31 years ago while I was listening to, loving and digesting the cream of the The Sunset Strip I was already without knowing it quite esoteric and rather broad in my listening habits. Entering a record store I was just as likely to come out with a range of Blues, Punk, Goth and Old School Rock as I was the latest releases from the City of Angels.
I remember picking this one up on vinyl (it had to be vinyl!) at my local store on 3rd October 1988 the day of release thinking how cool it was that it had taken decades for Keith to release a solo record. In the stash that day were also the Belinda Carlisle album ‘Runaway Horses’ that had come in the same day and Lenny Kravitz ‘Let Love Rule.’ At the time though I was obsessed with ‘Pump’ the new Aerosmith album which had been out a few weeks and I’d snapped up the album along with the Leather Cover limited CD.
To mark its 30th anniversary ‘Talk is Cheap’ has been reissued in five formats, the most limited of which being housed in a Fender-built case made from the identical ash wood as Richards’ Micawber Telecaster. There are of course cheaper options…
Remastered from the original tapes by Richards’ collaborator, Steve Jordan, this re-release sounds just as fresh as it did that day. There’s a real swing and swagger to it, a wonderful freshness and a feeling that both the gloves and the shackles are off. It sounds like an album of songs made for someone writing purely for their own enjoyment. Of course back in the day the album was one that was really born out of Richards’ frustration with Jagger who had effectively put the breaks on the Stones to prioritise his solo tour rater than the rather patchy (if I’m honest) ‘Dirty Work’ which suffered from 80’s production values and which the star by far had been the hard-edged nature of Richards’ guitar.
Looking back and listening again now to ‘Talk is Cheap’ it clearly and completely swats way any of Jagger’s solo work with seemingly very little effort- the songs are just better and Richards sticks to the basics – it’s not an album that tries to be cool, like Jagger so wanted to be, it’s an album that’s about substance over style. Not only that as I said, it also stands up so much better than The Stones’ own ‘Dirty Work’ (which Jimmy Page guests on Rock trivia fans). And though to many it’s probably primarily remembered for the singles ‘Take It So Hard’ which had been intended for The Stones and is incredibly cool; and both ‘Struggle’ and ‘Whip it up’ which are wonderful riff driven pleasures, ‘You Don’t Move Me’ is what initially gripped me as well as the emotional ‘Locked Away’. There is far more interesting stuff within. If you needed a reason to buy then it’s even more interesting as the 2-CD version now features a bonus disc of unreleased recordings, a booklet with some great photos and an interview by Richards’ collaborator Anthony De Curtis.
The album itself also sports in its original 11 tracks guest appearances from Sarah Dash, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, the Memphis Horns, Patti Sciafia and Mick Taylor, whilst the bonus disc also adds Chuck Berry’s pianist Johnnie Johnson, and Parliament-Funkadelic’s Bernie Worrell.
As far as the bonus material is concerned it’s all rater cool and whilst there are no real undiscovered gems here, what the additional tracks do is give you a sense of how loose and fun the sessions must have been with the lush piano-infused ‘Blues jam’, the almost worthy of inclusion ‘My Babe’; the funky ‘Mark on Me’ and the instrumental ‘Brute Force’ making the most impression.
Primitive Cool.
