Stones Release Promo Video for Another 'Satanic' Track

Not without cause, the Rolling Stones have a reputation as misogynists, but a new promo for their lovely "She's a Rainbow" culled from the band's least misogynistic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, is a "celebration of women through the ages from all walks of life." This promo by Lucy Dawkins and Tom Readdy of Yes Please Productions follows on the heels of the company's recent new promo for "2000 Light Years from Home", also created to promote the 50th Anniversary Edition of Satanic Majesties. 

View the "She's a Rainbow" clip on Vevo here, and keep your fingers crossed that a promo for "Citadel" or "Gomper" is currently in the works.

New Promo Video for Stones' "2000 Light Years from Home"

As part of the promotion for the new 50th Anniversary Edition of The Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request, Yes Please Productions has created a new promo for that album's masterpiece (and my personal fave Stones song) "2000 Light Years from Home". The animation is inspired by/based on the album's inner gatefold and has more than a whiff of Terry Gilliam's signature work. Watch it here:

However, if you are disappointed by the lack of Mick Jagger in druid headdress, you can always check out the track's original promo vid here:

Review: 50th Anniversary Edition of The Rolling Stones''Their Satanic Majesties Request'

In his liner notes to last year’s Rolling Stones in Mono box set, David Fricke wrote that Their Satanic Majesties Request “is no one’s favorite Rolling Stones album of the 1960s.” Loyal Psychobabble readers know that I take great issue with that conclusion. Not only is the Stones’ one concentrated trip into dizzying psychedelia my favorite Rolling Stones album of the 1960s, but it is also my favorite Rolling Stones album, period. I find it endlessly more alluring than the album to which it is endlessly compared: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I do not see it as an aberration as so many critics do. I do not dismiss it as nothing more than a stepping stone to the Stones’ “peak” period of 1968-1972. I see it as the peak.

If Fricke had done a little research, he might have concluded that I’m not completely alone in this opinion (one of my favorite defenses of the album is a blog comment left by Captain Sensible of my favorite punk band, The Damned). Still, it is not a particularly popular opinion, so when I saw the press release for a multi-disc, fiftieth anniversary edition of Their Satanic Majesties Request, I literally gasped. My delight turned to disappointment when I saw that the four-disc package was to contain remasters of the original stereo and mono mixes spread over two LPs and two hybrid SACD/CDs and nothing else. This struck me as a major missed opportunity considering how much fascinating material could have been appended to this set. There are a few outtakes, such as the winding instrumental listed on bootlegs as “5 Part Jam”, the Procol Harum-esque “Majesty Honky Tonk”, and the bluesy (though less interesting) “Gold Painted Nails”. The Satanic sessions also produced such interesting items as takes that really showcase the Mellotron in “Citadel” and “2000 Light Years from Home”, early acoustic takes of “Jigsaw Puzzle” and “Child of the Moon” (though some estimates place these tracks in the Beggars Banquet era), and most revelatory of all, the fifteen-minute jam that was ultimately edited down to create the two versions of “Sing This All Together” on the completed album. The period single “We Love You” b/w “Dandelion” and its sundry sessions and alternates (including the famed “Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Blue” demo of “Dandelion”) could have also found a place in a truly deluxe Satanic Majesties Request.

That is not the edition we received though, so let’s look at what is here instead of what isn’t. Mastering was not performed through an analog process but with Direct Stream Digital, which is very faithful as far as digital processes go. Compared to 1967 stereo vinyl and 2002 stereo SACD/CD release, this remaster is louder though not brick walled, with pleasing high ends and much more dynamic bass. That bass could get a tad overpowering at times on punchier tracks such as “Citadel” and “2000 Man”, but it sounds good overall and didn’t give me a headache. To my naked ear, the mono vinyl sounds identical to the one included in the Rolling Stones in Mono set so I’ll assume that the CDs are the same too.

The heavy-duty packaging is a major improvement over any version of Satanic Majesties since the original release. This fiftieth anniversary edition is the first since the mid-seventies to restore the 3D, lenticular cover, though the image is slightly bigger yet also slightly cropped compared to the original. While the low-quality, misproportioned, 2D cover included in The Rolling Stones in Mono held a plain, white inner sleeve, the deluxe set reproduces the clouds-on-a-red background sleeve of the original release for the mono LP and a blue version similar to the front-cover border for the stereo disc. Unfortunately, it’s a tight fit and a bit of a chore to get the vinyl in and out of the sleeves.

