It's Only Rock and Roll, But I Like It.

The Rolling Stones are the greatest rock and roll band of all time. There is no question about it. I have always been a huge admirer and fan of the band but it wasn't until recently that I actually sat down and listened to all of their studio albums. Unlike other bands of their generation, The Beatles, The Doors, The Beach Boys etc I wasn't as familiar with their albums. The Stones have an impressive greatest hits, at least fifty songs that every person on the planet knows, yet their albums and deep cuts, I feel, are less familiar to the masses. Recently I have immersed myself deep into their back catalogue, from the very beginning. This article seeks to make some sense of the breadth and diversity of the greatest rock and roll band’s discography and career.

The early Stones records (The Rolling Stones, No 2 and Out of Our Heads) are blues records, plain and simple. A band fascinated and in love with the blues and the history of American music, each album a series of covers from the greats. It’s fascinating that all music can be traced back to the American blues, yet it was the British bands of the 1960's, particularly the Beatles and the Stones that gave back to America that which it already had. The roots of American blues music would re-emerge and define an entire generation and with it, incidentally, create an entirely new animal, Rock and Roll. Those early records are vital in the Stones discography as they capture their passion and raucous love affair with American roots music, the hysteria that followed the band almost from day one can be felt in the energy captured in those early recordings. Everything that would emerge in later years is established from the very beginning, Jagger’s charisma and wild sex appeal, the great rhythm section of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, and that iconic guitar style that would define Keith Richards for a lifetime to come was based solely on the old blues players from Robert Johnson to Howlin’ Wolf, B.B King, Muddy Waters, the list goes on. Those early records of '64 and early '65 captured a mania that would catapult the band into the stratosphere. All they had to do now was write their own songs.

By 1965 the band had capitalised on their own popularity and the ever present invasion of British bands making it in America, and in the shadow of Beatlemania, the Stones - or better yet Jagger and Richards - began writing their own songs. Starting with ‘The Last Time’ and ‘Satisfaction’ the Stones became one of the biggest bands on the planet, and the Jagger/Richards writing partnership was established. Despite a string of enormous hit singles and a popularity that would not slow down, the period between 1965-1967 was a curious one for the Stones in regards to their studio albums. Despite their superstardom, some could argue the albums suffered. The frenetic passion of the blues present in those early recordings all but disappeared as the 60's took on a life of its own, and celebrities and rock stars, actors and pop stars would define a decade by how they dressed, what they did, and who they were seen with.

There is a notable difference between the early records and what would become ‘Aftermath’, ‘Between the Buttons’ and ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’. Those first records were recorded by five working class guys from London, yet by 1965 those working class guys were rock stars, and the most famous people on the planet. The DNA of the 60's, undeniable, from London to New York, had seeped its way into the lives of the Stones and they were no longer in control of their image or their musical output. They were merely bobbing along an endless river of cultural fads, fame, money, women and a lifestyle completely specific to time and place. Those records don’t necessarily exhibit the personalities of the artists, but more the personality of the 60's. The influence of The Beatles and their dominion over popular culture is present in every melody, every jangle and every song. Bob Dylan and artists like The Beach Boys again have somehow seeped into the minds of the artists and influenced their music, creating fascinating artefacts of a time, but to the detriment of the Stones true artistic voice.

Apart from ‘Paint it Black’ and ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ the Stones barely created a memorable, defining song during this period. It’s as if fame and celebrity and the plasticity of the times had eclipsed their creative spirit and individuality. This is present most plainly on the - lets face it - dreadful ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’. Released in 1967, a blatant attempt at recreating the success of the Beatles ‘Sgt. Peppers’, the album was a product of the hippie generation and absolutely devoid of artistry, the culmination of fame and the love generation, which thankfully was short lived. This was the only foray into psychedelia the Stones ever made, and thank God. This period documents the Stones lofty heights of fame and success, but their greatest music wouldn't emerge until their egos came down from the clouds.

By 1968 it appeared the Stones were growing tired of fame and celebrity, and the hippie thing was almost dying out. The albums that followed are defined as the ‘Golden Age’ of the Stones and rightly so. Once again drawing heavily on their roots as a blues band and using the roots of American music to form their sound, from country to gospel, rock and roll to bluegrass, the band released the immortal ‘Beggars Banquet’ (1968) and ‘Let it Bleed’ (1969). It is apparent on these recordings the disillusionment of Brian Jones, his soul clearly remained somewhere in 1967, never to return. It was at this point that it is clear that Keith Richards took creative control of the bands sound, and produced the sound that would define the bands legacy forever. From ‘Gimme Shelter’ to ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, from ‘Honky Tonk Women’ to ‘Street Fighting Man’ the Stones re-emerged, more muscular, more physical, a sound rooted in blues and rock and roll. It is at this point that The Rolling Stones become the greatest rock and roll band of all time.

