
off the hook                 2:33
satisfaction                 3:44
stupid girl                  2:55
stray cat blues              4:38
honky tonk woman             3:02
country honk                 3:07
monkey man                   4:11
brown sugar                  3:48
sway                         3:50
can't you hear me knocking   7:14
bitch                        3:38
moonlight mile               5:56
sweet virginia               4:25
loving cup                   4:25
happy                        3:04
ventilator blues             3:24
i just want to see his face  2:52
waiting on a friend          4:34
                          -------
                          1:12:29

it should fit comfortably on one side of a ceedee.  both 
Honky Tonk Woman and Country Honk are on there; i don't 
want to choose.  the single version is one of Afrika 
Bambaataa's top ten breakbeats.  Shine A Light is not 
there, sorry.  i wanted to keep it below 74min.  (my self-
imposed cut-off for mix ceedees: these days almost evry 
ceedee holds 80min, but i like the idea that my mixes 
could fit on an old-school "Ninth Symphony" 74-minute 
ceedee if they had to.)  i like the chorus but not so 
much th verse.  i almost left off Satisfaction, but that 
would be too perverse.  i almost can't believe Waiting On 
A Friend made the cut.  i needed slow songs, and if 
there's one ballad i can tolerate it's that one.  it's 
way easier for me to get behind "i need someone i can cry 
to" than to get behind "wild, wild horses/ we'll ride 
them someday"--ugh.  plus, Sonny Rollins.

PS: P.S.

Here’s my review of Z Z Top’s Degüello album. Released in 1979, it was their sixth album and the first to feature saxophones and novelty beards.

TRT: 33:54

Side A:

1. I Thank You (Porter/Hayes) B+
2. She Loves My Automobile B
3. I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide A
4. A Fool For Your Stockings B-
5. Manic Mechanic D

Side B:

1. Dust My Broom (Elmore James) A-
2. Low Down In The Street B
3. Hi Fi Mama B-
4. Cheap Sunglasses A-
5. Esther Be The One C

Overall, a solid B. A few decent songs were marred by some cringe-inspiring lyrics. Most of their attempts to be tongue-in-cheek and silly fail embarrassingly. Only “Cheap Sunglasses” strikes the right tone by going all the way and reveling in its own stupidity. As for “Manic Mechanic”, it would be kindest to forget it.

The band was a few years away from their biggest commercial success, but musically they were on the verge of a precipice. This album forecasted what Z Z Top was to be in the 80s: novelty beards, novelty clothes, novelty cars, and novelty lyrics that appeared “cool” and “sexy” from the point of view of a 12-year-old boy…a parody of their good (if uneven),  dirty, funloving Tex-Mex barroom boogie of the 70s.

I know this is well-trod ground by now but I have to say, it doesnt matter if you like it or not, the shit you’re saying about a 13-year-old girl is so fucking reprehensible it defies belief.

I love it when people who object in a knee jerk fashion to the use of new technological tools in music making say “vocoder” when they mean autotune even tho they are completely different things.

PCs are cheap, customizable, easier to crack open, and you can buy, fix, service, and upgrade them without ever going to the fucking Apple store.

In evry other respect tho, Macs win.