The Rolling Stones
Sucking in the Seventies

THE REVIEW

So, it's 1981, you might have ended up buying it from a guy at the bus stop.
That record would later brighten my long and tedious summer stays in the mountains, where, between one walk and another, in the silence of the early afternoon, I had the habit of listening to it while doodling on a notebook at the kitchen table, between the rhythmic restarts of the fridge and the slightly pungent odor of the drying dishes hanging.
The mountains are a place where time seems to have stood still.
Even today there are the great cross that lights up at dusk, the stone bell tower, the second homes now unused, painted in rotten green and with the raw aluminum frames as was customary then.
Every now and then I return there, to find myself and to ask myself what I have been, to relive the much-hated boredom and that wait made of increasingly faded hopes.
Here is a compilation (or rather a collection, as it was called then) that you could easily do without. Or not!
And yes, because in this seemingly irrelevant album lies all the philosophy of the Stones, ten tracks literally "sucked" from the seventies and poured onto a record without any apparent logic, a vibrant and effective snapshot of their admittedly uninspiring production from '74 to 1980 that divided and disappointed the fans so much.
But the greatest band on the planet is not afraid to show its wrinkles, its most decadent aspect, the loss of inspiration, and the attempt to reinvent itself, riding the trends without ever denying itself.
Not the best tracks then, but extracted from various albums, B-sides, remixes, and live performances, all in a mixture that still manages to assume a defined form and shine with its own light, becoming one of their official collections, with good sales success and still reprinted.
Essential the cover, as befits a work that has little or nothing to add, a small appendix of the decade just past, in view of the imminent big strike, the highly successful Tattoo You.
Nostalgia gives value to everything
even to boring days
even to a record bought at the bus stop

To Paolino, with sympathy.

Tracks

Shattered
Everything Is Turning To Gold
Hot Stuff
Time Waits For No One
Fool To Cry
Mannish Boy
When the Whip Comes Down
If I Was a Dancer (Dance Pt. 2)
Crazy Mama
Beast of Burden

Lineup

Mick Jagger - vocals, guitar
Keith Richards - guitar, vocals
Ron Wood - guitar
Bill Wyman - bass
Charlie Watts - drums