After the death of Bryan Jones and with it the 1960's and the love generation, the 70's ushered in a more visceral experience for everybody alive, and the music continued in a similar fashion. The Stones 9^th album ‘Sticky Fingers’ (1971) and the seminal masterwork ‘Exile on Main Street’ (1972), brought a close to a tumultuous decade of relentless touring and writing, that ended a chapter that will always be their greatest. By 1972 the Stones along with most of their peers, had created their best work and the artistry and immediacy that defined the previous ten years would soon be replaced by garish pop music, disco, funk, prog rock and of course punk rock. The Stones from 1962-1972 were fundamentally at their absolute greatest and they would never return to such status thereafter.

Despite their career continuing for more than another 40 years after ‘Exile on Main Street’ - the Stones are still touring to this day - the greatness they reached in the 60's would go onto become a parody of itself. As pop and rock music in the late 70's and 80's became pantomime and the rock bands became ‘stadium rock bands’, the artistry of the 60's - furthered by a cultural tension like an atomic bomb daring to go off any second - killed off almost all of the art from rock music, leaving in its wake the glare of lights, glitter and spandex. By the 80's the Stones could effortlessly play a greatest hits set to a million people for the rest of their lives. There was no longer any urgency to create vital music that could change the world. The world had changed, for the worse.

The only exception to this in the Stones discography is 1978’s ‘Some Girls’, their last hurrah. Released in the wake of punk rock and the height of disco and glam, ‘Some Girls’ was the Stones last stab at being relevant in a rapidly changing musical landscape. One that would leave all artists of the 60's as relics of a time that had little bearing on the reinvigoration of a late 70's youth who just wanted to dance. ‘Some Girls’ is a fantastic record, and not forgetting, The Stones most commercially successful album selling over 8 million records. After Exile and the relative flops that were ‘Goats Head Soup’ (1973), ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ (1974) and ‘Black and Blue’ (1976), the Stones desperately needed a hit album that would re-launch them back into the public consciousness and solidify their legacy as the greatest. ‘Some Girls’ was that album. The influence of glam and the spirit of punk rock is all over the record, in their absence from popularity the airwaves had been dominated by this new sound. The likes of David Bowie, Lou Reed and T Rex have laid down a blueprint to a type of music that is ultra sexual and far groovier than the blues. This gender bending identity that defined Bowie’s seminal work, as well Lou Reed’s is present throughout ‘Some Girls’. That New York influence is straight out of 1972, from the New York Dolls and Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’. Listen to ‘Shattered’ and then listen to ‘Vicious’ by Lou Reed. It’s uncanny. Yet songs like ‘Lies’ and ‘Respectable’ draw on the visceral nature of punk and the carnage it craved.

‘Some Girls’ was a success. It rebranded the Stones, repackaged them, and made them relevant and astronomically successful in a decade that didn't represent them. But ‘Some Girls’ was to be their last hurrah. It is undeniably the last record they made with the fire in their guts to remain a young and hungry, vital band before they forever became synonymous with legendary status. Relics of the 60's, which the 80's and beyond would define them as, allowing them immortality and the freedom to sell out stadiums all over the world in the blink of an eye. The Rolling Stones are the greatest rock and roll band of all time. It is undeniable. But the Rolling Stones that changed the world existed for a much shorter time. Sometime around 1978, when the punk movement died, music stopped changing the world, and had to settle for just changing lives.

Desolation Sounds

When Frank Carter left Gallows in 2011 the band were met with scepticism and dismissal over their decision to move forward with Wade MacNeil as their new front man. Long term fans criticised MacNeil before they had even heard a single note of new music, and maintained that Gallows would never be able to live up to the greatness they had already cemented with Frank Carter and their first two iconic albums. As new music started to emerge in late 2011 this scepticism continued and many wrote Gallows off as sounding too generic, and becoming a typical hardcore band, indistinguishable from the next. Many claimed MacNeil, though a great singer, lacked the charisma and ferocious tenacity that Frank had, making their live shows suffer, and by doing so weakening their name and their legacy. As time progressed and Gallows released their eponymous third album, their debut with MacNeil, many fans argued that despite the albums cut throat, violent punk sound, it just wasn’t Gallows without Frank Carter and that they should drop the name altogether. However upon the release of their fourth album, Desolation Sounds, their second with Wade MacNeil, Gallows remain as united as ever, a gang, defiant, not deterred by public opinion.

