Film study.
Excuse me if this thread has been talked over ad nauseam.
I was driving back from a meeting the other day when “Sympathy for the Devil” came on the radio. Now, I dig this song for a number of reasons, mostly the guitar solo (number 2 in my book) and the general direction of the “evil Stones” lyrics.
But what struck me on this listen was how hard Mick was working that song vocally. Here’s the band just churning away, nothing too special, but Mick is literally putting the whole band on his back to bring out all that song has to offer.
Which got me thinking…is Mick the best lead singer in rock? He certainly doesn’t have the best voice. Here’s my hypothesis. Since the Stones play a lot of blues-saturated music, they often don’t stand out too musically and melodically as say…Zeppelin. So Mick has to work twice as hard. And he does on almost every Stones song I can think of.
Ok, now stay with me. I’m no means a Stones fanatic, and I’m sure the Hall will school me here. But the Stones play great stripped down, sloppy rock. Same drum beats, same bass lines, and we’ve already talked about whether they even need a second guitar. (Yes, I’m generalizing.)
So what makes most Stones songs what they are owes 90% to Mick, no? Which got me thinking of other lead singers. Surely the Who and Zepp had more in their arsenal than just their lead singers. And even lead singers I love — Costello — had back-up musicians which more than filled the holes and brought on smiles in their own right.
So, who worked harder than Mick? Discuss.
machinery, this is freaky! I stopped in my local coffee shop before leaving for work this morning, and the Stones’ version of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” was playing. I was digging it, as I always do. And I was analyzing why I dug it, as I am incapable of NOT doing. There’s not a lot going on with the arrangement, I thought to myself. It’s all Jagger selling that probable late-night jam/afterthought of a recording!
Jagger is the man among rock ‘n roll singers, if you ask me, for all the reasons you state. The only guy who might have been able to pull off what he pulled off with often mediocre material is Roger Daltrey. Surely he sold some turds over the years with the Who, but compare the relative meta-rock turds “Long Live Rock” with “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll.” I think Jagger does the better job of saving his band’s inherently subpar song.
I’m sure at least two people in the world agree with your hypothesis: 2000 Man and Mick Jagger.
I wouldn’t disagree with the motion, I’d also nominate Noddy Holder from Slade.
There’s a fantastic anecdote in his autobiography describing a visit to a voice doctor when he was having some trouble with his voice. He was asked to demonstrate his vocal style and gave a quick burst – he then describes the look on the doctor’s face as he asked if he sang like that all of the time. On being told that he did, the doctor told him that there was nothing he could do for him and showed him the door.
Are you going to be part of the problem or part of the solution?
machinery, in a word, Yes. Mick deserves a large amount of the grief he gets but he also, even more so, deserves a larger amount of the credit for the Stones’ greatness than he tends to get. Not least from his twin brother Keef.
Fogerty works awfully hard, but he’s angry about it.
I bet HVB was counting on your support. Ha!
Jeff Bebe connects. He gets people off. He looks for the guy who isn’t getting off, and Jeff makes him get off.
aloha
LD
That guy from the Woggles works his ass off live. I’m not saying that he’s better than Mick, but Mick’s getting paid millions and when the Woggles play Philly, they’re probably looking at $150 and a long ass ride back to Atlanta. That’s got to count for something.
Oh, you mean the lead singer of the Woggles, the greatest live band in the fucking rock universe, who if any of you Philly scenesters, despite your advancing decrepitude and parental responsibilities, don’t go to see when they’re in Philly, I’ll never forgive or respect you ever again? Yeah, he’s a good singer.
Daltrey does give his it all — even for minor Who songs. I found this high quality clip of singing Let’s See Action with Eddie Vedder interesting just because he seems to be working harder than the youngster.
http://youtu.be/ZPuCsosr9jM
Mick deserves all the grief I give him for his crappy solo career and decisions that kept The Stones off the road or out of the studio. But Mick deserves all the accolades, and more, that he gets for being The Mick Jagger of Rock. Maybe he’s not the greatest singer, but his voice just jumps out of the speakers on records and he really knows how to work a crowd of any size. Add in the fact that he has written some of the greatest songs in Rock history and you’ve got what every other band wishes they had.
Although comments about the songs being sub par seem way out of line to me. Maybe they didn’t have the number ones that The Beatles had, but albums like Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers are essentially the blueprint for “Classic Rock.” It takes a lot more than a great vocal performance to do that.
