192. Rolling Stones – Some Girls
May, 1978. I was sitting outside the Mini Cinema in Uniondale, NY, probably waiting for the afternoon showing of Rocky Horror. We had a little portable radio with us, tuned to the local rock station (I’m guessing WNEW) and they were about to play the new Rolling Stones song. I was never a huge Stones fan, but I liked them enough that I was semi excited about some new Stones music. Their previous album, Black and Blue, pretty much sucked, so there was a lot of anticipation in regards to this one.
They played the first track. Miss You. I had the same reaction as when I first heard Kiss’s I Was Made for Loving You and The Grateful Dead’s Shakedown Street: “Oh my god. This sounds like disco.” The word disco was said with disdain and disgust, like you were spitting it out of your mouth. I was so horrified at this garbage coming out of my radio that I turned the station and vowed to not buy the album when it came out.
In June of 1978 I found my father singing along to Far Away Eyes and that was it. I cut myself off from the Stones.
As happens often in these reviews, I found myself many years later enjoying something I professed to hate at one point in my life. Like spinach and naps, the things I hated when I was younger became things I loved later on. And so it goes with Some Girls. I’ve learned to enjoy not only the Stones again, but some of the songs on Some Girls that made me cringe all those years ago. Shattered, Some Girls, Far Away Eyes, When the Whip Comes Down, I can listen to every single one of them without the bad taste of 1978 ruining it for me. And the song I hated upon first hearing, with it’s disco beat and hooky beat and it’s Puerto Rican girls just dyyyyying to meet you, has recently become one of my favorite tunes to sing in the car. By myself. Windows down.
Powered by FireStats
March 24th, 2009
Some Girls was the album that ended my love of the Stones. That album, thos songs. I will convulse and head for the volume knob when any of them come on. It was only recently that I started listening to some of their later stuff, but I went for years with NO STONES. Laugh all you want, that album sucked so hard my great-grandchildren hate it already and they haven’t been born yet.
March 24th, 2009
I hear ya. I really, really despised this record when it came out. This wasn’t Sticky Fingers…this was *Oh.My.God* DISCO!! Argh!
But now, just like I didn’t have the automatic gag reflex when “That’s the Way (uh-huh uh-huh) I Like It (uh-huh)” blared out of the speakers when the Dallas Stars scored a goal, I find myself actually a pretty big fan of “Miss You”.
If I start grooving to “Ring My Bell” or “Boogie Oogie Oogie” please shoot me.