Gallows as a band, since their inception, have come to represent the embodiment of the punk spirit, free to do whatever they want and not answering to nobody. That has not changed. The band are known for their violent, bleak, nihilistic brand of punk rocknroll and their live shows are unrivalled, filling dingy clubs across the world with such volatile chaos, no band can teeter on the edge of destruction and annihilation the way that Gallows can. Their nihilistic attitude and angular frenzied noise is present on each of their four records. However the defining characteristic of what makes Gallows ‘Gallows’ isn’t their sound or the music they play, but the attitude they have regarding it. They are not punk because they sound punk. They are punk because they do what they want. It is by this definition that the name Gallows must stay intact, no matter who is singing for them and no matter what their music sounds like. Each record, though different and hugely diverse, pushes the boundaries of what punk rock can be. The four Gallows albums are not unified by sound, but the knowledge that only Gallows can be responsible of creating such music. Their music is aggressive, violent, chaotic, bleak, melancholy, destructive and cathartic and all those elements are still as present today as they were in 2006. The name Gallows remains because Gallows is more than a band, it is almost a brand, a seal of quality, integrity and fearless individuality.

Since joining Gallows, Wade MacNeil has time and time again proven himself to be an equally great front man, capable of not only laying down ferocious vocals on record, but cutting the mustard live too, with an equally threatening stage presence and unpredictable volatile energy that continues to make Gallows' live shows one of the best in the world, somewhere between the blurred lines of chaos and grace. With UK tours taking them back to the clubs and dives, and festival appearances all over the world, Gallows 2.0 or Gallows A.D were here to stay and they couldn’t care less about your opinion.

The bands third album, 'Gallows', where Wade finally proved to the world that not only was he worthy of your acceptance, he wasn’t asking for it. ‘Gallows’ their eponymous record is the most streamlined, hard as nails, piss n vinegar punk record the band have ever released. Gone were the heavy production nuances of ‘Grey Britain’, the orchestras and the samples, instead a visceral thirty minute fuck you to any doubters that Gallows were dead or should have stayed dead. If ‘Death is Birth’ wasn’t enough for MacNeil to prove himself, ‘Gallows’ ushered in a new chapter of the bands career and stamped out any trace of the past. Gallows were moving forward, and they were never looking back.

The Gallows we have today in 2015 are indeed an entirely new band. They are in every way different to the band that released their legendary 2006 debut ‘Orchestra of Wolves’ and generation defining ‘Grey Britain’ in 2009. The band, now a four piece and Carter-less, have intentionally divorced themselves from any association with their former selves and rebranded every facet of their aesthetic to define a new chapter in the bands career. Since MacNeil joined the band, all their artwork has been uniform, congruous and monochrome, their music videos have been entirely without the bands inclusion and their sound has grown much darker, the visual aesthetic dictating the direction of the music. Gallows in 2015 are an incredibly blackened gang; their musical influences now have more to do with black metal, Sabbath and the occult than the Pistols, the Clash or The Ruts. Yet these influences have always been there, present in the bleak orchestral arrangements of ‘Grey Britain’ and present throughout the Victorian, gothic tales of misery that that records lyrics documented. Gallows have always been a dark, heavy band, yet now, they have just comfortably found a true art form, in shining a light on those aspects of their sound, in a way that has enabled them to create the heaviest and lightest record of their career.

‘Desolation Sounds’ the bands fourth full length record, is among the bleakest and darkest of their career however despite containing some of the heaviest tracks the band have ever written it also includes much lighter songs, much more focused and pop structured, testament to a band continuing to push themselves creatively and constantly finding new ways to be heavy without being aggressive. Songs such as ‘Cease to Exist’, ‘Bonfire Season’ and ‘Death Valley Blues’ give the album an all new texture that previous records never had, the pop structure of those tracks, though accessible, allows the heaviness of the subject matter and the weight of MacNeil’s haunting words and melodies do their job without cramming the entire record with noise, distortion and violent slabs of fast punk rock. Of which there are plenty, songs such as ‘Mystic Death’, ‘Leviathon Rot’, ‘Chains’, ’93 93’ and ‘Leather Crown’ are among the heaviest the band have ever written. Gallows have artistically pushed the envelope on this record in a way they never have before. There is the impression that they are now finding creative fulfilment in the process of song writing, and creating a body of work, instead of finding it a chore to produce an album like in the past, merely thrashing out riffs to make numbers, exhausting their creativity in the process.

If ‘Desolation Sounds’ were to be the last album Gallows ever produce, they can die happy knowing that their legacy is one to be monumentally proud of. There is no such thing as a bad Gallows album, each record defines the band as it existed in that time, each are vital, progressive, timeless examples of true punk rock in a world bereft of artistry and individuality. Gallows are a truly rare type of band in the world of music today, a band with vision, passion, fire, and a creativity that simply will not fade. But more importantly than that, they are a band with purpose; vital, unparalleled, irreplaceable and immortal.

Mondo Gallows.

