Aftermath (Rolling Stones album)
Aftermath is a studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. The group recorded the album at RCA Studios in California in December 1965 and March 1966, during breaks between their international tours. It was released in the United Kingdom on 15 April 1966 by Decca Records and in the United States in late June or early July 1966 by London Records. It is the band's fourth British and sixth American studio album, and closely follows a series of international hit singles that helped bring the Stones newfound wealth and fame rivalling that of their contemporaries the Beatles.
Aftermath
Aftermath is considered by music scholars to be an artistic breakthrough for the Rolling Stones. It is their first album to consist entirely of original compositions, all of which were credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The band's original leader Brian Jones reemerged as a key contributor and experimented with instruments not usually associated with popular music, including the sitar, Appalachian dulcimer, Japanese koto and marimbas, as well as playing guitar and harmonica. Along with Jones' instrumental textures, the Stones incorporated a wider range of chords and stylistic elements beyond their Chicago blues and R&B influences, such as pop, folk, country, psychedelia, Baroque and Middle Eastern music. Influenced by intense love affairs, tensions within the group and a demanding touring itinerary, Jagger and Richards wrote the album around psychodramatic themes of love, sex, desire, power and dominance, hate, obsession, modern society and rock stardom. Women feature as prominent characters in their often dark, sarcastic, casually offensive lyrics.
The album's release was briefly delayed by controversy over the original packaging idea and title – Could You Walk on the Water? – due to the London label's fear of offending Christians in the US with its allusion to Jesus walking on water. In response to the lack of creative control, and without another idea for the title, the Stones bitterly settled on Aftermath, and two different photos of the band were used for the cover to each edition of the album. The UK release featured a run-time of more than 52 minutes, the longest for a popular music LP up to that point. The American edition was issued with a shorter track listing, substituting the single "Paint It Black"[nb 1] in place of four of the British version's songs, in keeping with the industry preference for shorter LPs in the US market at the time.
Aftermath was an immediate commercial success in both the UK and the US, topping the British albums chart for eight consecutive weeks and eventually achieving platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. An inaugural release of the album era and a rival to the contemporaneous impact of the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965), it reflected the youth culture and values of 1960s Swinging London and the burgeoning counterculture while attracting thousands of new fans to the Rolling Stones. The album was also highly successful with critics, although some listeners were offended by the derisive attitudes towards female characters in certain songs. Its subversive music solidified the band's rebellious rock image while pioneering the darker psychological and social content that glam rock and British punk rock would explore in the 1970s. Aftermath has since been considered the most important of the Stones' early, formative music and their first classic album, frequently ranking on professional lists of the greatest albums.
Music and composition[edit]
According to the musicologist David Malvinni, Aftermath is the culmination of the Rolling Stones' stylistic development dating back to 1964, a synthesis of previously explored sounds from the blues, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul, folk rock and pop ballads.[43] Margotin and Guesdon go further in saying the album shows the Stones to be free from influences that had overwhelmed their earlier music, specifically the band's Chicago blues roots. Instead, they say, the record features an original style of art rock that resulted from Jones' musical experimentation and draws not only on the blues and rock but also pop, R&B, country, Baroque, classical and world music.[44] Musical tones and scales from English lute song and Middle Eastern music feature among Aftermath's riff-based rock and blues (in both its country and urban forms).[45] While still considering it a blues rock effort, Tom Moon likens the music to a collaboration between the art rock band the Velvet Underground and the Stax house band.[46] Jagger echoes these sentiments in a 1995 interview for Rolling Stone, regarding it as a stylistically diverse work and milestone for him that "finally laid to rest the ghost of having to do these very nice and interesting, no doubt, but still, cover versions of old R&B songs – which we didn't really feel we were doing justice, to be perfectly honest".[47]
Along with their 1967 follow-up, Between the Buttons, Aftermath is cited by Malvinni as part of the Rolling Stones' pop-rock period as it features a chordal range more diverse and inclusive of minor chords than their blues-based recordings.[48] According to Kevin Courrier, the Stones use "softly intricate" arrangements that lend the record a "seductive ambience" similar to Rubber Soul, particularly on "Lady Jane", "I Am Waiting", "Under My Thumb" and "Out of Time".[49] The latter two songs, among Aftermath's more standard pop-rock titles, are often-cited examples of Jones interweaving unconventional instruments and quirky sounds into the album's sonic character, his use of the marimba featured on both.[50] In the opinion of Philip Norman, Jones' varied contributions give Aftermath both the "chameleon colours" associated with Swinging London fashion and a "visual quality" unlike any other Stones album.[33] Robert Christgau says the texture of the Stones' blues-derived hard rock is "permanently enriched" as Jones "daub[s] on occult instrumental [colours]", Watts "mold[s] jazz chops to rock forms", Richards "rock[s] roughly on" and the band "as a whole learn[s] to respect and exploit (never revere) studio nuance"; Wyman's playing here is described by Moon as the "funkiest" on a Stones LP.[51]
Citing individual songs, Rolling Stone describes Aftermath as "an expansive collection of tough riffs ('It's Not Easy') and tougher acoustic blues ('High and Dry'); of zooming psychedelia ('Paint It Black'), baroque-folk gallantry ('I Am Waiting') and epic groove (the eleven minutes of 'Goin' Home')".[52] Jon Savage also highlights the stylistic diversity of the album, saying that it "range[s] from modern madrigals ('Lady Jane'), music-hall ragas ('Mother's Little Helper'), strange, curse-like dirges ('I Am Waiting') and uptempo pop ('Think') to several bone-dry blues mutations ('High and Dry', 'Flight 505' [and] 'Going Home')".[53] The first four songs of Aftermath's US edition – "Paint It Black", "Stupid Girl", "Lady Jane" and "Under My Thumb" – are identified by the music academic James Perone as its most explicit attempts to transcend the blues-based rock and roll conventions of the Stones' past. He also notes how Richards' guitar riff and solo on the latter track are "minimalistic, in a fairly low tessitura and relatively emotionless", compared to previous Stones hits like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud" and "19th Nervous Breakdown".[54]
Legacy[edit]
Cultural impact[edit]
Aftermath is considered the most important of the Rolling Stones' early albums.[127] It was an inaugural release of the album era, during which the LP replaced the single as the primary product and form of artistic expression in popular music.[128] As with Rubber Soul, the extent of Aftermath's commercial success foiled the music industry's attempts to re-establish the LP market as the domain of wealthier, adult record-buyers – a plan that had been driven by the industry's disapproval of the uncouth image associated with Jagger and their belief that young record-buyers were more concerned with singles.[129] In Malvinni's opinion, Aftermath was "the crucial step for the Stones' conquering of the pop world and their much-needed answer" to Rubber Soul, which had similarly embodied the emergence of youth culture in popular music during the mid-1960s.[130][nb 12] With their continued commercial success, the Stones joined the Beatles and the Who as one of the few rock acts who were able to follow their own artistic direction and align themselves with London's elite bohemian scene without alienating the wider youth audience or appearing to compromise their working-class values.[133] Speaking on the cultural impact of Aftermath's British release in 1966, Margotin and Guesdon say it was, "in a sense, the soundtrack of Swinging London, a gift to hip young people" and "one of the brightest stars of the new culture (or counterculture) that was to reach its zenith the following year in the Summer of Love".[134]
Track listing[edit]
UK edition[edit]
All tracks are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.[nb 15]
Side one
Credits are from the 2002 CD booklet and contributions listed in Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon's book All the Songs, except where noted otherwise.[176]
The Rolling Stones
Additional musicians
Additional personnel