The Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup had its launch as their eleventh UK studio album on August 31, 1973. Forty-seven years later, it rode once more in deluxe and multi-format editions that, remarkably, took it again to No.1 within the UK. As Mick Jagger mentioned on the time of its first launch: “I actually really feel near this album, and I actually put all I had into it…I suppose it comes throughout that I’m extra into songs.
“It wasn’t as vague as the last album which kind of went on so long that I didn’t like some of the things,” he continued, in a disparaging reference to Exile On Primary St. “There’s more thought to this one. It was recorded all over the place over about two or three months. The tracks are much more varied than the last one. I didn’t want it to be just a bunch of rock songs.”
Goats Head Soup was recorded between November 1972 and July 1973 at Dynamic Sound Studios, Kingston, Jamaica; Village Recorders, Los Angeles; Olympic Studios and Island Studios in London. It turned the band’s fifth consecutive No.1 album in Britain on September 22 and their third in America.
Topping the US charts for 4 weeks, the LP mirrored the efficiency of each Exile On Primary St. and Sticky Fingers. In 2020, it turned their thirteenth album bestseller and made the Stones the primary band to high the lengthy participant listings in six completely different many years.
The brand new launch of 1973 had a not-so-secret ingredient that made the prospect of the brand new album much more inviting for the Stones’ hundreds of thousands of followers. Because the LP debuted, the killer ballad “Angie,” with its Nick Harrison string association and equally elegant piano by Nicky Hopkins, was spending a second week at its No.5 peak within the UK. It was per week away from claiming the crown on the Billboard Scorching 100, as the proper trailer for the brand new LP.
What’s extra, the band had begun a European tour on September 1 in Austria, by which the British leg would come with 4 nights on the Empire Pool, Wembley, later renamed Wembley Enviornment. “Angie” was within the set, as have been its fellow album tracks “Star Star,” “Dancing With Mr. D,” and “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker).”
‘Obstacles in our way’
“Star Star” prompted lots of controversy with its lyrics a few extremely lively groupie and incorporates the kind of language that also has the flexibility to shock. Again in 1973, it was outrageous, and the BBC banned the music from being broadcast on the radio. In accordance with Keith Richards, “Atlantic Records have given us a lot of trouble for all the wrong reasons – I mean, they even got down to saying that Steve McQueen would pass an injunction against the song because of the line about him. So we just sent a tape of the song to him and of course he okayed it. It was just a hassle though. Obstacles put in our way.”
The album was recorded mainly at Byron Lee’s Dynamic Sound Studio in Kingston, Jamaica and produced, in his remaining studio outing with the Stones, by Jimmy Miller. Along with the Jagger-Richards-Taylor-Wyman-Watts line-up, it featured such stalwart Stones squad members as Hopkins, Bobby Keys, Ian ‘Stu’ Stewart, and Billy Preston.
In accordance with Danny Holloway, writing within the NME: “Of my three visits to the Stones’ periods, the primary was by far probably the most attention-grabbing. Within the small 20×30 foot room – with primitive dividers across the amps – have been a few dozen guitars, principally Gibson and Fender, a Yamaha piano, small Fender amps, a small PA, and Charlie’s Gretsch drum package. The bass drum mike was propped up by a brick and a pillow and the pinnacle was left on the entrance.
Hearken to one of the best of the Rolling Stones on Apple Music and Spotify.
“The Stones warmed up on a simple 12-bar blues with road manager Ian Stewart adding tasty licks from the 88s. Wyman plodded along on a small Fender Mustang bass, which must suit his small hands. Watts and Wyman might not even be looking at one another, but they’d suddenly both change the accent of the rhythm simultaneously. They sat while they played – except for Jagger and Richard.”
Paintings by Hipgnosis
Goats Head Soup has probably the most intriguing of all Stones album covers, and the story behind it’s equally so. In mid-Might 1973, the well-known design firm, Hipgnosis, well-known for his or her Pink Floyd paintings, have been commissioned to work on the brand new sleeve. They took the band to their Floral Corridor studio in Covent Backyard for a photoshoot.
In accordance with Aubrey Powell, one of many companions in Hypnosis, “The shoot was organized for 1pm and Mick and Keith turned up about 5pm. Storm Thorgerson and I had outlined the concept to the Stones and they were all enthusiastic, especially Mick. They were all to be centaurs and minotaurs prancing about in the photo in an Arcadian landscape, like the young bucks they were.” Ultimately, the duvet was rejected and on Wednesday, June 6 the Stones did a photoshoot at David Bailey’s home in Gloucester Avenue, London NW1.
Store for The Rolling Stones’s music on vinyl or CD now.
