Mick Jagger says The Rolling Stones missed the chance to go ‘radical’ on one album

A chance to make a “radical” album was missed by The Rolling Stones, according to frontman Mick Jagger.

The missed opportunity is still a sore spot for the veteran frontman, who shared the initial plan for an out-there sound during an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine founder, Jann Wenner. Jagger, who broke down his career with the veteran publisher, confirmed there were plans to continue evolving the sound of The Rolling Stones which never came to be. When writing Voodoo Lounge, Jagger claimed that choices made by producer Don Was were mistakes and led the album to feel more like a pastiche of Exile on Main Street than a project which could stand on its own. Though Jagger says he is “quite pleased” with the results of Voodoo Lounge, he believes the album could have gone further, but gave up fighting with other members of the band for the desired sound.

In an interview with Wenner, Jagger said: “…there were a lot of things that we wrote for Voodoo Lounge that Don [Was, the record’s producer] steered us away from: groove songs, African influences and things like that. And he steered us very clear of all that. And I think it was a mistake.

“He tried to remake Exile on Main Street or something like that. Plus, the engineer was also trying to do the same thing. Their mindset about it was just too retro. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it inherently, but they went over the top; they’d gone too far.”

Jagger went on to say his opposition to the “retro” sound was shared with Charlie Watts, the veteran drummer who died in 2021. The frontman and long-serving drummer eventually relented, though, as they could see how Voodoo Lounge and the similar sounds would be “successful”.

Jagger added: “No, I didn’t really fight it in the end. I gave up because there was no point in it. I think both Charlie and I didn’t really like it, but we could see that that was the direction you could go, and it might be successful. I don’t think it really was that successful, because I don’t think there’s any point in having these over-retro references.

“I think it was an opportunity missed to go in another direction, which would have been more unusual, a little more radical, although it’s always going to sound like the Rolling Stones.”

Even with the problems of similar-sounding music, Jagger went on to praise the album and focused on the positives that came from working on Voodoo Lounge. He shared: “There’s a good variety of songs. It’s not overelaborate. You get a feeling of really being there, and it’s quite intimate in nature.

“The ballads are rather nice, and then the rock & roll numbers kick quite well and sound enthusiastic – like we’re into it. I think it’s a good frame of reference for what the Rolling Stones were about during that quite limited time in Ireland in that year. It’s very much a kind of time-and-place album. In that way, I was quite pleased with the results.”