Have you seen the DVD of the Rock & Roll Circus? It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but my memory is that the extras have a great interview with Pete Townshend. In it he talks about how the filming went way over schedule and pushed the Stones performance into the early hours of the next morning. Pete talks about how Mick still manages to bring everything he’s got, everything the song needs, and send it right into the camera lens. As machinery writes, Mick can also bring that kind of focus to a microphone in an empty studio. It’s really extraordinary.
And, interestingly, the Stones held this show from release until the ’90’s because they felt the Who performance out-shined theirs.
Another obvious choice for the hardest working singer would be Freddy Mercury. The success of a lot of Queen’s material depends on exactly how excessive Freddy’s going to get.
And I think you are giving Mick a pass on those times he tries too hard and slips into his blackface and country-fried voices.
I can’t argue about Jagger but IMHO it’s always about the singer and the bands who realize that and don’t compete with the concept generally achieve the ol’ “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” thing. The Stones work it.
Machinery mentions the second guitar and I vote yes. Ron Wood looks cool when he plays.
Having said all that, the exception to the singer rule is Derek St. Holmes. Even there, try as Uncle Ted might to make it all about the guitar, the vocals carry a song like “Stranglehold”. Can you imagine the eggshells he has to walk on in order to feed the audience while not upstaging Nugent and pissing his alpha ass off? That’s a pickle. Derek St. Holmes, the hardest working singer in Rock.
Good one! Never having liked Nugent but always liking that one song, I had no idea that guy existed until last year. Why doesn’t he have a reality show?
Also a great suggestion. He’s so good and works so hard that he’s my favorite singer that I don’t actually like.
Hitting on a couple points here, so I’ll break out of the conversation threads.
I do think The Who beat the Stones on Rock ‘n Roll Circus, but I also happen to think that version of “A Quick One” is the greatest live rock performance of all time. That said, it was a total band effort, not just Daltrey, while the Stones’ underrated performance on their own show is, as BigSteve notes above, a tribute to Jagger going to work and being flat-out amazing.
Really, I’m with Jagger all the way on this topic. Is there a Stones song where the rest of the band nailed it, but Jagger let them down on vocals? I can’t think of one, but I can think of some lesser songs that Mick carried across the finish line by force of his Jaggerosity. “Emotional Rescue”? “Fool to Cry”? Nobody in the band drops the ball in either case (and Ron Wood’s bass is 1A on Emotional Rescue), but it’s totally Jagger who makes those work, right?
Could anybody else in any other band pull off either of those? And before you answer, please imagine your choice handling “Y’know, I got a worrrrrrrrmaaaaaan”, “I’m a certified fool!” or pretty much anything in Emotional Rescue.
Add on that Jagger had to dance during most songs, and was also the band’s stage director and CEO of Rolling Stones, Inc. (and whatever his singing talent is, nobody in rock is better in their band’s stage director and CEO roles than Jagger) and I don’t think there’s really any competition.
But! From a pure singing standpoint, Fogerty and Freddie Mercury are contenders who need to be accounted for. Fogerty has less range than either of them, but he never lets up on the gas in any CCR songs. Even a slower song like “Long As I Can See The Light” still has him shredding his voice the same way he does in something like “Traveling Band”. The fact that Fogerty is going full throttle on every song is kind of the whole concept behind Fogerty Syndrome, isn’t it? That he doesn’t know how to work any way other than going all out?
Mercury is the most talented of the three, and nobody could accuse him of taking any songs off. He’s got more range than either Jagger or Fogerty, and while I could see Mick slapping on his Countryface voice to do some CCR numbers and Fogerty handling “It’s All Over Now” or “Time Is On My Side” and the like, I can’t imagine either of them doing Mercury’s job. Meanwhile, “Emotional Rescue” would probably be a cakewalk for Freddie Mercury.
Factor in that he’s doing a lot of the stage work that Mick does (and jumping onto the piano every now and then), I think Mercury has similar degree of difficulty (though he doesn’t do what Jagger does in terms of an actual stage director, as we’ve seen in many Stones performances). If there’s anything that hurts Mercury’s case, it’s that Brian May usually gets an equal chance to shine on most Queen songs, which Keith doesn’t always need/want/take. This could be seen as either relieving the burden on Mercury, or forcing him to up his game to match May’s trademark style.
