Label: Virgin Records (US), 7243-8-39649-2-5
Style: Funk, Rock, Rock and Roll, New Wave
Country: London, England
Time: 45:00
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 308 Mb
Charts: UK #3, US #4, AUS #3, CAN #2, FRA #11, GER #2, JPN #12, NLD #1, NOR #3, SWE #1. UK: Gold; US: Platinum.
By now, the Rolling Stones have assumed something of the status of the blues in popular music — a vital force beyond time and fashion. Undercover, their twenty-third album (not counting anthologies and outtakes), reassembles, in the manner of mature masters of every art, familiar elements into exciting new forms. It is a perfect candidate for inclusion in a cultural time capsule: Should future generations wonder why the Stones endured so long at the very top of their field, this record offers just about every explanation. Here we have the world’s greatest rock & roll rhythm section putting out at maximum power; the reeling, roller-derby guitars at full roar; riffs that stick in the viscera, songs that seize the hips and even the heart; a singer who sounds serious again. Undercover is rock & roll without apologies.
There is a moment early on in “Too Tough,” a terrific song on the second side, that sums up all of the Stones’ extraordinary powers. With the guitars locked into a headlong riff and Mick Jagger hoarsely berating the woman who “screwed me down with kindness” and “suffocating love,” the track is already off to a hot start; but then Charlie Watts comes barreling in on tom-toms and boots the tune onto a whole new level of gut-punching brilliance. That the Stones are still capable of such exhilarating energy is cause enough for wondrous comment; that they are able to sustain such musical force over the course of an entire LP is rather astonishing. Undercover is the most impressive of the albums the group has released since its mid-Seventies career slump (the others being Some Girls, Emotional Rescue and 1981’s remarkable Tattoo You) because, within the band’s R&B-based limits, it is the most consistently and energetically inventive.
If there are disappointments on Undercover, they can only be claimed in comparison to past Stones triumphs. If the album lacks the epochal impact of, say, Sticky Fingers, then perhaps it’s because the mythic years of pop are past — by now, even the Stones have long since bade them goodbye. But Undercover seems to be more felicitously concentrated than Exile on Main Street, and while it may lack that album’s dark power and desperate atmosphere, it does deliver nonstop, unabashed rock & roll crafted to the highest standards in the business. And that, rest assured, will do just fine.
(full version: rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/undercover-100134/) Review by Kurt Loder. November 7, 1983
01. Undercover Of The Night (04:33)
02. She Was Hot (04:41)
03. Tie You Up (The Pain Of Love) (04:16)
04. Wanna Hold You (03:52)
05. Feel On Baby (05:06)
06. Too Much Blood (06:14)
07. Pretty Beat Up (04:05)
08. Too Tough (03:51)
09. All The Way Down (03:14)
10. It Must Be Hell (05:04)
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