The big, unexpected boon of this set is Rob Bowman’s essay in the booklet slipped inside the gatefold. There are no apologies in this essay. No dismissals. Bowman treats Their Satanic Majesties Request like the psychedelic royalty it is, providing history, a track-by-track analysis, and some truly valuable nuggets of trivia that answered some of my own questions about the pinging sounds on “Citadel”, the weird backing vocals on “She’s a Rainbow” and other behind-the-scenes details. I could read an entire book of this stuff (get cracking, Rob). The booklet also contains some very groovy photos of the Stones trying on their wizard costumes and constructing the fantasy tableau on the front cover.

So while this might not be ideal as a “deluxe” edition of Their Satanic Majesties Request, it’s a very nice fiftieth anniversary re-release, and really, I’m just grateful that this thing exists at all. Spotlighting Their Satanic Majesties Request with any kind of special edition will hopefully draw more attention to it, win some new fans, and make opinions like David Fricke’s even more inaccurate and irrelevant.

New Edition of Stones' 'Satanic Majesties' Coming Soon

With critical opinion of The Rolling Stones' most controversial disc swaying toward the positive in recent years, and this year marking its fiftieth anniversary, the time is right for a deluxe edition of Their Satanic Majesties Request (aka: Psychobabble's favorite Stones album). On September 22, Universal Music will issue a double-SACD/double-vinyl set dedicated to the Stones' alluring descent into psychedelia. Unfortunately, the wealth of outtakes and sessions available on bootlegs such as Cosmic Christmas and Satanic Sessions, or even the complimentary "We Love You" b/w"Dandelion" single, won't be part of a package that only consists of the album's already-available stereo and mono mixes. However, it is being newly remastered, though there's no word yet about whether or not it will be an exclusively analog process, just that Bob Ludwig is doing the work at Gateway Mastering and Sean Magee is cutting the lacquer at Abbey Road , according to Super Deluxe Edition.com.

The packaging seems like it will be a step up after the treatment Satanic received in last year's Rolling Stones in Mono box set. While that set included a bad, digitized image with the 2-D photo of the band blown up to weirdly large proportions, this new edition will revive the original lenticular cover for the first time in 50 years (Super Deluxe Edition mistakenly reports that the lenticular cover was used on the 2002 SACD, but that cover was just holographic, not lenticular). There will also be a 20-page booklet with period photos and essays.

Lucifer Sams and Satanic Majesties: Cult Sects of Rock Gods

Who is Pink Floyd? Cold experiments and saxophones. Twenty minute opuses and barren atmosphere. Faceless, immobile, serious musicians. Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.

Who are The Rolling Stones? Sleazy sex and heroin. Mick’s lips and strutting. Blues, booze, and Berry. Exile on Main Street and Some Girls.

Who are The Beach Boys? Surf and sun. Hot rods and bikinis. Prancing old Reaganites in Hawaiian shirts. “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Surfin’ Safari”.

Who are The Who? Rock operas and ponderous proto-metal. Bluster and bashing. Classic Rock radio staples and Broadway bounders. Tommy and Who’s Next.

Four of Rock’s institutions as they’re understood by the masses. When their congregations file into the hallowed halls of their local stadiums to hear the hits, the hits are what they most often receive. A sacrament of the familiar, fulfilling essential stereotypes, banishing the obscurities to torchlit basement gatherings where the freaks and obsessives huddle around turntables to spin gouged copies of Their Satanic Majesties Request and fifth generation bootlegs of SMiLE. Bruce Johnston calls them “the one percenters”: the one-percent of The Beach Boys’ fans who hope to never hear “Kokomo” again but cannot get enough of “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” and “Do You Like Worms?”

Classifying these acts as cult bands is a far-fetched stretch. They are among the most enduringly popular in Rock history. The Beach Boys were the biggest white American Rock band of the ‘60s, scoring three number one hits in their hey day and another some 25 years after their debut. Pink Floyd are responsible for one of Rock’s all-time bestselling and most iconic records. The Stones and The Who may only fall behind The Beatles and Led Zeppelin in the British Rock race. Yet within each of those band’s expansive histories lay genuine cult items; recordings that the majority of their fans and the bands, themselves, generally ignore. The cultists these oddities have attracted feel decidedly stronger about SMiLE, Their Satanic Majesties Request, The Who Sell Out, and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. We are the one percent.