Good stuff, magicman! I’m glad people are bringing Fogerty into consideration. He’s like that rare heat-throwing closer who also happens to have pinpoint control. I hate to bring this baseball player into the conversation, but considering that he also seemed to have a chip on his shoulder for no apparent reason, would Billy Wagner be a point of reference?
“I also happen to think that version of “A Quick One” is the greatest live rock performance of all time.”
I wholeheartedly concur.
Aren’t you going to bring up all the songs Jagger ruins for you with his faux blues voice? Like say, 2/3 of Exile?
You would think I would, right? The thing is, he even works his ass off to ruin those songs!
I don’t know why they thought that. That Who performance is a pretentious piece of shit.
Wow, beside my wife I think you’re the first person I’ve heard who’s not impressed by that performance.
Pppppppppppppppppttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttt……………
She’s got good taste! I’ve always thought that was one of the dumbest things I ever saw.
I like Fogerty way to much to want to compare him to Billy Wagner, but they both seem to have a scorched earth policy with any teams/bands they parted ways, don’t they?
2000 Man, did you ever go through a British comedy phase? Monty Python or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or something? That kind of thing can make the funny falsetto voices in “Quick One” more palatable.
Also you have all four members of the Who going full-tilt, without any deadweight like Brian Jones at death’s door, or an even less charismatic Bill Wyman.
Weird. The Venn diagram representing the musical taste of 2K Man and me would reveal a lot of overlapping songs. I wouldn’t have guessed that this would not be one of them.
I know, that’s why I truly regretted bringing Wags into the discussion – but you can understand why I had to.
Maybe the Rock n Roll Circus incident with The Who deserves a chapter in eagerly anticipated “History or Rock n Roll According to the Stones” the 2000 has been working on.
I think the Who and the Stones were friendly rivals in the 60’s. I have heard the Who doing “Under My Thumb” for some benefit to get Jagger and Richard released from drug charges.
Yep, and I believe they also did “The Last Time.”
thirded…
I love British Comedy. Hitchhikers Guide and Monty Python are absolute favorites, and so is The Young Ones. I just thought A Quick One was a terrible song, and it’s just awful from start to finish.
I’d have to agree! Maybe this is on the line of one of the circles?
Mick carries “Emotional Rescue”? You’re kidding, right? The Stones are already among the worst when it comes to major bands doing soul, and Mick’s laughable efforts to sound “black” push the song into pure parody. He torpedoes a fair number of post-classic Stones sounds with his posing.
Does the focus on musicians from the 70’s reflect that there are no hard-working singers from the 80’s, 90’s and beyond? Or is it our site’s focus?
Would you include the Riot Grrls with the group? PJ Harvey? Bjork’s voice is amazing and I don’t really think of her music, just her voice (esp. with the Sugarcubes). I’m not a big fan of the Heartless Bastards’ music but Erika Wennerstrom makes the band.
I don’t mean to be too contrary but just asking what you all think…
Does hard working indicate emotive? Or what about the singers working their hardest to tamp down the histrionics and turn up the chill? I’d nominate Karen Carpenter here.
I don’t like turning up the Chill. Amplifier knobs should only go one way. There should be no turning back!
Erika Wennerstrom was terrific when I saw them. I haven’t heard her new band, and I’m not sure why she dropped the old guys. I like her first album a lot, but everything I’ve heard after really has a sameness to it that gets old. A guitar solo one in awhile wouldn’t hurt, ya know?
I think there’s plenty of hard working people out there these days, like The Arcade Fire or (if just constantly working is any indication) John McCauley. They don’t command the attention that Bono or Jagger gets, though.
And just because, this is like my favorite song in the world this month: http://youtu.be/1nEEoOstfpA
I’m a big Stones guy, but I gotta say that even Jagger’s little Satan “tattoo” from “R&R Circus” has to give it up to ass-less chaps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1MhFK1XS1c
ladymiss, you raise some good questions that will lead into a similar thread I’ve been kicking around since last week. I think people like Polly Jean Harvey and Bjork ARE the show, especially since the former blurred the supposed line between herself and her band. (“PJ Harvey Is a Band” button notwithstanding.) I would agree that she was the only thing worth hearing when she was part of the Sugarcubes.
