Dirty Work

by

The Rolling Stones

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Dirty Work was originally released March 25, 1986, it was the first studio album in *17 years* that did not go to #1 in either the UK or the US. This one broke an unparalleled string of 10 #1 albums in a row, dating from the release of Let It Bleed in 1969. Dirty Work only made it to #3 in the UK and #4 in the US, making it the lowest charting for a studio album since the US release of The Rolling Stones, Now! only went to #5 in 1965.

The album includes the single hits Harlem Shuffle and One Hit (To The Body). Most people know the music, so in my reviews I try to give you data on the sessions and interesting facts connected with the songs and the album. Here we go:

Interesting notes include:

.....the working title for the album was 19 Stitches

.....the final cut (Sleep Tonight) is followed by a boogie-woogie piano fadeout memorial to Ian Steward, the real 6th Rolling Stone, who died Dec 12, 1985, just before the album was released and dedicated to him

.....Mick brought essentially nothing to the sessions because he had used all his latest ideas for his first solo album She's The Boss (Keith had threatened to "slit his......throat" if he toured with another band), so Keith took over the sessions and ran the band when Mick left to promote his album. When Mick returned, he used a different studio and worked at times when he would not be in the building with Keith.....If you watch the videos for One Hit and Fight you can actually see the (real) anger between them....they made up when the Stones played a memorial gig for Ian Steward Feb 28, 1986 at the 100 Club in Oxford St, London....They were billed as Rocket 86....(If you don't know rock history, that's the 1st rock and roll record, Ike Turner's Rocket 88, minus Brian and Ian).

.....things were so bad with the band that when a reporter asked Charlie what he thought of the album he said he didn't know it was out and asked if it was any good

The Dirty Work sessions occurred in early 1985 in Paris. Final mixing was done in New York at RPM Studios (Jul 16 - Aug 17 & Sep 10 - Oct 15, 1985) and at Right Track Studios (Nov 15 - Dec 5, 1985).

Jan 23 - Mar 2, 1985 at Pathe Marconi/EMI Studios in Paris

.....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

The Paris Dirty Work sessions produced a number of unreleased tracks, including What Am I Supposed To Do, Baby You're Too Much, Deep Love, Sending Out An Invitation, Some Of Us Are On Our Knees, For Your Precious Love, Strictly Memphis, What Are You Goin' To Do With My Love.

This information comes from "It's Only Rock And Roll: The Ultimate Guide To The Rolling Stones" by Karnbach and Bernson and from my own collection, with some of the notes from Davis' "Old Gods Almost Dead." Both books are available from amazon.com.

Dirty Work is often described as the Rolling Stones' worst album, and also a prime example of what was wrong with music and culture in the 1980s, and so I was intrigued to hear it. I was disappointed. In the context of the Rolling Stones' rich back catalogue it is a stunted little twig, but it is better than some albums I have heard from the period. It came out in 1986, a very poor year for mainstream rock music.

It has two problems, three problems. The first is Mick Jagger's vocal style. Back in the 1960s and 1970s Jagger's voice could do nuance, it was expressive. It sneered, it taunted, it was nasty, it could be heartfelt. But on Dirty Work he uses the exact same unemotive bludgeoning growling shout throughout the whole album. There's no subtlety or nuance, he just growls and shouts. Perhaps he was trying to do a big stadium-filling heavy metal roar, but it doesn't work. It sounds as if he had come up with a wizard new vocal style, and he decided to use it on every track, all the time, whether it made sense or not. It's worst on Hold Back, where he sounds as if he has been gargling something acidic. I wanted to reach into the music and slap his face, to get him to shut up. From what I have read, Jagger added his vocals after everything else had been recorded, and was uninterested in the whole project, and the band as a whole were going through a bad patch, and were on the verge of splitting up.

The second problem is that there's no swing. All the songs have simple, straight 4/4 rhythms. The guitars do a lot of clever stuff but it sounds perfunctory, as if they wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I don't know if Charlie Watts was augmented by session players, but the drumming seems very simplistic. It sounds desperate, as if the drummer was trying to egg the rest of the band on. The drums are mixed so that the snare drum is very loud, which just accentuates the rhythmic monotony, and my aural impression of the record is a series of dull rockers with smash-smash-smash-fill etc drums. It reminded me a bit of ZZ Top's Eliminator, from 1983, which also had a monotonous "pulse beat" style of drumming. But whereas Eliminator was hypnotic, funky, and catchy, Dirty Work is boring. As I write these words I am listening to Eliminator. It's a great record, a good example of how the 1980s sometimes worked well. It is absolutely of its time, but it still works today. It crushes Dirty Work on every level, and bends it out of shape. It is rockier, funkier, catchier, and there's a cool car on the front.

