Video: “Plundered My Soul” by The Rolling Stones
The video contains a lot of great old footage of the Stones from the early 70s. Since they’re tacking this on to their upcoming Exile on Main Street reissue, it’s not surprising that they didn’t include any studio footage of 66-year-old Mick Jagger recording the brand new vocal for this song in 2009. The band hasn’t exactly been cagey about admitting this fact, but the idea that they’re attempting to pass this off as an Exile bonus track is laughable at best, and fraudulent at worst. It sounds like what it is: a 2009 Stones song. Mick just can’t leave it alone. Gotta tinker with it, don’t you? Oh well.
Rolling Stones: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki
Update: And now Mick is claiming that all of the vocals on the bonus tracks are newly recorded! What?
GQ: So this new material—my understanding is that it’s stuff that was recorded during the Exile era. How finished were the new tracks when you left them? What state were they in?
MJ: They weren’t finished. None of them had vocals on, which is probably one of the reasons they never came out or whatever. We had so many tracks, but—this is what I said to you before—I could’ve finished them, but I didn’t. Either I didn’t have any ideas, or I couldn’t be bothered or whatever—they’re unwieldy in some way. They were very much like any other Rolling Stones song then or now, to be honest. You’d listen to them and you’d go, “Okay, so that needs a vocal, and that’s the chorus, this is that.” Some were pretty much together, and some were less together. And you just treat them if they were new, to be perfectly honest. It’s always a bit odd to revisit things, but after you get used to them, it doesn’t really matter if they were done last week or thirty-five, forty years ago.
Read more at GQ.com.
Oy…
I think it sounds pretty fucking good.
I agree. I wish they’d play this one on the new tour instead of the stuff since Exile. I don’t understand that. The only decent album since then is Flashpoint which is just as good as Stocky Fingers.
Just had this discussion with Jake on this, but I kinda dig this song. I could go for a whole new Stones album like this–with Jack White producing. Get the Dap Kings on horns. Since Mick is all about celebrity duets, bring in Amy Winehouse too (though Sharon Jones would be even better).
I think I’m with Jake on this one. “Bonus tracks from Exile on Main Street” implies that they were stuck in a vault and never released…until now in 2010. Digging the bonus tracks is one thing; attaching them to a re-issue and then trying to pass them off as authentic is another.
Almost 38 years has passed since its initial release and one option might have been to just include them as unfinished demos or something. I realize Jagger’s ocd towards releases with the Stones’ name on them, but altering them in the studio in 2009 is ridiculous…unless it’s with the goal of working towards a NEW release based on old outtakes. Whatever. Where’s Bill Wyman to update his parts? ha-ha
If it sounds good (and it does), who cares about overdubs? That line “I smell rubber and soon discover that you’re gone for good” is as good as anything on the original record. Who gives a shit if was written yesterday or in 1972, really? Keith probably would have recorded Bill Wymans bass parts during the original sessions anyway.
I agree that if it sounds good, it’s good. But context does matter. And if the Stones, the label, and the publicists are trying to sell the “Deluxe Edition” of the reissue as containing unheard material from the Exile sessions–and that’s exactly what they’re doing–then it’s important to point out that some (most? all?) of these bonus tracks have significant contributions from a bunch of elderly, mostly sober gentlemen.
It might sound good. But it’s not Exile.
only Plundered has nex vox.
Mick Jagger himself admitted to writing brand new lyrics for “Following the River” so that one has new vocals too.
Don Was told NPR, regarding “Following the River” that “everything your hear on the version we released comes from 1972 except for Mick’s vocal, the backing vocals, and some strings that we put on.”
Was also says that on “So Divine,” “there are punches in the vocal, there are places where he didn’t sing the line…it’s pretty seemless.”
And I’m not convinced that “Pass the Wine” and “Dancing in the Light” don’t contain some “punches” as well…