Like Bob Dylan, the Stones didn't have their first Canadian number one with the single from 1965 that most people remember them for but for its difficult follow-up. It's as if "Like a Rolling Stone" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" walked so that their predecessors could run. But the momentum was such that it took comparatively weak singles all the way to the top of the charts — the difference being that while "Positively 4th Street" is just a step below the quality of "Like a Rolling Stone", "Get Off of My Cloud" is a big fall off from "Satisfaction".
Writers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have even admitted as much, pointing out that their breakthrough global smash was damn-near impossible to follow. One-hit wonders obviously have trouble replicating their success but this jinx can even weigh down a group as big as The Rolling Stones. (The Beatles, for their part, never seemed to struggle following their hits) Perhaps it just goes to show that the London quintet wasn't quite firing on all cylinders: Jagger and Richards weren't the potent songwriting duo they'd soon become and Brian Jones' potential as a maverick all-arounder hadn't yet been tapped.
In his notorious but — to quote critic Paul du Noyer — "horribly readable" biography The Lives of John Lennon, Albert Goldman brings up a flawed but still worthwhile point that the Fab Four should have followed the Stones' example by recording their singles and albums in state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles rather than at London's primitive Abbey Road facilities. Goldman believed that they could have achieved much the same results only it would have been cheaper and a quicker process. There's probably at least some truth to this claim but it wasn't as if decamping to Hollywood suddenly made the Stones a polished recording act. "Satisfaction" had been churned out swiftly while in California with a newfound clarity that obviously worked but the same can't be said for "Get Off of My Cloud" which sounds as roughhouse and under-produced as they'd ever been. (Is it any wonder Andrew Loog Oldham is credited as a capable manager of the group while his abilities as a producer are rarely if ever discussed?) What was the point of heading off to LA only for the end product to sound so sloppy?
Even at their very best, The Rolling Stones have always been erratic. Their first big run of hits in the sixties has its ups and downs. Breakthrough album Aftermath includes a very lengthy track called "Going Home" which just about ruins an otherwise flawless LP. Their much-loved foursome of albums from 1968 to 1972 aren't quite as endlessly brilliant as they're often said to be. Even their stretch of consistently bad records in their eighties was occasionally interrupted by the odd "Waiting on a Friend" or "Undercover of the Night". So, good on them for getting into the swing of things by having the still magnificent "Satisfaction" be followed by one of their weakest efforts. Fortunately, we'll be encountering the Stones about seven more times from now until the end of the eighties and each of their remaining Canadian chart toppers is a good deal stronger than this one.
Score: 4
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Can Con
Aloha — 22 Chansons Hawaiennes. This was the album from which Quebec's own Michel Louvain would score is sole RPM hit (at least that I know of). Francophone hits on Canada's national charts have always been a rarity but this one seems especially surprising given how tricky Anglophones were finding it at the time. Jumping on the Blue Hawaii bandwagon — assuming there had ever been such a thing — Louvain briefly managed to cross over. I hope that much like Celine Dion and Roch Voisine he had more of facility with singing in his own language since "C'est un secret" is a grim, slog of a listen. Don Ho would've rolled his eyes at all the Hawaiian cliches present. I'll stick with French duo Air and Israel "Bruddah Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole for some French and Hawaiian music respectively. A pity the two never worked together, come to think of it.
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