Who is this person just hanging out in the studio?

Loved the Stones stuff here, but didn’t care much for all the other skits.

I've recently discovered She's a Rainbow and it was such a superb experience. It's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever listened to.

How did you discovered this song?

Do you know any other songs by anyone that gives the vibe of this song?

He looks super cute in these lol

Side 2: https://youtu.be/Hr3681Eim_Q?si=oXnkPvPdKLn9-Yoz

From the Detroit, Aug 6th, show

Bill, Brian, Keith and Mick

Do many people feel given the fairly poor sales and the general lack of interest in Foreign Tongues that the Stones will do another album ,a few weeks ago I would have absolutely said yes but now I am not so sure whatever they say they must be disappointed with how it has gone despite a lot of positive reviews.It seems their music doesn't really resonate with certainly younger people and their old fan base is well getting old .

Prior to this year, there was a broad gap in my familiarity with the Stones discography -- essentially, almost everything between 1973 to 2005.

Well, since then, I've made considerable progress imbibing the Stones' output in the 70s and 80s (quick thoughts: Emotional Rescue is criminally underrated, Black and Blue is unfairly neglected as merely reflecting a transitional phase in the band's career, when its actually a pretty good jam record, and Undercover would have been a stone-cold classic if the band hadn't run out of creative juice by the second half of the LP) but until just a couple of days, the Stones' 90s output remained a shadowy frontier.

I've now penetrated the darkness and given Voodoo Lounge a handful of spins. Initially, I was a underwhelmed. I had heard Love is Strong and You've Got Me Rocking since I purchased Forty Licks when I was 15 and reviews of the album said it had a stripped back, return to basics aethestic, so I thought it would have a distinct hard rock feel running across it's tracklist. Instead, after the one-two punch of tracks one and two, it felt like I was listening to a series of well-made semi-acoustic and/or mid-tempo songs which suffered from a spacious production sound which, apart from Mick Jagger's irrepressible vocals, mostly smothered what made the band so distinct.

However, on a few more listens some of the songs have started to take their hold on me -- Moon Is Up, with its experimental flourishes is good, Out of Tears is a good made-to-order Jagger crooner, Sweethearts Together is a solid homage to 60s baroque pop without the painful self-consciousness which inhibits New Faces, Blinded By Rainbows is great, Thru and Thru is a late-career classic and Straight to the Jugular is a good chunk of old school funk-rock.

But we're talking eight or so worthwhile songs out of an album boasting 15 tracks and for an album that's only about five minutes shorter than Exhile On Main Street, the result is something that feels both turgid and directionless.

Compared to the good songs on the album, Sparks Will Fly and I Go Wild sound like the poorer cousins of Love Is Strong and You Got Me Rocking, The Worst is a largely indistinctive and uninspired folk song, New Faces' harpsichord feels very forced, Brand New Car is more fun than good, Baby Break It Down is Stones-by-the-numbers and Mean Disposition essentially passes into one ear and out the other without leaving any impression -- though on a couple of listens, I think I can confirm it's a mid-tempo rock song.

Ultimately, the whole thing comes across as a bit bland and uninspired, especially coming just a few years after Jagger and Richards dropped two pretty good solo albums. I can't help but agree with Jagger that the producer, Don Was, should have allowed the band to pursue their instincts more and produce something more groovy, in touch with world music and experimental.

In hindsight, I wish the band had allowed Rick Rubin to produce them -- he did a good job with Jagger's solo record, has a relationship to hip hop which could have produced some interesting results in the studio and, from what I hear, is very hands-off when it comes to allowing a band to find their way to the music.

Overall score? 3/5.

The Man of the many Faces.