December's Children (and Everybody's) (1965)
1.She Said Yeah
2.Talkin' About You
3.You Better Move On
4.Look What You've Done
5.The Singer Not the Song
6.Route 66
7.Get Off My Cloud
8.I'm Free
9.As Tears Go By
10.Gotta Get Away
11.Blue Turns to Grey
12.I'm Moving On
Released a whopping two months after
the successful Out of Our Heads, it's pretty
obvious that these were the days when record companies were more
concerned with quantity, not necessarily quality. This was, of course,
the Stones - so this album is by no means bad, it's just obvious
that it was never anyone's intention to developing this band much more,
and the focus was only on the almighty dollar. The whole album clocks
in under 30 minutes. The first track - the infectious She Said
Yeah is barely ninety seconds in length. By the time the segue into
Chuck Berry's Talking About You, it's hard not to yawn. By now
the formula was becoming a little too familiar.
For some reason, however, the band chooses the best material for the
latter half of the record. After the sloppy live version of Route
66 that, although resembles their original version from the first
album, leaves a lot to be desired here. They then crank up the 3 best songs
from the record that everyone still knows today starting with Get Off My
Cloud which is undoubtedly the best thing here, and has a punch similar to
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction from their last record. The
sweeping I'm Free follows, with it's stripped down pre-hippie
sound, still sounds intoxicating today (even though most know it as a
Microsoft commercial). They follow with one of their best ballad's
As Tears Go By which was actually written, and was a hit, for
Jagger's then girlfriend Marianne Faithful. Interesting that this
version has stood the test of time a bit better.
Had this not been treated as a throwaway, and if the band had maybe
combined their original tunes on here with those from their last
release, this could have been their first classic (which would come
next). Still, it's a pretty enjoyable 28 minutes.
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