Rock A Little: Rolling Stone Review

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by SapphireSister

And to The Tower: She may have been trying to "fit in" with the synthesizers and all but they were still HER songs. There is nothing wrong with curtailing your songs to what's going on at the moment and it wasn't all of them. I'm sure she had a lot of pressure from the label people as well to go with the popular sound at the time. Artists don't always have 100% creative control.

With the exception of "Talk to Me" and "Has Anyone...." there's nothing on here that's anything to crow about.

Most of the songs weren't HER songs- only three were purely written by Stevie:

"Rock A Little", "I Sing For the Things" and "No Spoken Word".

Her voice is abysmal from the drinking, the coke and the smoking. In comparison, at least her voice wasn't shot on Street Angel. Stevie didn't need creative control to realize that the album was not that good. Her songwriting, or rather her lack of songwriting from that period in time is telling enough- the material wasn't there, so the album wasn't there. Considering the two big singles from the album were 1) not written by her ("Talk to Me") and 2) fully formed with her slapping on some coked out screaming ("I Can't Wait), it's obvious she was very creatively wiped out at the time. No wonder she went into rehab after this album.

Some people really groove on that shredded, burnt-out, drugged-out Stevie, but I think Rock A Little was waaaay too much of that side of her.

[amber]

Originally Posted by eric51078

Rock A Little is my Favorite record by her.

Me, too. Sorry, Towie, but I love the debauched excess of her waning voice, and the clash of synth with stevie's growl. It's so cheesy, and so discordant, I love it. Except, I Sing For the Things, which I just think is a damn pretty and heartfelt song.

[David]

Originally Posted by The Tower

Some people really groove on that shredded, burnt-out, drugged-out Stevie, but I think Rock A Little was waaaay too much of that side of her.

It's rock & roll, Towie!! It's Jimi Hendrix! It's Janis Joplin! It's Jim Morrison! It's Sly Stone! It's Keith Richards! Rock & roll is ABOUT excess!! It ain't about being grandmotherly & wearing pretty button-down sweaters & being smooth & stable & crisp & clean, man. It's about pulling out the stops! It's about groveling in the mud! It's about mutilating your enemies! It's about mind-altering & mood-altering Dionysian excess, dude! Gotta go with the flow, Joe! Let it happen to ya!

Rock & roll is an EXTREME rollercoaster, pal! It ain't no carousel!!

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by amber

Me, too. Sorry, Towie, but I love the debauched excess of her waning voice, and the clash of synth with stevie's growl. It's so cheesy, and so discordant, I love it. Except, I Sing For the Things, which I just think is a damn pretty and heartfelt song.

I like "I Sing For the Things", it's just not WOW. Everyone has their own tastes. I think The Other Side of the Mirror is her best album, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't like it.

For cripes sake, there are even people out there who like Street Angel!!! ( Curtis!)

[amber]

Originally Posted by The Tower

I like "I Sing For the Things", it's just not WOW. Everyone has their own tastes. I think The Other Side of the Mirror is her best album, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't like it.

For cripes sake, there are even people out there who like Street Angel!!! ( Curtis!)

yeah, me. I like OSOTM a way lot, too. My least fave, so far has been Wild Heart. I just haven't gotten into it, yet. It's okay. I don't love TISL too much, either, but I still like it.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by The Tower

With the exception of "Talk to Me" and "Has Anyone...." there's nothing on here that's anything to crow about.

Most of the songs weren't HER songs- only three were purely written by Stevie:

"Rock A Little", "I Sing For the Things" and "No Spoken Word".

Her voice is abysmal from the drinking, the coke and the smoking. In comparison, at least her voice wasn't shot on Street Angel. Stevie didn't need creative control to realize that the album was not that good. Her songwriting, or rather her lack of songwriting from that period in time is telling enough- the material wasn't there, so the album wasn't there. Considering the two big singles from the album were 1) not written by her ("Talk to Me") and 2) fully formed with her slapping on some coked out screaming ("I Can't Wait), it's obvious she was very creatively wiped out at the time. No wonder she went into rehab after this album.

Some people really groove on that shredded, burnt-out, drugged-out Stevie, but I think Rock A Little was waaaay too much of that side of her.

I don't think this is entirely fair... You have to consider the time frame. The late 80s were hard for Stevie I think because of the prevailing style of music. She had PLENTY of songs written for RAL, and it is likely that many of them would have been rejected by her label. I think that Stevie had to collaborate to capture the sound that her label wanted. It's like Sometimes it's a Bitch - her label told her she had to do it - she had to work with other popular artists, or her career would cease to exist. If she didn't want to sound dated, she really had no other choice. An album of 100% Stevie-penned tunes was possible, but would not have charted as well.

I'm doing a hundred things around the house right now, and I didn't state my case as clearly or eloquently as I would have liked to - but I'm sure someone will get my point.