Cult items are natural products of any long and fruitful career. Perhaps The Beatles and Zeppelin are the only top Rock bands of the classic era who don’t really have any, which is likely because both had relatively short careers that produced relatively few records. Had The Beatles continued making music for another decade, it is possible that at least one of them might have dipped through the cracks. It was inevitable that The Beach Boys and The Stones would make their cult records, because they both created tremendous bodies of work (as of this writing, The Beach Boys have made 30 albums; The Stones made 22 and are apparently at work on another) and are both confined by most people into tight compartments. Those people include the artists, themselves. Brian and Dennis Wilson were the only Beach Boys who really seemed to recognize the genius of the stereotype-defying SMiLE, with its fragmented structures, whimsical humor, and stoned avant gardism. Mike Love famously (perhaps apocryphally) warned Brian to not “fuck with the formula” of surf and hot rod songs. He hated Van Dyke Parks’s poetic, cryptic lyrics and most of the guys claimed they felt degraded by being forced to simulate barnyard noises and orgasms by a giggling, LSD-infused Brian during the sessions. Keith Richards is similarly embarrassed by the blues-eschewing, psychedelic onslaught Their Satanic Majesties Request, dismissing it as “flimflam” in his autobiography. Mick’s embarrassment seems to cloak a genuine affection for the record, constantly vacillating between deeming it “nonsense” and “lovely” throughout the years.

Review: 'The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Rivalry' by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot

In his introduction to The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Rivalry, Jim DeRogatis acknowledges that his and co-writer Greg Kot’s opinions may “make you curse one or the other of us as you consider hurling this book across the room...” Indeed I considered hurling their point-counterpoint on various aspects of Rock & Roll’s two biggest acts across my room more than once. But I refrained from doing so because this book is just too damn beautiful to treat that way. In an era when more and more people are reading books on creepy little handheld devices, Voyageur Press has made the real thing that much more attractive by creating a lavish package. In homage to the Satanic Majesties Request album jacket, the book cover features a neat hologram that reveals the faces of either the ’63 Beatles or the ’68 Stones depending on the angle at which you view it. Within that cover you’ll find loads of wonderful full-color and lovely B&W photos of the Fab Eleven (that’s Misters Lennon, Jagger, McCartney, Richards, Harrison, Watts, Starr, Wyman, Jones, Taylor, and Wood) and their related memorabilia. A great deal of these pictures was new to me, and I’ve read my share of books on The Beatles and The Stones.

I may seem to be spending undue space here going on about the design of The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones, but it really is a major attribute of a book that can basically be read in a couple of hours. DeRogatis and Kot are the co-hosts of the music chat show “Sound Opinions”, and their book is apparently a lot like a transcript of one of their programs (admittedly, I’ve never listened to “Sound Opinions” because talk radio puts me to sleep). I really liked the format: a couple of Rock & Roll geek pals argue about whether The Beatles or The Stones were better conjurers of psychedelic rock or if McCartney or Wyman was the superior bassist (no contest, of course), etc. 

Theirs is certainly a fresh approach to two bands that have been written about and written about and written about and written about. The problem is their tendency to be dismissive without really supporting their opinions. If McCartney’s “Blackbird” is one of his definitive performances while “Oh! Darling”, in DeRogatis’s words, “just sucks,” I’m going to need a little more explanation. And good luck finding a Beatles fan who won’t be completely turned off by DeRogatis’s opinion that the Yellow Submarine film is “a turd” or a Stones freak who isn’t confounded when he writes off the amazing Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus as nothing more than a “cheesy Big Top conceit.” 

DeRogatis’s opinions are particularly difficult to take seriously when he regularly makes sloppy errors that even the most novice fan of these bands will spot. He mistakenly credits a line in “Getting Better” Lennon wrote to McCartney, states that “Day Tripper” and “Paperback Writer” appeared on either side of the same single, and most embarrassing of all, rates “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” among Charlie Watts’s five greatest performances. Anyone who has ever perused the inner sleeve of Let It Bleed knows that Jimmy Miller played drums on that track. Kot pulls a couple of boners, too, when he applauds Brian Jones for playing the oboe on “Ruby Tuesday” and the recorder on “Back Street Girl”. DeRogatis’s suggestion that “She’s a Rainbow” is “about oral sex with a woman who’s having her period” is simply bizarre. Equally bizarre is when he holds up “You Gotta Move”—Jagger’s most outrageously mannered blues performance— as a rare example of the singer’s sincerity. Huh?

Regardless of the quality of their criticism, I like the fact that DeRogatis and Kot seriously discussed topics that generally get overlooked in a lot of books about these bands, such as Wyman’s bass playing, Harrison’s guitar skills, and The Stones’ psychedelic phase (and I must doff my pointy Merlin cap to DeRogatis for having the guts to admit that Satanic Majesties is better than Sgt. Pepper's). Though the book does suffer from its errors, offhand criticisms, and weird assertions, it’s a quick, breezy, and generally fun read. Fans who already think “The White Album” is a better record than Exile On Main Street will not change their minds after reading the guys’ contrary argument, but those fans may next find themselves sprinting to the turntable to hear those records with fresh ears. And that’s exactly what DeRogatis and Kot intended when they wrote this book.