Rolling Stones - Metamorphosis (Vinyl)

Descriere

Though it remains the only Rolling Stones outtakes collection album ever to be officially released, Metamorphosis is one of those albums that has been slighted by almost everyone who has touched it, a problem that lies in its genesis. While both the Stones and former manager Allen Klein agreed that some form of archive release was necessary, if only to stem the then-ongoing flow of bootlegs, they could not agree how to present it. During 1964-1965, Mick Jagger and Andrew Oldham headed a session team that also included the likes of arrangers Art Greenslade and Mike Leander, guitarist Jimmy Page, pianist Nicky Hopkins, bassist John Paul Jones, and many more, convened to cut demos for the plethora of songs then being churned out by Jagger and Keith Richards. Some would subsequently be redone by the Stones themselves; others, however, would be used as backing tracks for other artist's versions of the songs. Metamorphosis pulls a number of tracks from this latter grouping, and while "Each and Every Day of the Year" (covered by Bobby Jameson), "I'd Much Rather Be With the Boys" (the Toggery Five), "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind" (Vashti), "Sleepy City" (the Mighty Avengers), and "We're Wasting Time" (Jimmy Tarbuck) may not be Stones performances per se, they are certainly Stones songs and, for the most part, as strong as any of the band originals included on the group's first four or five LPs. Elsewhere, the 1964 Chess studio outtake "Don't Lie to Me" is as fine a Chuck Berry cover as the Stones ever mustered, while "Family," the rocking "Jiving Sister Fanny," Bill Wyman's "Downtown Suzie," and a delightfully lackadaisical version of Stevie Wonder's "I Don't Know Why" are outtakes from two of the Stones' finest-ever albums, Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. All of which adds up to an impressive pedigree, whatever the circumstances behind the album, and whatever else could have been included on it.