The Rolling Stones' 1975 release "BLACK AND BLUE," specifically the song "Hot Stuff."
(Look at this stupid cover. Nice collar there, Wyman. A giant collar doesn't make your tacky necklace any cooler.)
What fresh turd is this? Like many fans of things out there -- I often find myself unable to give up on the bad moments of something I love. I'll re-examine it, hoping to mine out some new nugget of at least goodness, if not greatness, but willing to settle for okay-ness. Sometimes the stars align and I find a chunk I can call "not a complete waste of my time."
Then there's a horrible song like "Hot Stuff" that stinks of lazy, good-for-nothing bullshit.
Albums like "BLACK AND BLUE" present an interesting challenge for the adventure-seeking fan. Scanning the album sleeve, one looks past what is possibly the worst album cover imaginable and realizes there are absolutely no commonly-known songs listed. And there's only eight on the album. You would think -- as I might have, oh so many naive years ago -- that this means these could be eight undiscovered gems. And you would be very wrong. As the Stones dealt with the resignation of Mick Taylor, the album was a kind of recorded audition, and we all know how productive and listenable auditions can be, right? This led to a lot of noodling and a lot of jamming and generally a lot of crap.
A lot of crap. And that's saying something, because as I've pointed out, there are only eight songs! When it comes to B-Level Stones work, you get a couple radio hits, some rockers in between and then the rest are duds. You bat .500 and you call it good. Like their most recent album, "A BIGGER BANG." 16 tracks. 8 good-to-great ones, 4 so-so's, and the rest are plain bad, and that's the way it is. I'm happy to linger in a world where "Rough Justice" and "Look What the Cat Dragged In" exist without "She Saw Me Coming" and the like. This is the point of CD's and MP3's.
But back in the mid-70's, fans had to either skip around with a record needle or sit through tracks like "Hot Stuff," which is catchy in all the wrong ways (those ways being "it's repetitive and simple and you couldn't get it out of your head with a pick axe, and not for lack of trying). A really friendly review (and they exist, by the way) would call this kind of song "experimental." A more realistic review would call it "a nightmare." It's a kind of rasta-disco jam, and if you're like me you never thought you'd ever enjoy anything with the words "rasta" and "disco" and "jam" placed together, and you would be 100% correct.
(Man, it gets worse when you fold it out, too. It's the most bored avant garde portrayal of "Our Town" ever. On the beach, apparently!)
It also brings to light the power of horrible singing, vocal interpretation and the like. When you're Mick Jagger, and your only lyrics of note are "Hot stuff, can't get enough" repeated over and over and over and OVER again, you feel it is your duty as the singer of these stupid words to at least make them... well, not "interesting," but "different" in some way. That means you sometimes sing it straight, then louder, then you lift up the end, like "Hot stuuuuuUUUFF! Can'tgetenuff. Hat-stuuuuUUUUFF!" This is supposed to make it good.
To make matters even more horrifying, it's five minutes and twenty-one seconds long. Now, I get it: the Stones have always been a shaggy band. They're not the Ramones--they don't just hit it, quit it, and move on. I have come to understand that. But there's "shaggy" and then there's "overstaying your welcome." And then there's "you've overstayed your welcome, the party's over, you puked in my punch bowl? Where did you get that suit? That's my dad's suit. Don't throw that suit in the punch bowl! Now it's noon on the next Monday."
There are probably worse songs in the Stones catalog than "Hot Stuff," but I believe there are no worse songs starting off an album. For the sake of scientific method, let us only include the album starters the band wrote themselves. This includes "Paint it, Black," "Sympathy for the Devil," "Gimme Shelter," "Start Me Up" (which I kinda can't listen to any more either, but because it's overplayed), "Brown-f***in' Sugar," "Miss You." And those are the hits, guys. Somehow it was determined that "Hot Stuff" can hold these songs' collective jock. Of all 29 qualifying albums (studio and live), I would say that maybe "Dance Pt2" from "EMOTIONAL RESCUE" is as annoying as "Hot Stuff" (still that one's only four-some minutes long) and the only thing anywhere near as awful in the pre-Ronnie Wood era would possibly be "Yesterday's Papers" from "BETWEEN THE BUTTONS," and that's from the UK version. The US version put "Let's Spend The Night Together" in the #1 slot. Even "Sad Sad Sad" is better! That hurts. The best thing I could say for "Hot Stuff" is that it does successfully set the tone for the album. After it's done, you know what you're in for.
So can I do it? Can I listen to "BLACK AND BLUE" and find something worth while in "Hot Stuff?"
No. I can't. In the 10+ years I've owned the album, I've probably played it all the way through twice (I'm guessing; I tend to forget my nightmares), and I've probably purposely re-played only two or three songs, none of which are "Hot Stuff." Additionally, "Hot Stuff" marks a dangerous audio landmine in the middle of the mostly-enjoyable first disc of "LOVE YOU LIVE," right after the incredibly rocking versions of "Happy" and "Star Star." At least on that album the song is where it should be, bookended by songs that can help make the pile of goat dung seem like it's worth a damn. To have this song be the first impression of the album is like leading off with your pitcher and he gets hit with a 95 mph fastball--you're already starting off the game poorly.
WARNING: The following video contains not only this crappy song, but some of the silveryiest jackets ever.
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