Posted by cc on June 15, 2000 at 14:57:55:
In Reply to: a tid and a bit posted by Syph on June 15, 2000 at 12:08:10:
I say 5.: I think Tattoo You is a tremendous feat of the producers involved, Bob Clearmountain, and the Glimmer Twins get credit too, for being able to make the disparate recordings into one seamless (if hardly flawless) album.
Actually the album is very dated now, though it was ahead of its time-- I think the sounds on that album went a long way on rock albums through the 80s (for better and mostly worse). It definitely sounds like an 80s production, though a good one. Even though some of the basic tracks go back to 1973, and the songwriting doesn't depart from anything the Stones had done in the previous 15 years, it sounds as if contemporary effects were used to unify the sound, an intensifying of the phasers and delays that they had been using on the guitars since Some Girls and extending that cold, clean sound to the whole mix. The album is definitely a testament to the power of mixing, though some of the basic songs are excellent.
Side 1 is a bit lite, but Side 2 is, to me, the closest the Stones came to art since Exile. Some people overrate this album, some underrate it.