Dirty Work is dated, it sounds very brash and hollow in a 1980s way, although it's not quite as dated as the cover photograph, which has the band wearing Miami Vice unconstructed pastel suits. I don't want to rock with the people on the cover of Dirty Work. The sonic landscape sounds thinner and less interesting to my ears than the Stones' records from the early 1970s. The same is true of contemporary records by David Bowie and Paul McCartney and all those 1970s artists who survived into the new decade. They had hi-tech studios, infinite time, infinite money, Pino Palladino on fretless bass, etc, and yet the results sound less pleasant than their earlier stuff. It's because they were in love with all the new technology, and didn't take time to stop and listen.

One Hit (to the Body) is a good start. It has the typical Rolling Stones guitar interplay, with a mixture of acoustic and electric guitars. Even though I am now listening to ZZ Top, I can still sing One Hit (brackets) in my head, which is more than can be said of Fight, the second song on Dirty Work. It sounds like a cross between Street Fightin' Man and Jumpin' Jack Flash, but averaged out into nothing. I can barely remember it.

Hold Back has those reverby drums that were popular at the time. Jagger sings like an ancient drunken trawlerman. I can picture the rest of the Stones listening to this for the first time, and wondering what had gone wrong with their lives. The song's message is that you shouldn't hold back, otherwise you will waste your life, which is a laudable message. But the production, the stilted production and monotonous beat make the message sound hollow. After listening to Hold Back I was in no mood to debauch, and that's just wrong. "C*cks*cker Bl*es", the band's infamous banned 1970s tour film, was a much better advertisement for debauchery. In fact Brian Eno's ambient classic Music for Airports is a better advertisement for debauchery than Hold Back.

Too Rude sounds as if it is supposed to be reggae. It's pleasant enough, but it's not very reggae, and I can barely focus on it. Keith Richards does the vocals, swaddled in echo, like a lampshade. I don't dislike the song, but at the same time it seems odd to list it as a highlight of the album.

Winning Ugly starts with the bassline from Dr Who. According to US rock critic Robert Christgau, Winning Ugly was one of "the most unpleasant songs anybody's going to write about the '80s", which he meant as high praise. It sounds like a thinner version of Huey Lewis & the News, or a very poor Robert Palmer b-side. Back to Zero starts off as a groove song along the lines of the stuff on Black & Blue, although it has a conventional middle eight and chorus. Overall it sounds like a very poor late-period Talking Heads b-side but with Mick Jagger instead of David Byrne. The title track is just another anonymous 4/4 rock song, anybody could have written it. The guitars do a lot, but they're mixed lower than the snare drum, and overall I would be surprised if the song took longer to write than it takes to play. It doesn't sound like the Rolling Stones.

Had it With You does not sound like the rest of the album. It's very simple, but not bad - the guitars have a pleasant old-fashioned tone, and the drums are a lot more intimate than the booming rock sound on the rest of the album, although they're still too loud. There's some harmonica as well. Along with One Hit (Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch) it is the most Rolling Stone-ish song on the album, but it's still not very good. If only they had slowed it down, added some more space, and swung a bit.

Sleep Tonight is a slow-dancing ballad, sung by Keith Richards. It's pretty good, but not Wild Horses. I question the wisdom of having Keith Richards sing a slow dancing ballad. Richards sounds like a thinner version of Mark Knopfler, and yet he has smoked very many more cigarettes than Mark Knopfler. Based on the evidence of Dirty Work, I conclude that the Rolling Stones were out-rocked by Dire Straits in 1986. The shame. The shame.

In a review for the New York Village Voice, US rock critic Robert Christgau wrote that this is a "bracing and even challenging record" that "innovates without kowtowing to multiplatinum fashion". The rest of his review is similarly wrong. Dirty work is not a bracing or challenging record, it does not innovate without kowtowing to multiplatinum fashion, it does not innovate at all; it is not an innovative rock record, it is not an innovative Rolling Stones record. It is not a good record, and I imagine that the Rolling Stones do not like to think about it nowadays. I'm going to have a scone.