The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones, Now! download mp3 flac

Now! is the Rolling Stones album that nearly never gets talked about, and while it’s not a bad album, it’s not a great album either. Of course “Heart of Stone” was the hit single, though a brilliant song does not a brilliant album make, where to my way of thinking, all anyone needed from this record was that hauntingly beautiful single.

While the songs don’t shine on the record, it is rewarding to hear what Brian Jones brought to the table, where at least he sounded effortless and emancipated. Other reviewers, many notable ones, have said that the album is uniformly strong from state to finish, emphasizing some of their most dark material. While the darkness aspect may be correct, I never saw the charm in this album, never found myself thinking that I’d like to play this body of work. Part of that for me is the nature of the album, an album of far too many covers at this point, too many interpretations and not enough originality. Yes, I can hear people pointing out that the Beatles laid out a lot of covers as well, though in 1965 the Beatles released Rubber Soul, and this is no Rubber Soul by any stretch of the imagination. And if we’re talking about imagination, how imaginative is it to continually tail your R&B idols, becoming proficient at their idols’ music instead of their own. I certainly don’t wish to sound as if I’m being too hard on the Stones, it’s just that they always seemed late to the party, a step behind and out of step, out of step with even themselves, as their previous outing 12 X 5 is far superior and was filled with much more room to breathe.

Of course I understood that the Stones were imitating American music, yet at the time, I wasn’t interested in how well the Stones could cover a song that I already owned by the original artists … I found nothing new here, where it all, aside from their original hit single material, sounded old and dated. There’s also an aspect, most apparent to those of us who were there then, where the Stones didn’t seem happy to be a band. Certainly Wyman and Watts were happy with what they did, though they could have done it with anyone, Jones had his brilliant highs and lows, though mostly, he was just high, leaving Mick and Keith to soldier on, with Mick knowing he’d be nothing without Keith, yet Mick secretly wanted this to be a Stones band of one … himself.

In the end, what’s always mentioned is how well and honestly the Stones presented their cover material. All of this was happening at a time referred to as The British Invasion, where the question always on the tip of my tongue being, “How can it be an invasion, if it’s all American material to begin with?” Regardless, the answer to my question doesn’t matter, I simply dismissed the Stones here because of the covers covers cover, with the only good thing folks were saying was that the band distinguished themselves with their excellent covers. I’m also tired of hearing that the band was becoming more and more proficient, as if they were learning on the go, and I was financing their gettingbetterness.

Nah … hold on tight, both the stunning Aftermath and High Tide & Green Grass will be out within a year, and even though High Tide … is a compilation, it’s the sort of album the Stones should have been releasing everyone time.

Review by Jenell Kesler

A strong performance from the Stones. Again they show how adept they are at covering Blues and R&B (Chuck Berry again!). Also, on the original tunes, it's the strongest song writing of Jagger and Richards yet.