stones vs velvets poll

Well, fuck me. I never thought I'd see the day when I voted against the Velvets for anything.

But they only had four records, and none of 'em contained "Gimme Shelter," so STONES, mutha.

velvet underground

last time i checked, the rolling stones didnt make "the velvet underground and nico". or else i'd vote for them

The Velvets didn't make Let It Bleed, yo.

BOO-YAH!

The Velvets by virtue of not hanging around for forever (also not making completely embarrassing concert films with Martin Scorsese.)

The Velvets didn't make Let It Bleed, yo.

iirc, Richard Hell contributed an excellent essay to this book that boiled down to this point. And he was OTM.

http://www.randomhouse.com/images/dyn/cover/?source=9780307396273&height=300&maxwidth=170

as much as i like VU...this one isn't hard for me at all.

basically better rhythm section FTW

stones for SURE.

stones were awesome at rock and disco

who has the more weird, mannered genius/douchebag frontman though? can't call it!

lour > mick

lou*

mick's "country" accent is hilarious though! but lou is a real piece of work all around

rather hang with mick tbh.

oh jeez yeah a million times over i'd rather kick it with mick than lou, no question....

actually i would rather hang with ron wood than most of VU prolly, and keith of course...but i'd rather hang with cale instead of charlie watts or wyman.

i wouldn't bro down with brian jones either....but he's dead anyway...

mo tucker seems cool as hell....don't know about mick taylor, he just seems like he'd be boring to hang with.

i would totally love to bro down with mo tucker.
have you guys heard that record she did with Rick & Alan Bishop?? great stuff.

no i should though. i never heard that "i spent a week there last night" either..

I forgot: Ron Wood has an english pub built into his house or something. that's fucking dope.

The Rolling Stones

Oh my god I can't believe how effectively The Velvet Underground could beat the Stones' ass.

i would like to explore keith richards' library, and chat history with him

mick is a history buff too. but then i could talk about poetry and classical music with lou.

rather hang with mick tbh

Mick would at least pretend to like you (or me).

Seriously, the Stones' power as a pop machine in the '60s has to count for a lot here. As I was saying to a friend recently, just their As and Bs from 1966 add up to a body of work.

ack! the goddamn motherfuckin' Rolling Stones goddamnit motherfucker!!!

also, it would be nice to talk economics with Mick, plus he'd serve better wine than that cheapskate Lou would, i'm sure.

I have loved the Velvet Underground all my life but the Stones walk this one easy. They are the better band on every count except "influence"/impact. Even if you established a cutoff date of 1969, the Stones win. Which makes Exile & Some Girls icing on the cake.

word.

fuckin stones

Everyone's talking Stones.

Bet the Velvs win silently, anyway...

corny indie fuxors to thread.

Even if you established a cutoff date of 1969, the Stones win. Which makes Exile & Some Girls icing on the cake.

You fuck, I was going to say this. I was gonna say, "it's like having your cake and also you have this other cake."

Stones.

If the Stones had stopped before 1972, this might be close. But the overwhelming shower of shite that the Stones have released since then seems flabby and flaccid compared to the beautifully tight and well-formed package that is the Velvets catalogue.

Some Girls vs. Squeeze

rather hang with mick tbh.

― ian, Thursday, October 16, 2008 11:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Understatement!

lol, all of the Stones vs. Doug Yule all by his lonesome isn't exactly fair.

Still, the Stones kept on and were still able to churn out pretty damn classic albums throughout the years, which isn't much against 'em.

I mean I'll take some slumps and the occasional gem over a big goose egg.

The Stones were much better at playing at and BEING decadent, and, as JOhn says, you can't discount their pop singles; but the Velvets compressed the entire arc of the Stones' career into the run from VU & Nico to TVU too, and the revelations of "I'm Set Free," "Foggy Notion," and "Some Kinda Love" are even more quietly subversive.

if you give +1 for every good record, 0 for okay records, and -1 for bad ones, stones still come out on top. but I'm not really okay with the argument that a band's longevity and the slumps that come with the territory somehow invalidates its other acheivements.

Better poll: Mick's "Let's Work" vs. Lou's "The Original Wrapper"

this one's as difficult as stooges vs. sabbath.

velvets 3rd is an all-time great, absolute perfection, and as j0hn points out their worthy influence can't be underestimated.

years ago I would've tilted towards VU cause the filler ratio on stones records prevented me from going whole hog on them. but then I came to terms with exile on main street, now I'm not so sure. live, the stones laid waste to just about everybody for a long long time, and that counts for something in my book.

reed being a dick is irrelevant, the velvet underground wouldn't have existed if lou was... I dunno, a human?

being a dick is part of being human!

better attempt at disco: "Miss You" vs. "Disco Mystic"

the "there's a lot of garbage" argt does nothing for me, for me any crappy Lou or Stones albums just aren't counted in their favor. it doesn't matter though. the Stones have more great tunes, and that was true even before the victory laps of Exile, Some Girls, and even Emotional Rescue. even if they made albums as bad as The Bells (which they still haven't done, mind), it's the punches they landed that count, not the ones that missed. The Stones go places the Velvets didn't, because Jagger's just a better writer, able to take himself out of the picture long enough to get a better view.