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Vinyl: Your turntable's not dead

In the past two years the resurgence of vinyl has increased sales of the moribund format exponentially to the point where it is now the only aspect of the music industry increasing in sales, maximising profit and continually reaching new people. What started out as a hipster fad has now gone on to dominate music sales internationally as normative means of how people of all ages buy their music, all over the world. The restoration of this superior format to its former status has restored some sense of balance to the music industry and leaves the future of the industry completely unpredictable. Will this simply be a passing phase, or is vinyl here to stay?

I personally have always bought music physically and always will do, my love affair with music started at a very young age and the ritual of desiring music, to attaining it was where the satisfaction lay. Digital music never appealed to me as it simply isn’t the genuine article. I like to buy my music not rent it. I like to be able to hold something tangible in my hands, devour its artwork and share a connection to it that feels so personal that no one else could possibly be experiencing the same thing.

I was turned on to vinyl recently, amidst the resurgence the format is currently experiencing. Is my love of vinyl genuine? Or am I just another victim of a hipster trend? Yet more idealism dogmatically sent my way through every media outlet. Probably; but I like to think however my come to finding of vinyl came to be, that my passion for the medium and my understanding of its sanctity is such that how I feel is irrelevant to how it stands amongst hipsters or yuppies as I have no encounters with such people, all I know is that every hour of everyday, my life, since I was twelve, has revolved around music: listening to it, discovering it, obsessing over it, writing about it and immersing myself in it. That hasn’t changed and with making the switch to vinyl, all I have found is that sense of connection strengthened by the tangible nature of the most physical and authentic music medium.

It doesn’t matter how good things come to be popular as long as they do. The resurgence of vinyl may have started as a niche hipster fad, but that is a teardrop in an ocean, for the source of that transition comes from a generation of dissatisfaction and a culture bereft of a tangle spiritual aspect to their lives. Impoverished of such a relationship, people will, in time find their way back to somehow expressing and fulfilling that imperative human desire to share something real and unique. This spiritual pang has been present since the vinyl vanished in the mid-nineties, and it has been dormant, waiting for that perfect moment when culture and the will of the people intersect. 

If it wasn’t for Jack White I wouldn’t be writing this right now. If not for he, I do not believe the vinyl would in anyway be dominating music sales the way it is in 2015. His contribution to the preservation of vinyl is unrivalled and his passion and sincerity in his love for the medium has made such an impact on me that I am now completely dedicated to it. For these reasons: Unlike other forms of listening to music, vinyl dictates an active participation from the listener. We are subservient to it, there is a ritual of getting the record off the shelf, dusting it off, putting it on the turntable and putting that needle down. It requires effort. Once the music begins to play, you are often physically on your knees, worshipping at its altar, and the sanctity of music, art and the recorded sound is therefore amplified, literally, into your life. The physicality of the mechanics and the moving of the record, the cracking of the record and imperfections that remain, create such an authentic and real experience that it is impossible not to form a lasting, meaningful experience with the record, as you have shared something personal and tangible with it.

We all know that watching a film on your iPhone or streaming a movie online is not the right way it should be seen, we feel fraudulent and guilty doing so, like we have just eaten half a delicious meal. The cinema is where you watch a film, and only there with the correct rituals and paraphernalia do we feel satisfied in our experience. There is no such explicit ritual dictated  in these terms for music, so we are left with a generation that are growing up entitled to music as a free commodity, that music needn’t be purchased, that it is a right. Streaming services and iTunes have all but killed an entire generations understanding of the sanctity of music and hardship of creating the art form, that it is inevitable that the music industry will die. Yet it will not, and it cannot for music is vital for all our lives in so many ways. Music makes us and saves us time and time again and the infrastructure of its distribution will merely meander with the changes of each generation like a water, it will find its way back to the source.

The reason vinyl has come back to the forefront of music again is because it is and always has been the superior format. It has never been bested. It dipped in popularity throughout the nineties and noughties due to the trend in CD sales, yet it cannot die because it is the original and only tangible way to experience something real. The sheer size of a 12” record demands your reverence and the artwork and gatefold have such an incredible allure over the buyer, it looks and is purposeful, elegant and beautiful. The science behind the creation of vinyl is so mind-bending it only demands your reverence more. This is such primordial technology, yet it has never been bested, it's over a hundred years old yet still digital technology cannot emulate and simulate the same experience. Because you cannot simulate experience and that is what vinyl is, real, tangible, beautiful, spiritual, and immortal.

I don’t know if vinyl sales will continue to dominate the 21^st century, they may not do, it is impossible to ignore the power and hold digital music has over younger generations lives, it is undoubtedly more convenient and more affordable than music has ever been before, so I'm certain that streaming services are the future. Yet I am optimistic that the two will exist together, symbiotically, and that vinyl will secure its place as a superior music format, for real fans and appreciators of good music. No matter what happens, it is life affirming to see that physical music isn’t dead yet, and that there is still hope for a tangible life experience in an otherwise entirely digital generation.