OUT OF OUR HEADS - THE ROLLING STONES @ 60

A slash of guitar opens fire with a sharply falling riff. As if it wasn't heard, it happens again. Jagger comes in with the rest of the band and they're off, swinging and loping around like a holy rolling preacher and his congregation except it's all about a girl and the pitch is already manic with the band rushing along with the shout of the vocal and the big thunderous guitar slowly guiding the whole show. When the backing vocals turn up they are somewhere between sweet doo wop and the snotty backing calls of The Yardbirds or The Who. If anything, this sounds like it comes from over ten years later, with the same amphetamine boost that drove The Dickies' crazy version of The Banana Splits. The original by Sonny Bono (yeah, that one) and Roddy Jackson was by Larry Williams who was one of the great early rock shouters and his take is a fine example of solid R&B. This time, instead of adapting a favourite, The Stones push it right out of its own envelope in a cover as tearing as the Fabs' version of Twist and Shout. If you didn't know This was The Rolling Stones, you'd think it was '70s punk. If they had done nothing else, they had learned how to start an album by getting everyone up to do the speed  and whisky frolic. All that in one and a half minutes!

And then you get Mercy Mercy and Hitchhike which is how they used to do covers. They're both fine, and if you're inclined toward the sound, you'll leave them playing. There's the big boom guitar that they'd been perfecting the big dual guitar arrangement started with the likes of It's All Over Now.

That's How Strong My Love Is is a cover of Otis Redding's torchy soul ballad, done with those big guitars and a forward momentum and a heartfelt Jagger vocal.Things mellow down for Sam Cooke's Good Times which the band delivers with a smooth sheen held up by strong bass and band-wide vocals. The arrangement puts rock instruments in where Cooke's original is more orchestral and creamy. It's more a tribute than the reinvention that the opening track.

The side ends with one of the few originals, Gotta Get Away. Bright guitars and a lower fuzzed out one sounding like a brass section and the band getting laid back, Jagger comes in with a plaintive and melodic tune about a breakup that really does sound like the last time.

Side two opens with Chuck Berry's Talkin' About You. The Stones ditch the frantic Berry pacing, opening with a precursor to the big Keith chord riff and getting on down the road with sleaze and intent. This is a band that doesn't suspect it's going to sound like a bigger and meaner version of this in about three years.

Cry to Me is not given with Solomon Burke's gymnastic vocals but something more reserved. It's a strong take with high emotion and good use of the twin guitars and backing vocals but, at best, it's a fine attempt at adding the swinging London cool to the storm of the original. It's the Stones pleasing a crowd. See also the net track We Got a Good Thing Goin'. It's there to let everyone know how the band could keep a venue warm.

Heart of Stone is next and completely outclasses most of the covers on this LP by showing how to learn lessons and still sound like yourself. A tight 6/8 lament with a snarl, this one uses the sinuous guitars of The Last Time and the baritone arpeggios of It's All Over Now, Jagger's increased emotional and vocal range, finally convincing falsettos in the backing and a stirring climb to the chorus that just makes you want more. One of the best early originals. 

The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man is attributed to Naker Phelge, the whole-band credit given to joke numbers like We Want the Stones on the "live" album. That sells it short, though, as it's a fine and funny mockery of the hangers-on of the Amercian style of the burgeoning rock music industry like this one with his toupee and seeya sucker suit whose too cheap to save a dime for the bus but full of his own merit and essence.

I'm Free builds on a fluid bed of tremolo guitars and a vocal approach that nods through an original to the glories they's just been playing to soul and R&B on this record. It's a worthy original but it's overshadowed. 

This is the band that had already released The Last Time and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, pillars of riff rock that shake the walls of guitar shops to this day. A quick look (don't even listen) at any compilation of early Stones material and you'll understand that the prominence given to singles left their early albums emaciated. The Beatles third album was all Lennon-MacCartney originals and screamed global success. Out of our Heads feels pedestrian by comparison. Two years of US tours, mayhem and rampaging success and the result is so resolutely OK?

WIth their chief rivals on a roll that would go many years and through so many creative ceilings, no one could pretend that albums were the stocking fillers of the rock world. While the band's singles would continue to rip holes in the sky, it would be nearly half a year of waiting until their own first home grown killer LP. It's almost as though they were watching the clock with this. It's all prefectly stated and includes some inspired moments but against their rivals in chief and up and comers like The Kinks and The Who ripping ahead with their own recordings it feels like treading water.

Then again, this also is probably due to static management as much as it is to low creativity. Wunderkind Andrew Loog Oldham wasn't the only manager of the band. There was a lot of old showbiz stasis happening to all the music making in the U.K. industry. Oldham's flair with the directions of the singles and his slavish devotion to Spectorism certainly pushed the stunning list of bangers the band released on 45rpm and, himself, probably considered the LP a second thought. Rubber Soul and Pet Sounds were on the horizon to change everyone's mind on that idea. Meanwhile, there were these kinds of albums that reminded fans of the clubs and pubs and promised hints of the new and, as long as they looked as good on the sleeves, provided some cool decor to the batch pad of swinging London.