{"id":1514,"date":"2008-06-25T15:14:26","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T19:14:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-07T10:48:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T10:48:40","slug":"battle-royale-round-5-rod-stewart-vs-the-1973","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/battle-royale-round-5-rod-stewart-vs-the-1973\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle Royale, Round 5: Rod Stewart vs The Stones, 1973"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-21QK9F1NWc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>In 1973, the Stones follow up their most ambitious album, <em>Exile On Main Street<\/em>, with <em>Goats Head Soup<\/em>. Exhausted from weeks of all-night sessions and covering for Wyman&#8217;s bass responsibilities, Keef takes a virtual leave of absence from the Stones and lets the Micks work out the next album. The big hit single from <em>Goats Head Soup<\/em> is <strong>&#8220;Angie&#8221;<\/strong>, in which Mick Jagger and the boys take on Rod Stewart in the most mawkish part of Stewart&#8217;s game. Big whoop! <em>Are you proud of this effort, Stones loyalists?<\/em> Stones fans are generally unimpressed. The Stones have entered the period in their history when they&#8217;re expected to make the playoffs, when they can&#8217;t sell out playoff games on their own turf.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_mfZW0pcEnw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Before moving on, to ensure clarity in the guidelines under which this examination is being conducted, it should be noted that the best song the Stones would <em>record<\/em> in 1973, the initial tracks for <strong>&#8220;Waiting on a Friend&#8221;<\/strong>, does not qualify for inclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Some time back <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/09\/06\/showdown_goats_head_soup_vs_some_girls#more843\">we discussed <em>Goats Head Soup<\/em><\/a> and how it compared unfavorably to an album beyond the scope of our current investigation, the vibrant, <strong>Ron Wood<\/strong>-inspired boys&#8217; club racket of <em>Some Girls<\/em>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/09\/06\/showdown_goats_head_soup_vs_some_girls#more843\"><strong>Click here<\/strong><\/a> to revisit that post and sample some of the songs from that album, if you&#8217;d like. They&#8217;re not that good, and they&#8217;re pretty lousy by previously established Rolling Stones&#8217; standards. <\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/oolala.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"301\" height=\"300\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>Faces, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/CindyIncidentally.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;Cindy Incidentally&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Faces, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/MyFault.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;My Fault&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rod Stewart, wisely, took a year off from releasing a solo album. With Faces, however, he took part in what I believe is the band&#8217;s most consistent, emotionally charged album, <strong><em>Ooh La La<\/em><\/strong>. Taken as a whole, I liken this album, in the band&#8217;s brief existence, to their version of the <strong>Klassic Kinks<\/strong>&#8216; late-60s run. It represents all sides of what made the band, occasionally, great and very little of what made them easy to write off when compared to titans like the Stones. It&#8217;s the &#8220;smallest&#8221; of Faces albums, thanks in large part to Stewart&#8217;s limited involvement on lead vocals. However, according to the methods we have set for this examination, we will not consider the great tracks sung by Ronnie Lane (&#8220;Glad and Sorry&#8221;, &#8220;If I&#8217;m On the Late Side&#8221;, &#8220;Flags and Banners&#8221;) or Ron Wood (the title track) other than to say that they may not have been heard by all but a few record nerds like ourselves if not for the involvement of the more commercially viable Rod Stewart. I know this will pain some of you, but let&#8217;s give it up for the trickle-down effect of Stewart&#8217;s marketing clout!<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve included two of the Stewart-sung tracks for your pleasure, the gently rollicking <strong>party<\/strong> song, &#8220;Cindy Incidentally&#8221;, and the unharnessed <strong>soul shouter<\/strong> &#8220;My Fault&#8221;. Neither is a fantastic song or work of high art, but both are songs I never tire of <strong>cranking up<\/strong> and simply <strong>digging!<\/strong> Kind of how I enjoy logging on and digging the rock chatter wiht you. Like the best of Rod Stewart&#8217;s work during the period under examination, these tracks make me feel like hanging with my friends, eating hot sausage off the grill, and just shooting the breeze. The best music of Faces, in particular, makes me appreciate other people in my life. <\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t say the same for the music of <em>Goats Head Soup<\/em>. That&#8217;s one misanthropic, self-centered album. &#8220;Love me, 19-year-old Brazillian hottie!&#8221; is the underlying message I get from it. &#8220;I&#8217;m so alone, baby, can I snort some coke off your nipples?&#8221; The music&#8217;s nothing to write home about either. It&#8217;s OK&#8230;for an <strong>Aerosmith<\/strong> album. You know where the judges are heading in 1973, don&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p>First there&#8217;s one more thing I want to discuss regarding the ways in which rock nerds dismiss even Rod&#8217;s best works. As this examination has progressed, I&#8217;ve seen a lot of shots taken at <strong>Rod&#8217;s Rasp<\/strong>. Deal with it. The guy&#8217;s a straightforward soul singer, not a character actor. Do you complain about <strong>James Brown<\/strong>&#8216;s lack of variety in his vocal delivery? <strong>Otis Redding<\/strong>&#8216;s? <strong>David Ruffin<\/strong>&#8216;s? I thought not, but they were never hunchbacked white guys with a big honker, a shag rug, and wearing a pink leotard and satin acqua jacket. James Brown actually looked good in tights. Before you get all worked up over the nerve of my comparing Rod&#8217;s vocals to those &#8220;authentic&#8221; soul legends, let&#8217;s get real: In his prime, Rod Stewart&#8217;s take on soul shouting never reached the depths of a <strong>Michael Bolton<\/strong>. <em>In his prime<\/em>, before he went on a rampage of Rock Crimes, the guy was an energetic, emotive, effective rock &#8216;n soul singer. And yes, he covered other people&#8217;s songs, just like David Ruffin. <\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PFoDWlXNiH8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nSingers sing. Actors act. Jagger was more an actor than a singer. I admire both strong singers and strong actors. Strong actors, however, are more reliant on a good script. Rod, at this time I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll agree, could have made the phone book sound like &#8220;Maggie May&#8221;. The songs on <em>Goats Head Soup<\/em> don&#8217;t give Mick much to work with. Keef&#8217;s not holding down the fort like we expect him to do. I can&#8217;t wait for Mick Taylor to leave this band already!<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n9WGVBcZH6g?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p><strong>ROUND 5:<\/strong> Stewart<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/06\/25\/battle-royale-round-4-rod-stewart-vs-the-1972\">Previously&#8230;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1973, the Stones follow up their most ambitious album, Exile On Main Street, with Goats Head Soup. Exhausted from weeks of all-night sessions and covering for Wyman&#8217;s bass responsibilities, Keef takes a virtual leave of absence from the Stones and lets the Micks work out the next album. The big hit single from Goats <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/battle-royale-round-5-rod-stewart-vs-the-1973\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[42,149,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}