The Rolling Stones – Black and Blue Review

They may be black and blue as the album title suggests, but The Rolling Stones should be red in the face after this release. Mick Jagger and the band undoubtedly were, bouncing back with an urgency on Some Girls completely absent from Black and Blue. At its best, this is a release of regrettable pop-rock puzzlers. Gone is the urgency that the band had an iron grip on just a few years before. In comes a repetitive, lethargic-sounding slop which threatens to collapse the very core of why listeners stuck with The Stones. Occasionally impressive instrumental work is not enough to pull Jagger from a pop attitude and interest which would capsize The Rolling Stones, and his solo career, in the 1980s. His decision to chase what was popular, and not what was true to his heart and the art he created, was a fatal blow.  

Black and Blue has some likeable features to it, but demolished houses can sometimes feature some nice-looking wallpaper. Hot Stuff is a monumental moment for The Rolling Stones for all the wrong reasons. Black and Blue releasing around the advent of punk rock does not bode well for the old guard, who here are well off the mark of their once reliable quality. Listen close or miss the emotionless Hand of Fate. Better off skipping it. What keeps these songs together is the rhythm Keith Richards brings, as usual, to the group. It was a style which was going out of fashion fast and, as he rightly found in his solo releases, was offered a better chance of survival when playing up the tropes of blues rock. But when the group drifted from that and instead engaged a form of tame pop rock, Richards is given little chance to stand out, to flourish as the member of a group who, just a few years before this release, were hot off the back of Gimme Shelter.  

A sudden reggae rock change on Cherry Oh Baby shows the band were out of options, bereft of ideas. Jagger does not suit that sub-genre of rock, but sounds absolute in abandoning the momentum and energy which cemented The Rolling Stones as a must-listen band. Memory Motel is the first shot of true emotion from the band on Black and Blue, but even then, it is too sappy to work. Jagger moaning of a love which has become a memory. At its best, Black and Blue is enjoyable if your mind is elsewhere. It means songs like Hey Negrita and Melody are instrumental backdrops rather than fully-fledged and flailing efforts from Jagger and the band. If Memory Motel is the band at their worst, Melody is the group at their best on Black and Blue, only because they have pushed away from the pop-rock idleness which plagues the rest of the album. 

Black and Blue begins to pick up once the end is in sight. Whether this is from an increase in musical quality or knowing there are fewer grooves left on the album than there were three songs ago, who knows? Likely the latter. Fool to Cry would be the best of the album if it were not for the spoken-word break Jagger offers, the “daddy” repetition which links only tangibly to the rest of the song, stealing away from some sweet instrumental work carried out by Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts. This is one of the first times The Rolling Stones feels more like a Jagger and friends project, but that is what happens when you bring in a wave of new session musicians to carve out a new identity. Billy Preston can only do so much, and it is not enough to save Black and Blue.