Steel Wheels

by

The Rolling Stones

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After Mick Jagger's first solo album (she's the boss), after Dirty Work, the Stones got together and did a pretty good album.

Mixed Emotions and Rock and a Hard Place were the most immediate hits of that record. But they're not necessarily the best songs. Continental Drift is an expected piece from the Stones and one which testifies how broad they can be when they want to.

The best song in the album - recorded live in Stripped few years later and now a staple in most live performances by the Stones - is Slipping Away. It's a great great song. It's very basic and yet very intriguing. It's - possibly - a turning point in Keith Richards' songwriting. It opened a new line of songs -- Losing My Touch (in Forty Licks); The worst as well as thru and thru (voodoo lounge); thief in the night (bridges to babylon)--

that has expended the Stones'musical vocabulary.

It's a nice comeback.

When "Steel Wheels" came out in '89, I was elated, but my excitement died down somewhat after a few listenings. Basically, I had expected the Stones to continue in the fantastic classic-Keith vein that "Talk is Cheap" had begun, and I found Steel Wheels a little stiff, like the Stones weren't quite back yet. They hadn't played live together in so many years, and we'd have to wait 5 more years for Voodoo lounge to hear them really cut loose. "Sad Sad Sad" is under-rated; it's lyrics aren't much, but it's a sleek, vintage rocker that goes well with "Mixed Emotions". "Terrifying" gets the LP off track, though, with it's monotonous "Hot Stuff" rhythms and absurd "Jagger-of-the-jungle" lyrics. "Hold on to your Hat" gets things going again with Mick's locomotive rhythm guitar and Keith spraying sparks from his lead, but "Hearts for Sale" sounded like a creaky Jagger solo outtake. And so it goes for the rest of the LP, a very decent album which is undermined by a few weak tracks, and Mick's hesitant vocals. We'd have to wait for his confidence to return in fine form on "Flashpoint" and his 1993 solo LP "Wandering Spirit". Think of "Steel Wheels" as the slow reawakening of a giant.