The Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels (1989)

If Steel Wheels isn't a great Rolling Stones album, it's certainly a worthy effort that showed the band in top form following a tenuous period when it looked like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards might come to blows over the very future of the band.  Both pursued solo projects in the late eighties, but Jagger seemed more interested in his own stardom than in the music, while Richards wanted to keep the band going.  But whatever animosity afflicted them was apparently worked out through their solo albums; their rapprochement in 1989 led to new songs and a revived commitment to their partnership.  Steel Wheels may not have been the equal of Exile On Main Street, and it may not have been as enthusiastically received as 1978's Some Girls (considered the Stones' last great album), but it surpassed jaded expectations upon its release.  

The antiseptic production touches of Jagger, Richards, and co-producer Chris Kimsey (as well as the use of digital recording) give Steel Wheels away as an eighties record, but the music, propelled by the cutting guitars of Richards and Ron Wood, the steady, uncompromising bass of Bill Wyman, and the  pointed drums of Charlie Watts, recalls the Stones' triumphs of their classic period of the late sixties and early seventies.  Rockers like "Sad Sad Sad," Terrifying," and "Hold On To Your Hat" have a sharp, foreboding sound, while the country-tinged "Blinded By Love" has a bittersweet feel with a buzzed vibe.  Jagger's vocals are tough but earnest throughout, and he's able to stand on his own even when the music falters, such as on the mildly dull "Hearts For Sale."  Keith Richards' lead singing on the similarly obtuse "Can't Be Seen" only makes a weak song weaker, but his delivery of "Slipping Away," the understated closing cut, is one of his finest and more subdued lead vocal performances.

Elements of the Stones' early malice abound, such as the teasing "Rock and a Hard Place," which depicts a world gone wrong with the invitation for the listener to volunteer to correct the situation while seemingly suggesting that whatever we do isn't going to matter much.  Though it has all the trappings of arena rock, it's still at heart a successor to 1968's similarly quasi-committal "Street Fighting Man."  The intriguing Middle Eastern arrangements on "Continental Drift"  offer some provocative experimentation, but the Stones are better at blues balladeering  in the seductive "Almost Hear You Sigh," recalling some of their slower, steamier numbers from the seventies.  And "Mixed Emotions," a spirited pop-rocker from the same tradition as "Honky Tonk Women" and "Start Me Up," was a strong piece of contemporary pop circa 1989 that put young bands of the time to shame.

Steel Wheels might have been considered a great album had it been the Stones' last.  When Mick and Keith were on the outs, a friend and I both opined that the Stones should call it a day and close out by making the best album possible as an Abbey Road-style last hurrah.  Steel Wheels wasn't that, of course (except for Bill Wyman, who left the band a few years later), but the Stones have continued to be rock-solid performers, even though they only put out three studio albums in the quarter century after Steel Wheels to mostly mixed reviews.  But when you consider how much rock was in trouble in 1989 and how much more trouble it's in as of 2014, you understand why it's still important to have the Stones around.  Maybe the young'uns will learn something from them.