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by David

It's rock & roll, Towie!! It's Jimi Hendrix! It's Janis Joplin! It's Jim Morrison! It's Sly Stone! It's Keith Richards! Rock & roll is ABOUT excess!! It ain't about being grandmotherly & wearing pretty button-down sweaters & being smooth & stable & crisp & clean, man. It's about pulling out the stops! It's about groveling in the mud! It's about mutilating your enemies! It's about mind-altering & mood-altering Dionysian excess, dude! Gotta go with the flow, Joe! Let it happen to ya!

Rock & roll is an EXTREME rollercoaster, pal! It ain't no carousel!!

Jimi, Janis, Jim, Sly, Keith AND Stevie all had their moments and then lost control when the drugs, booze and cigarettes took over (great examples by the way!). I love all the people that you mentioned, but they too made burnt out product that I don't particularly like- with perhaps the exception of Janis, she made her zenith and then o.d.'d before she had a chance to do her own Rock A Little.

The Wild Heart is rock-n-roll on the extreme rollercoaster. Rock A Little is puking in the bushes after getting off the ride.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by The Tower

I like "I Sing For the Things", it's just not WOW. Everyone has their own tastes. I think The Other Side of the Mirror is her best album, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't like it.

Have you heard the outtake of I Sing For The Things? It rocks, and is SO much better than the sappy version she used on the record.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by The Tower

I like "I Sing For the Things", it's just not WOW. Everyone has their own tastes. I think The Other Side of the Mirror is her best album, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't like it.

Hehe. You and I are amongst the brave souls who admit to liking that album.

Rock A Little is abysmal, in my opinion, there's no pussyfooting around it. By the time she recorded it, she had begun her descent into self-parody and the album itself just made her more laughable than she already was. Unintelligible lyrics mixed with bad music made it the pits. Her voice wasn't all bad because, as David said, it's rock and roll, so it's expected and a bit refreshing to hear some ragged vocals. But there is a difference between good, ragged rock and roll and screeching, cloying, overproduced pop sludge.

I think it's with Rock A Little that she essentially started writing songs in an effort to uphold her image as rock's great mystic; it was made in the tradition of keeping up the whole gypsy/witch act. Back then, she used to claim that who was onstage, with the flowing costumes and witchy mystique, was who she was in real life, day in and day out. Fast forward almost twenty years and she's saying that "people love the whole Bella Donna thing so much, and I'm not that at all." Rock A Little is a collection of the ridiculous ramblings of a woman pushing forty, abusing hard drugs, and scribbling down inane references to sisters of the moon and nightmares and the wind and the rain and the water. With that album she had ceased to become a songwriter who wrote deeply personal songs accented by her love of the mystique, at least for quite awhile. Instead, she was writing cocaine-influenced crap.

We can all be thankful that she never totally forgot how to write a good song and can still do it.

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally Posted by The Tower

With the exception of "Talk to Me" and "Has Anyone...." there's nothing on here that's anything to crow about.

Most of the songs weren't HER songs- only three were purely written by Stevie:

"Rock A Little", "I Sing For the Things" and "No Spoken Word".

Her voice is abysmal from the drinking, the coke and the smoking. In comparison, at least her voice wasn't shot on Street Angel. Stevie didn't need creative control to realize that the album was not that good. Her songwriting, or rather her lack of songwriting from that period in time is telling enough- the material wasn't there, so the album wasn't there. Considering the two big singles from the album were 1) not written by her ("Talk to Me") and 2) fully formed with her slapping on some coked out screaming ("I Can't Wait), it's obvious she was very creatively wiped out at the time. No wonder she went into rehab after this album.

Some people really groove on that shredded, burnt-out, drugged-out Stevie, but I think Rock A Little was waaaay too much of that side of her.

100% agreed. Now when someone asks me why I dislike RAL, I'm going to direct him or her to this post.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

I don't think this is entirely fair... You have to consider the time frame. The late 80s were hard for Stevie I think because of the prevailing style of music. She had PLENTY of songs written for RAL, and it is likely that many of them would have been rejected by her label. I think that Stevie had to collaborate to capture the sound that her label wanted.

The label was created FOR her. I doubt they forced her to do anything. If she didn't like what the label was doing with her, she could have bought out her contract. Any other label would have gone ape**** to sign her.

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

It's like Sometimes it's a Bitch - her label told her she had to do it - she had to work with other popular artists, or her career would cease to exist. If she didn't want to sound dated, she really had no other choice. An album of 100% Stevie-penned tunes was possible, but would not have charted as well.

No, it was her manager that told her she had to record that **** song, not her label. And she had total choice. Either record a song you dislike or don't. To hear Stevie tell it, she recorded it and then fired her manager. That sounds kind of stupid to me.

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

I don't think this is entirely fair... You have to consider the time frame. The late 80s were hard for Stevie I think because of the prevailing style of music.

