Mick Jagger – Primitive Cool Review

What does it mean to be cool? Mick Jagger should know. He fronted The Rolling Stones and has an immeasurable energy which still finds him strutting around on stage to this day. When the swagger left him, and when it returned, is easy to document. Primitive Cool is certainly a basic understanding of what it means to be contemporary but with an edge of interest. It has none of that charisma itself but at least it notes what needs to be done. Jagger was, in the meantime, playing catch-up with a pop-rock genre showing very little interest in him, bar a stuffy collaboration with David Bowie. This is no Dancing in the Street, though the limited quality strikes a similarity between the projects. Primitive Cool is a last gasp from Jagger to make something of his solo efforts. He would reform The Rolling Stones soon less than two years after Primitive Cool’s release. 

Though the pop-rock tone would infect and thrive through Primitive Cool there are reasons to listen. Opener Throwaway is a sharp guitar-led piece which has all the punchy brilliance of those high points for the genre. But it is a once-in-a-blue-moon experience, something the genre would eventually be unable to move along from and eventually die under. Nostalgic tones but without the memories for a listener to associate with them. At least Jagger is having fun, and for all the loved-up status checks heard on Primitive Cool, at least Throwaway is keen to profile and punch against the gluttonous touring style. And then it all falls apart. Let’s Work holds the trouble with Jagger as a solo act. He has nobody to pull him down, to make him revise his lyrics or to mock him for those hatchet jobs he makes of general culture. Man and woman seen at odds with some backing vocalists to match his grunts and hums is all he can offer here, and it gets worse.  

More should be expected from Primitive Cool given the talent within. Jeff Beck features on guitar while the legendary saxophonist Bill Davis shows up too. They are all wasted here as Jagger uses the same machinery that made the Seinfeld bass riff. This is what David Byrne would do if he had not been moved by salsa dancing. He may make a note of the controversies he endured on Radio Control but the non-specifics, the limited bassline clicking into place, it lacks the detail Jagger had promised on the opening song. It appears he is all spent on anecdotes after that five-minute introduction. The rest is filler. A truly erratic album where a few pangs of interest do not stop the overwhelming mess of pop at the time. Potential on Say You Will is eroded by the laziness which comes from those optimistic guitar riffs, of those electric duds, the emulation of strings and in turn the manipulation of the heart.  

Sparks of brilliance from Jagger’s writing are smothered by the sound of the times. From a title track which feels guttural in its truth to a B-Side that has very little of instrumental interest. Jagger is a fine writer and parts of Primitive Cool are well worth wading through. It would work better without the backdrop of his keenness for the 1980s pop aesthetic. This could have, like Keith Richards maintained with his solo works, challenged the norm with the slick frontman kicking against the popular pricks. It was not to be and the fundamental desire to stay relevant, to circle the in-crowd, was too much for Jagger to fight against. Instead, he becomes part of a dull group and it reduces the quality of projects like Primitive Cool. A heartbreaking result given the overwhelming quality of his writing in spots.