London Symphony Orchestra
"Symphonic music of the Rolling Stones"
Yet another ambitious "classical rock" project from the London Symphony Orchestra (who did 2 truly great camp lps on K-Tel in 1978 with beeeeeeeeg sympho versions of rock classics). This one, with all songs from the Stones, is not as good IMHO.
"Paint it black" becomes very fascinating and exotic during a too short fragment thanx to Arabic style percussion and violin; "Under my thumb" is sung by Michael Hutchence, who hasn't a singing voice strong enough to hold this (or any other) song; "As tears go by" is sung by Maire Brennan (the voice of Clannad); "Sympathy for the devil" is accompanied by a choir & children's choir, which sound very impressing indeed, but the first vocal is by one Jerry Hadley, who suffers from the same problem as Michael Hutchence; "Ruby Tuesday" is brought by Marianne Faithfull, and "Angie" even by Mick Jagger himself, who can't rescue the uninspired arrangement. The best tracks are those without solo vocals, but WITH a choir: "Dandelion" and "Gimme shelter".
The producers made a HUGE mistake by bringing in all those solo vocalists. Symphonic arrangements of rock music get their exotic or camp charm from the huge distance between them and the originals; by including solo vocals, this distance becomes much smaller, and, instead of symphonic versions of rock songs, you get rock songs with a symphonic accompaniment, which is something completely different.
Also, the arrangements (by Jon & Virginia Astley, Jaz Coleman and Matt Clifford) are not very inspired (or bombastic, for camp sake), even tame.
London Symphony Orchestra: "Symphonic music of the Rolling Stones"
CD, RCA 09026-62526-2, USA (P)1994, 52:07 minutes
TRACK LIST:
|
1. Street fighting man
2. Paint it black 3. Under my thumb 4. As tears go by 5. Sympathy for the devil 6. Dandelion |
7. Ruby tuesday
8. Angie 9. She's a rainbow 10.Gimme shelter 11.Jumin' Jack flash |