Rock A Little was assembled in 1985- hardly the late 80's. TOSOTM was in 1989 and that IMO was a spectacular effort with good material. I think Stevie has always had a maverick streak in her that disregards current trends- that's one of the reasons she is so timeless. She succumbed to mid-80's synth-pop-dreck because of the drugs and the lack of material.

She had PLENTY of songs written for RAL, and it is likely that many of them would have been rejected by her label.

Probably because the songs were crap ("Night Gallery" ????).

I think that Stevie had to collaborate to capture the sound that her label wanted.

I think Stevie had to collaborate because she was creatively bankrupt. Belladonna, Mirage and Wild Heart (along with several excellent tracks attached to movie scores) within three years really drained a lot of material from Stevie's coffers. Why else do you think she started working with Sandy Stewart? She needed someone to write the music. Prior to The Wild Heart, she never collaborated on songwriting (yeah, Roy Bittan wrote the bridges for "Kind of Woman" and "Think About It")- Rock A Little was the beginning of Stevie relying on outsourced music tapes and then using her cut and paste journal lyrics to create songs.

Stevie herself stated that during the time of RAL no one was telling her what to do. No one was telling her what to do- including the people at Modern. She ditched Jimmy Iovine and hodge-podged together some producers and gave herself co-production credit and released the mess that it was.

It's like Sometimes it's a Bitch - her label told her she had to do it - she had to work with other popular artists, or her career would cease to exist. If she didn't want to sound dated, she really had no other choice. An album of 100% Stevie-penned tunes was possible, but would not have charted as well.

"Sometimes It's A Bitch" doesn't relate well because it was made at a time when her career was almost over (as far as the recording industry was concerned). The simple fact is- if Stevie had good material written, she would have released it. She was coming off of her hottest period 1981 - 1983 and she was on a label that only existed to promote her music. She didn't do Rock A Little because record executives told her her music sucked. She did Rock A Little because she was burnt out on coke and wanted to release an album. And her judgement at the time really shows- releasing a song co-written by her brother???

I think "Talk to Me" is way up there on the list of her greatest performances. But other than that? Meh.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by The Tower

And her judgement at the time really shows- releasing a song co-written by her brother???

Does anyone even know exactly what part of it he wrote?

Yes, Night Gallery was crap, but Love Is Like A River, She Calls Him Missing, She Loves Him Still, Mirror Mirror, Thousand Days, Jimmy Come Back & Running Through The Garden are not crap (in my opinion) and for one reason or another didn't make the LP. I'm sure there are many other songs that she wrote that we've never heard of as well...not to mention the dozens of songs written prior to that time period that she could have used. I just don't buy the argument that she was creatively exhausted. I also don't think Stevie had as much control over her albums as has been insinuated in the above few posts. The label always has the final say regarding what will be released. It has always been that way. Look at Say You Will....the only person who REALLY wanted Bleed To Love Her on there was the Warner execs. Another example - Fiona Apple's third album was shelved by her label for lack of "an obvious single".

Also, I don't believe Stevie could afford to buy out her contract in 1985.

Anyhow, I can respect why someone thinks RAL is crap. After all, I think The Other Side of the Mirror is crap.

[SapphireSister]

Originally Posted by dissention

Hehe. You and I are amongst the brave souls who admit to liking that album.

Rock A Little is abysmal, in my opinion, there's no pussyfooting around it. By the time she recorded it, she had begun her descent into self-parody and the album itself just made her more laughable than she already was. Unintelligible lyrics mixed with bad music made it the pits. Her voice wasn't all bad because, as David said, it's rock and roll, so it's expected and a bit refreshing to hear some ragged vocals. But there is a difference between good, ragged rock and roll and screeching, cloying, overproduced pop sludge.

I think it's with Rock A Little that she essentially started writing songs in an effort to uphold her image as rock's great mystic; it was made in the tradition of keeping up the whole gypsy/witch act. Back then, she used to claim that who was onstage, with the flowing costumes and witchy mystique, was who she was in real life, day in and day out. Fast forward almost twenty years and she's saying that "people love the whole Bella Donna thing so much, and I'm not that at all." Rock A Little is a collection of the ridiculous ramblings of a woman pushing forty, abusing hard drugs, and scribbling down inane references to sisters of the moon and nightmares and the wind and the rain and the water. With that album she had ceased to become a songwriter who wrote deeply personal songs accented by her love of the mystique, at least for quite awhile. Instead, she was writing cocaine-influenced crap.

We can all be thankful that she never totally forgot how to write a good song and can still do it.

I must say I wholeheartedly disagree with just about everything you said but your response was nonetheless very well written and thought out so I'm giving you major props! I enjoyed reading it very much.

[Johnny Stew]

I love 'Rock A Little.'
But then I don't have a rod up my tuchas.