Mick Jagger

"Greatest hits albums are for housewives... and little girls." -Bruce McCullough's KITH sketch about the Doors. And it's partly true. I had the Best of Creedence for a long time until Pavement's cover of "Sinister Purpose" inspired me to buy CCR's "Green River" album, which blew me away and made me mad at myself for relying on the greatest hits package for so long. But for some artists, a greatest hits package makes perfect sense, as in the case of the brand new "Very Best of Mick Jagger." Mick obviously wants to spread his wings and do something different than he's done with the Rolling Stones in his four solo albums and other side projects, but it can end up sounding like a generic 80's pastiche, like on the faux-urgent driving rock of the Lenny Kravitz produced opener "God Gave Me Everything" or the strutting "Lucky In Love" and "Just Another Night" from his first solo album in '85, which did have Bill Laswell producing and Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, and Herbie Hancock playing, and both of those songs and the album itself were huge hits at the time, but they haven't exactly aged well. But even though a few hits are misses, several of these tracks hit the mark, especially when he and the music stretch out and are at their most soulful, like on "Memo From Turner" (from the "Performance" movie soundtrack, written with Keith Richards and with Steve Winwood on bass and Ry Cooder on the bottleneck, from 1969), "Sweet Thing" (not too dissimilar from some newer era Charlatans UK, from Jagger's ecelctic third and by far most acclaimed album), and on his appearance on Peter Tosh's "(You Got To Walk And) Don't look Back" (I can hear it: 'Hey, mon, dijoo see 'im doon that chicken dance? cuh-razy, mon'). Also included are three previously unreleased tracks, including the long-fabled super-funky John Lennon-produced "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" and a fine blues stomp with the Red Devils. If you're a fan of Jagger's legendary sway and swagger with the Stones, it'd be worth picking this up, ten bucks or less at Amazon.

Mick Jagger "Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup)"

Mick Jagger "Memo From Turner"