I can’t speak for any of the Rrrrriot Girrrrrls, or however I’m supposed to spell that term. Most of that stuff held little appeal for me, so for me the singers’ efforts were for naught.
I only know Heartless Bastards’ first album, and I would agree that the singer made those songs. That said, the band does not yet have a wide, popular catalog showing numerous songs she pulled across the finish line, so I can’t put her in contention with rock’s titans.
I don’t even like REM and I only like U2 a bit, but I’d say Stipe and Bono deserve consideration. REM, for instance, would sound like a billion other bands if I didn’t have Stipe (usually) annoying the crap out of me. Thom Yorke of Radiohead has a similar effect on me.
More recently, I didn’t like White Stripes, but Jack White worked his ass off to sell a song. They were, technically, a band. Like Erika Wennerstrom in Heartless Bastards, there’s a husky-voiced woman singer in the Detroit Cobras (if they’re even around anymore) who could “turn garbarge into gold,” as the Philadelphia 76ers’ play-by-play man might say. Singers like that should not be discounted, but I still think Jagger, operating on a major stage, was the best at this.
DLR did, indeed, work overtime to make Van Halen tolerable at times.
I’d like to nominate Alexmagic’s “Jaggerosity” for the Hall encyclopedia.
Mr. Royale just mentioned singers that work TOO hard: he nominates Chris Martin who seems to be working much much much too hard. Add to this list Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes). And the nomination for the biggest overly hard-working singer: Anthony Followill of Kings of Leon.
Robert Plant brings overwrought to overwork.
I don’t disagree that it’s parody, though I think he’s a bit more all over the map on what he’s parodying this time out, beyond his usual vocal blackface/countryface bits. I mean, the “fine Araba chaaaaargaaaah!” bit is Jagger doing Bugs Bunny doing Charles Boyer, isn’t it?
It’s just that, if you play that song – disco bass, sleazy sax and “you could be mine you could be mine all mine” lyrics and all – as a straight number, it’s not going to be any good anyway. But when Mick Jagger decides to do that same song basically in character as Pepe LePew, he transforms a probably forgettable dud into something that’s actually pretty funny and memorable. And that, to me, is a sign of the lead singer doing the dirty work for the rest of the band, as it were.
Whether this was a healthy direction for the Stones in the long run or not (and I think we both agree that it wasn’t) is a different question entirely.
Hmm, I’m not sure I’d be able to define Jaggerosity beyond “that state of being Mick Jagger”.
Maybe it would have to be one of those entries that defines it by showing what it’s not (as in, what Steven Tyler or various other pretenders to the throne did and didn’t do that prevented them from achieving true Jaggerosity.)
You’re right about the wrong direction. In 1970, the Stones were dangerous. They were frightening. Altamont, “Sympathy For the Devil”, “Gimme Shelter”, drugs, decadence. Unlike the Beatles, there wasn’t the least thing cuddly about them. By 1980, the Stones were dissipated aging farts who couldn’t scare a three-year-old, so they resorted to coasting and self-mockery as a last resort.
It’s like trying to define the taste of chocolate or coffee.
I’d define it as “A lead singer’s ability to put the band on his/her back to make a song what it is, either good or bad.”
Rachel Nagy is terrific. I think The Detroit Cobras could be just about any decent group of musicians, but Rachel is terrific. They have less than a handful of original songs, and she manages to make them all her own.
I saw Kings of Leon at The Beachland here in Cleveland. They had a night off their U2 tour and played there, in a 500 capacity room. It was summer, and it was HOT. They really tore it up and Followill didn’t seem any harder working than the other Followill’s. They did just give up, though. Like I said, it was HOT in there, and I think they just kind of ran out of gas. I know I was pretty wiped out. I’ve never seen their newer stuff, though.
I couldn’t disagree more. How do you stay frightening unless you commit some act of violence? Would you have had them sacrificing goats onstage?
Emotional Rescue is a fun dance song, and Jagger is hilarious on it. I’d love to see them play this live.
Count me on Team Rescue. Humor was always a part of the Stones. The “dangerous” thing is played up more than necessary.
I think the Stones were frightened rather than frightening.
These sad attempts at Soviet-style historical revisionism are baffling to say the least. As is your like of “Emotional Rescue”. It’s a terrible song from a band in sad decline.
II think telling people that they’re wrong to like a fun song is what’s sad.
I think the idea that “Emotional Resue” is a fun song is what’s sad.