Too Much Blood…alright!
My fondness for the Rolling Stones has never been much of a secret and I have always chosen them over the Beatles (blech!). They are my #2 band of all time right behind Iron Maiden. My earliest memories of hearing them are through one of my older brothers. I can remember him spinning Sticky Fingers and Some Girls on the record player. I was pretty much a fan from day 1. Maybe 1977 or 1978? Doesn’t matter. I was pretty young.
Undercover (1983) was the first one of theirs that I owned on my own. I remember buying it at Murphy’s on vinyl after hearing Undercover of the Night and She Was Hot on the radio. It was a bit of a different album for them, yet it still retained the feel of a real Stones album, unlike Dirty Work (terrible).
This album gets dissed by a lot of hardcore Stones fans, probably because of their MTV sirplay. No me importa. I love it. Even though I wouldn’t consider it their best album, it’s my #1. Songs like Too Much Blood, Pretty Beat Up, Undercover of the Night…great songs.
I love Mick’s ‘rap’ in Too Much Blood: “Did you ever see the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Horrible, wasn’t it. You know, people ask me “is it really true where you live in Texas, is that really true what they do around there, people?” I say, “yea, every time I drive through the crossroads I get scared, there’s a bloke running round with a fucking chain saw. Oh! Oh! oh No, he’s gonna cut off, Oh no. Don’t saw off me leg, don’t saw off me arm.”
Good times.
Odd to think that this video was banned from MTV for a long time.
The Metal Files 
Man that was weird. I’ve never heard that song nor seen that video. Shit I didn’t even know it existed. But yeah I’ve always been a big Stones fan for as long as I can remember. That said, I’ve always had trouble with the “Are you a Beatles or Stones guy?”, or “Are you a Beatles or Elvis guy?”. Truthfully, I was Elvis and Stones before any Beatles. But in the past x-amount of years, actually through Lennon & Harrison’s solo work, I’ve come to be a big Beatles fan. I digress…
I don’t ever remember not hearing or not being familiar with The Stones. They’ve always been there. The video for “Start Me Up” came out around the time I was in Kindergarten or maybe even before. Aside from random hand-me-down records, the early days of MTV was actually my portal for music, 2nd maybe to the radio stations we spoke of. I remember thinking they were the absolute strangest looking group of musicians I’d ever seen. Ugly, in fact. But I thought they all resembled friends of my Dad’s or something, y’know? My Dad’s friend Delbert Chambers looked just like Keith Richards, it was so weird.
Throughout the 80’s the Stones were there and a great boogie-soundtrack to everyday life. Later in high school when I started digging back in time, learning my propers of classic rock, I nabbed a Brian Jones’60’s-era record of singles called “High Tide and Green Grass”. I must’ve played this cassette every single day. I never tired of it. I still have it now, in fact it’s in the console of my Bronco! How it managed to not wear out is beyond me.
I think it’s safe to say that…well aside from the late 80’s up to present day, I think I appreciate every era of the Rolling Stones.
K.
March 13, 2009 at 10:35 am
Who else besides me bought this album for the stickers, foolishly hoping for nudity beneath and peeling them off to one of life’s greatest disappointments. Music-wise, not a bad album.
rayvanhornjr
March 19, 2009 at 7:28 pm