I would also argue that Jagger's gender-fuck moves are considerably more interesting and less aggressively cartoonish than Lou's, although Coney Island Baby & the title track from the Blue Mask would give Lou a good edge there. But that's solo Lou. The Stones beat the Velvets on the merits of the catalogue, is kinda the bottom line.

Throw in Lou solo and it's a fair race though - Transformer & Coney Island Baby add a lot of weight. The Velvets otherwise strike me as the sentimental vote here.

being a dick is part of being human!

I hear ya, but you gotta admit lou was (by intention) an olympic class asshole. we're all jerks at times but this guy's role model was, like, a praying mantis or something.

The Stones were much better at playing at and BEING decadent

not sure if I agree with this... stones definitely made decadence look fun, but VU's decadance seems "truer" cause they captured the degradation side of the equation so effectively.

cocksucker blues is my favorite rock n roll film ever, in part because it captures the banality of decadence with an unblinking eye. people dislike the movie; it's boring, it doesn't sell the stones myth (which even gimme shelter can't help but reinforce). with VU, you get both the sleaze and the underlying desperation at once; they baked their cocksucker blues into every album.

I pick the Stones over just about anyone, so this one's not close for me. But they're pretty hard to compare: the Stones rarely aimed directly at the avant-garde, while the Velvets rarely aimed directly at the pop charts; though both were pretty aware of what they weren't directly aiming at. To compare them more directly: "Temptation Inside Your Heart" vs. "Let's Spend The Night Together".

Throw in Lou solo and it's a fair race though - Transformer & Coney Island Baby add a lot of weight.

street hassle! and don't forget cale's paris 1919, fear, etc.

the goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnitthe goddamn rolling stones goddamnit

still want to see the Stones vs. Zep blood bath.

also have never understood why everyone loves Gimme Shelter, which I've never really enjoyed and found the female singers' caterwauling delivery really distracting. Keith's guitar sounds great on it though.

Reed's sense of decadence always seemed far more studied than Jagger's to me; kinda like he was reporting from the sidelines, you know: "now this is how it feels when you shoot up, kids. pay close attention." Mick (and Keith obviously) just leapt in with both jack-boots and damned be the consequences (or at least that's how it looked to me).

xp's galore (haha)

xxxpost

yeah, I love Exile !
but there are many other rock n roll acts that know how to end a song properly !

M@tt otm. The Stones taught me that "insincerity" and "hamminess" are not automatically bad things – that penumbras of feeling DO exist in them.

xpost

by the end it doesn't matter anymore people have already been rocked

The Stones taught me that "insincerity" and "hamminess" are not automatically bad things

oddly I feel like I learned these lessons from Bowie/Reed by way of Oscar Wilde

Actually, thinking about the stones' endings, most of the times, on record, they do fade outs. if you compare with the beatles, for instance, the "songwriting/arranging" is far less precise.
I remember in a book about the beatles that they explained that by the fact that the beatles had developped this attention to endings from the endless gigs they would do in germany etc where they needed to keep the attention of the audience.

also have never understood why everyone loves Gimme Shelter, which I've never really enjoyed and found the female singers' caterwauling delivery really distracting. Keith's guitar sounds great on it though.

and wyman's bass! it's like he's playing a ruptured whale belly with ten foot fingers. the best thing to pick on an overloud jukebox.

well, I think most of the love for "gimme shelter" is linked to keith's boiling guitar. for me, at least.
the one I've never understood the love for is "street fighting man". just meh to me.

and yeah, the stones were arty in their own way... getting a soul singer to wail "rape, murder, it's just a shot away" on yr thundering hit single iz conceptual

the one I've never understood the love for is "street fighting man". just meh to me.

I do prefer Rod Stewart's version.

just like having a track titled "cocksucker blues" when you're one of the most famous bands in the world !

U.S. Maple

The Velvets concocted that pulsing eighth-note rhythm which has percolated into so many different genres. It's easy to use, it moves, and it gets results.

The Stones' body rhythms are more difficult to achieve, maybe even inimitable, really. When the Stones go, they're going to take that with them. But their rhythms cut deeper to the core, or at least to my core. Take the single version of Jumping Jack Flash, which uses that Velvets rhythm, but kicks it into a whole new universe in less time than you can say "Sister Ray." The guitar intro announces, "We might be the Velvet Underground." Then the drums kick in and it's, like, "Nope, guess what -- we're the freakin' Stones!"

