The 500 - #109 - Aftermath - The Rolling Stones

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album: #109
Album Title: Aftermath
Artist: The Rolling Stones
Genre: Rock & Roll, Blues Rock, Art Rock
Recorded: RCA Studios, Hollywood, USA

Released: April, 1966
My age at release: Eight months
How familiar was I with it before this week: A couple of songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #330, dropping 221 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Paint It Black

Like many of this generation, I’m on several group text threads. Some are made up of close, dear friends and our conversations are varied. Others are looser and organized around sports, comedy, or specific shared interests. These threads have mixed demographics. They are populated by both good friends,  acquaintances, and even strangers. Among them are “threaders” who  enjoy sharing their scores from a variety of daily word games -- Wordle, Connections, Quordle, and Reunion. There are some participants whom I have never met. In one of the groups there’s a guy I know, but not particularly well. He is, without fail, regularly angry.

Every time he weighs in, I think of the Grandpa Simpson "yells at cloud" meme. According to him, social media is ruining everything. The world is falling apart. Kids these days are hopeless. Apparently, Blue Jays players wear too much jewelry, and for some reason that’s a sign of cultural decay. Some of his comments are delivered loudly and with a bitterness wildly out of proportion with his complaints.

The other day he fired off another take that felt like a shot across my bow, and, as I have a few times before, I clapped back. Not angrily, or at least not consciously, but with a sarcastic edge that maybe went a touch too far. I gleaned this by the way the rest of the group reacted: “Wow, Hodgy shows his teeth,” someone joked. Another chimed in: “I’m staying out of this one.”

Undeterred, he followed up with a explanatory message, doubling down and justifying his point. I didn’t reply. I just moved on. Besides, my wife wanted to catch our current favourite show on television. Granted, watching the superhero satire The Boys probably wasn’t the best choice as it only magnified what I was trying to leave behind. It’s wildly entertaining for the less squeamish, but it’s also a grim mirror of our moment, where outrage is amplified, rewarded, and, so far, unresolved.

The next day, a couple of friends from that chat group checked in. They didn't say anything directly, but I could tell these were "you good?" inquiries. This was kind and I appreciated it. I wasn’t upset. I didn’t feel wronged. I wasn’t harboring resentment. I still don’t. I’ll keep chatting in that group about hockey and music, sending jokes and harmless memes. I also know, without illusion, that I am not changing this guy’s opinions, temperament, or default negativity with a single sarcastic retort.

And yet here I am, writing about it. I do see the contradiction there.

Which brings me, oddly enough, to the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath. an album soaked in sarcasm and bitterness, lyrically abrasive, often confrontational, and a little misogynistic. Aftermath doesn’t invite you in. It pushes back at you. It argues. It sneers. It insists on having the last word.

Maybe that’s what put me on edge. Or maybe listening to Aftermath simply sharpened my awareness of a tone I recognize too well...the satisfaction of winning an argument, the hollow little triumph of being right, the way sarcasm can feel sharp and clever in the moment, but leave a faint, bitter aftertaste once the noise dies down and everyone moves on.

Part of what makes Aftermath such an interesting listen is that it exists in two forms. The original U.K. version, released in April of 1966, runs longer with 14 tracks, while the American version, released two months later, trims down to 10 shared songs and adds just one more. But what an addition it is! That extra song went on to become a signature piece for the London-based rockers, Paint It Black.  It went to #1 for 11 weeks in 1966 and is a hit that they still play at concerts as recently as last summer.

60 years ago this week.

Paint It Black is one of the darker songs on Aftermath. While much of the album argues (Doncha Bother Me), sneers (Stupid Girl), and asserts control (Under My Thumb), Paint It Black sounds singularly fixated. There’s no smirk in it, no sense of winning. Its themes of grief and alienation appropriately fitted the era in which it was written. In 1966, post-war optimism was fading, The Kennedy Assassination was a vivid memory, and the war in Vietnam was escalating.

Album jacket for the single, Paint It Black.

Listening to both versions of Aftermath, especially the U.S. label with Paint It Black, I couldn’t help but notice how easily sarcasm and negativity can slip into certainty and disposition and then how quickly certainty can curdle into abrasion. Aftermath doesn’t ask you to agree with it. It dares you to. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why my patience ran a little thinner than usual, and why a single group text exchange became hotter than it should.

Aftermath, it turns out, is less interested in reconciliation than it is in having the last word. I suppose that is also my default setting. And perhaps "yelling at clouds" is necessary sometimes.