[edit] The Rolling Stones: Aftermath

Recorded & mixed: December 1965: RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA March 1966: RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA

Producer: Andrew Oldham Engineer: Dave Hassinger Released: April 1966 Original label: Decca Records

Track List:

Mother's Little Helper
Stupid Girl
Lady Jane
Under My Thumb
Doncha Bother Me
Going Home
Flight 505
High and Dry
Out of Time
It's Not Easy
I Am Waiting
Take It Or Leave It
Think
What to Do

Contributing musicians: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Jack Nitzsche.

Aftermath is the first consistent Rolling Stones album. Their first album that's solid althrough the way. It was a breakthrough for them, with unlike their previous efforts all songs were written by the Jagger/Richards team.

Says Jagger: "That was a big landmark record for me. It's the first time we wrote the whole record and finally laid to rest the ghost of having to do these very nice and interesting, no doubt, but still cover versions of old R&B songs - which we didn't really feel we were doing justice, to be perfectly honest, particularly because we didn't have the maturity. Plus, everyone was doing it."...

It starts with "Mother's Little Helper" (a Top 10 Single) with those funny lyrics and that catchy melody followed by "Stupid Girl". Mick Jagger was not especially proud of those songs, and that might be why in 1968 he confessed to a journalist:"Different girls. I don't know what to say except they speak for themselves. They are all very unthought-out songs.I write them and they are never looked at again... That was the scene. Those songs reflect the day and a few stupid chicks getting on my nerves."

Arrives the very Elizabeathean-sounding "Lady Jane"; one of the Stones greater gem, and the biggest Brian Jones contribution as Keith Richards will put it later: " I did all the parts on half the album that Brian normally would have done. Sure I was mad. It wasn't like now where you spend 4 to 6 months making an album. Those albums had to be done in 10 days, plus another single. That was a fact of life... With Brian becoming a dead weight on top of the work, it threw a lot of the pressure on me" That's why "Lady Jane" indicates to the listener the different musical direction Brian Jones was taking. Anyhow immortal tune brillantly sung by Mike.

The misogynistic, but irresistable Motown-influenced rocker "Under My Thumb," is the 4th Track of the vinyl album Side A. That number shows how the Stones were inspired in those Los Angeles RCA Studios ...

And has Bill Wyman will put it : "RCA Studios wasn't as funky as Chess obviously, but it was more commercial. And Dave Hassinger, (the engineer) really... he had a good ear, he'd get good sounds, and we experimented with more instruments. And we first experimented with other musicians. Jack Nitzsche and people like that would just play an occasional piano or something... And he'd always get good sounds so we'd always get a good take at 3 or 4 shots at a song. And we could experiment in the studio for the first time ever. Anything that was in the studio Brian would pick it up or I would and the two of us would kind of get some sort of thing out for that song.

"Dontcha Bother Me" is a great Bluesy Track and will be followed by the immense Jam "Goin' Home" the Rolling Stones experiment, try to brake their limits and that 8 minutes track will conclude the side A of that very mythical album. Very Rhythm & Blues which was after all the true root of the Rolling Stones.

"Flight 505" opens the second side of the vinyl album and is still my personal fav'rite with that fantastic piano intro by Ian Stewart (the official RS pianist in those days). "Flight 505" has to be one of the best track ever recorded by them. The Country "High & Dry" follows ... And again Mike will later confess: "I like Aftermath 'cause I like the songs, although I don't like the way some of them were done".

"Out Of Time" is next it's a quality tune and has been a huge hit in it's days and is now one of the Stones great classics. "It's Not Easy" the oddly timed "I Am Waiting" "Take It Or Leave It" "Think" and "What To Do" will close that album we can say that the band is experimenting with heavy guitar distortion and new, often bizarre arrangements and instrumentation there are some weaknesses but overall i see it as the first real RS album...

The American version was cut down and then augmented by the number 1 hit single "Paint It, Black," which featured some of the first and best Indian instrumentation to appear on a rock record. After the Beatles "Norvegian Wood" (obviously).

As Mick explained in 1995: " Aftermath has a wide spectrum of music styles: "Paint It Black" was this kind of Turkish song; and there were also very bluesy things like "Going Home" And I remember some sort of ballads on there. It had a lot of good songs, it had a lot of different styles, and it was very well recorded. So it was, to my mind, a real marker....

[edit] The Rolling Stones: Aftermath

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