The Rolling Stones’ ‘landmark’ record that Mick Jagger says ‘laid to rest the ghost’ of one thing

Follow Cult Following

Get more of our coverage in Google.

A “landmark” record “laid to rest the ghost” a big problem for The Rolling Stones, according to Mick Jagger.

The veteran musician was asked if Aftermath stood out in his mind for the selection of songs it featured. The Rolling Stones’ Paint It, Black-featuring album released on April 15, 1966, and was seen as a turning point for the band by Jagger. He described the album as “nice and interesting” but says it fell short of what the band could have done. Had there been more “maturity” to it, Jagger says the album would have been much better. He shared his thoughts on Aftermath with Rolling Stone Magazine founder Jann Wenner in a tell-all interview about his life as the leading man of The Rolling Stones. Despite the shortcomings of the album explained by Jagger, he says it’s a “real marker” in his mind for the band’s progress.

He said: “That was a big landmark record for me. It’s the first time we wrote the whole record and 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, particularly because we didn’t have the maturity. Plus, everyone was doing it.

“[Aftermath] has a very wide spectrum of music styles: Paint It, Black was this kind of Turkish song; and there were also very bluesy things like Goin’ Home; and I remember some sort of ballads on there. It had a lot of good songs, it had a lot of different styles, and it was very well recorded. So it was, to my mind, a real marker.”

Despite it being a “real marker” of quality for the band, it would be followed up by a series of records Jagger thinks little of. Both Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request were released in 1967, and Jagger has few fond memories of either record.

Jagger believes Between the Buttons “lost its sound” in the studio because of four-track machines and too many overdubs. The veteran frontman was a lot more frank with his comments on Their Satanic Majesties Request, simply saying it’s “not very good” and a “really silly” release in their discography.

He shared: “Well, it’s not very good. It had interesting things on it, but I don’t think any of the songs are very good. It’s a bit like Between the Buttons. It’s a sound experience, really, rather than a song experience. There’s two good songs on it. She’s a Rainbow, which we didn’t do on the last tour, although we almost did, and 2000 Light Years From Home, which we did do. The rest of them are nonsense.

“I think we were just taking too much acid. We were just getting carried away, just thinking anything you did was fun and everyone should listen to it. The whole thing, we were on acid. We were on acid doing the cover picture. I always remember doing that.

“It was like being at school, you know, sticking on the bits of colored paper and things. It was really silly. But we enjoyed it. Also, we did it to piss Andrew [Loog Oldham] off, because he was such a pain in the neck. Because he didn’t understand it. The more we wanted to unload him, we decided to go on this path to alienate him.”