Flowers
by The Rolling Stones

"Flowers" is a compilation album that was originally released in the U.S. in 1967. It could well be included among the Rolling Stones original albums as well since only two tracks were previously released on LP in the States - the singles "Ruby Tuesday" and "Let's Spend the Night Together", which were both on "Between the Buttons" . Conversely, these two tracks were not on any European album, and bearing in mind that three tracks were entirely new and that "Have You Seen Your Mother" was not found on any album either, "Flowers" was definitely also interesting for European fans .

The album might seem a bit messy - the song-order probably could have been better but it does contain a lot of pearls. "Ruby Tuesday" are supposedly one of the most beautiful the group has ever recorded, and both "Backstreet Girl" and "Lady Jane" are very delicate ballads.

"Out of Time" could have been a hit for the Rolling Stones, but it was instead for Chris Farlow. "Mother's Little Helper" has both the twinkle in his eye and a good dose of social realism - while it is also a nice melody.

As with the three "new" songs the group's version of "My Girl" is definitely my favorite version of this number. "Ride On Baby" has very fine melodic verses, the chorus, unfortunately does not quite live up to this, but after all, a good number.

"Sitting on a Fence" is both textually and melodically a very good number, which also has a very nice guitar melody-line - strange that the mistake towards the end ws not corrected. This song was in a much weaker version a minor hit for the duo "Twice as Much".

"Take it or Leave it" from "Aftermath was incidentally also a minor hit for The Searchers - so the strength of the song writing is obvious.

The Stones' own two hits "Let's Spend the Night Together" and "Have You Seen Your Mother" are not among the group's best, yet hits. The only slightly weak number is "Please Go Home"

From junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/05/2012 17:20 | #50040 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This album was a great way to fill in the gaps. I know its a bit of a compilation, but there's plenty of new stuff not found on the other albums, and you can't argue with the content. (Edited)

An American release with a title deceptively trying to make the Rolling Stones part of the summer of love while in reality they were in a fight for their liberty with the British establishment. The album itself, is all over the place. Some singles and their b-sides, a couple of outtakes from, aftermath, and an excellent version of, my girl, which wouldn't have been out of place on the stones own UK release of, out of our heads, which leaned heavily towards soul in it's direction. Yes, the album is extremely uneven, but you can't argue with the quality of the music on offer. If not anything else, it's an interesting example of how record companies released material by artists to coincide with the sign of the times.

From Fischman TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/11/2017 23:19 | #182305 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

A rather messy compilation. There were better selections available at the time.

From lightmyway TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/11/2012 05:20 | #42008 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is sort of a dopey album, you have all these new songs but they also put some songs from Between the Buttons and Aftermath on there. It definitely annoys me but there's some really good songs here.