It’s been how many decades since Mick Jagger started his life as one of the most recognizable entertainers in the world? Goddess In The Doorway is his first solo release in about eight years. It seems that the Mick was working on some ideas and coming up short as he brought onboard a hatful of collaborators, from Wyclef Jean, Bono, Pete Townsend, and Joe Perry to Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty.
Goddess has very few highlights. It starts off shaky, revs up, and then gets lost in Jagger’s ego. “Visions Of Paradise” has some potential to start this all off well, but never gets its act together, and Rob Thomas is no matter in this track. “Joy” finds Bono and Jagger going toe to toe in a song that almost takes flight, but they just couldn’t get off.
What in the hell is Jagger doing on “Dancing In The Starlight”? He’s over-exaggerated and absurd, the singing on the verses is horrible. Here goes the ego with no one to keep it in check. And to think that Lenny Kravitz was a witness to all of this and never said anything. Hello? At least Kravitz, who produced and played guitar, makes up for it on one track that will go down as one of Jagger’s best solo tracks, “God Gave Me Everything”. It’s a bad-ass rocker. This sounds like it could have been on some early Stones album. Too bad Jagger didn’t have this on one of the last few Stones albums because it could have saved him from a lot of humiliation.
After track four, the album goes nowhere but downhill. “Hide Away” is full of dance grooves ala Wyclef Jean. It isn’t particularly bad but ends up being the quest Jagger goes on from this point to the end as he never resuscitates this quality again. All you have to do is listen to the pathetic “Goddess In The Doorway” and the obscure “Lucky Day”, which aptly announces “I know you live in a fantasy,” words that haunt Jagger throughout this album.
Jagger has lost touch with the world at large. So what did he do about it? Brought in guys he thought were up to the action. Rob Thomas? Where did Matchbox Twenty’s last album go? Exactly nowhere. Sure, he had a hit with Santana, but one song does not make thee. Kravitz is sporadic at best, and the same can be said for Wyclef. Pete Townsend and Joe Perry? One was important thirty-five years ago and the other thought he was important twenty years ago. Bono is a genius, but only with the other three members of U2. Jagger may have the most identifiable voice in the world, yet here, along with his reputation, it’s worth exactly nothing.
+ rae gun
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