(Stones.)

getting a soul singer to wail "rape, murder, it's just a shot away" on yr thundering hit single iz conceptual

reminds me that 75% of the time I cannot understand a word Mick's saying (this particular chorus included - never noticed that's what she was singing) This is not necessarily a bad thing, except that obviously I miss subtext here and there. "Brown Sugar" I always understood pretty clearly, in contrast. (lolriffic time explaining the lyrics of that song to a black lesbian coworker of mine)

To me this comes down to Velvet Underground vs. Exile on Main Street - two just about perfect albums, but very different. Very tough to choose.

The Stones bring more on sex than the Velvets do. Yeah, it's cool that you're into S&M, and heroin's your wife. But think of the Stones circa Flowers:

"you walk up to me
and try to look shy
the red round your eyes
says that you ain't a child"

That is like a primer on the fucked-up relations of men with women and their respective gender roles.

And Flowers continues with this: do I want to marry these women ("life is secure with Lady Jane"), love them openly ("let's spend the night together") or just use them as fuck buddies ("please don't be part of my life"), or:

"I don't want to be on my own
cause I can't talk much better alone
but I don't have to ring like a phone
won't you please go home"

Reed's sense of decadence always seemed far more studied than Jagger's to me;

jagger's a sexy ass stripper with some natural moves, and reed is a flasher in a grubby raincoat always shoving his junk in yr face

sometimes you need a little of both

aesthetically speaking

Of course.

yeah, I love Exile !
but there are many other rock n roll acts that know how to end a song properly !

― AleXTC, Friday, October 17, 2008 12:04 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

by the end it doesn't matter anymore people have already been rocked

― M@tt He1ges0n, Friday, October 17, 2008 12:05 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ truth ^^

Stones' lack of precision is a feature. Mick's panicked looks. "What's holding this together?"

To me this comes down to Velvet Underground vs. Exile on Main Street - two just about perfect albums, but very different. Very tough to choose.

― o. nate, Friday, October 17, 2008 12:47 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is where I end up too. I wonder about the value of evaluating best moment vs best moment as opposed to body of work vs body of work.

but then, if stones hadn't made exile or the velvets hadn't made their 3rd album, my vote casting would get a lot easier.

Why don't we vote this poll all together?

I generally listen to the Velvets more than the Stones, but ultimately the Stones have a bigger body of great work, so they get the vote. I'm with Shakey Mo on the live stones = crap thing, though. The only live recording of theirs I've ever thought was close to tolerable was the El Mocambo side of Love You Live. And I only say that because it's been 20 years since I listened to it, so it's improved in my hazy memory.

The Velvets best moments ("Sunday Morning", "Who Loves The Sun" + some more nice harmonic pop songs) were almost as good as the Stones best moments ("Their Majesties Satanic Request, some of the ballads from their other output)

However, the Velvets worst moments were way more horrible than the Stones' worst. So this is Stones by a landslide.

I find that hard to believe.

The Stones have made quite a share of boring blues songs. But they have never ever produced something as horribly unlistenable as "Heroin" or "Sister Ray".

I wish they ha-aaaad..

After much consideration, I think I'm going to have to go with the Velvets. Sure the Stones have a much bigger catalog of good-to-great work, but the Velvets best work just resonates with me a bit more than the Stones do.

I love that Geir thinks TSMR is the best Stones album

lots of people do, apparently (although most of them would be psych fand i'd imagine, still...).

fans

I think the fact that it is Geir's choice is what is funny.

Actually it's quite logic, considering it is the one Stone album that sounds more like The Beatles than The Rolling Stones.

actually i would rather hang with ron wood than most of VU prolly, and keith of course...but i'd rather hang with cale instead of charlie watts or wyman.

Supposedly, Sterling Morrison is quite a gent. I'd prefer for a quiet afternoon on his tugboat ride to a coke-fueled limo ride with Jagger/Richards any day of the week.

The Velvets are my absolute favorite band, but I can't actually say they were objectively better than the Stones for many of the reasons listed above. While VUs third album might speak to me more personally than any other music out there, I also acknowledge that Let it Bleed very well may be the best rock album ever made.

Stones.

tugboat ride

VU's decadance seems "truer" cause they captured the degradation side of the equation so effectively.

None of the Velvets died in their 20s. It's a horrible way to prove "truth," but there it is.

The Stones are too perfect that they bore me. So the Velvets it is. Also, Mo Tucker and John Cale are way cooler than any of the Stones.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Oh man. 2 of the best bands of all time. But it has to go to the Stones.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

close one

Shit, closer than I thought. Probably woulda voted Velvets, since they never made an outright shitty record, and the Stones made at least 10.

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

goddamn right!

ridiculously close.

Velvets still win, though, because everyone who voted for them is going out and starting a band.

... or a poll.