1) It had a different cover?

2) If there had been a tour supporting or even a select run of shows?

3) If M&K hadn't been badmouthing each other so publicly in that period, or also discussed the behind the scenes stuff surrounding its creation?

I feel like Dirty Work is less an album judged for its actual music - most of it IMO is actually good, aggressive, punky and also poppy -

but rather I feel it is judged more for its context than what it actually offers

https://images.pulsewebcontent.com/photos/2018/06_Jun/800/StonesDIRTY%20WORK_6_18.jpg

1) It had a different cover? 

Maybe...it's god awful, though current with the day-glow / pastel splash  of the times

2) If there had been a tour supporting or even a select run of shows?

Likely not...Charlie was heavy into smack at the time, if I recall..."The Vampire Charlie"

3) If M&K hadn't been badmouthing each other so publicly in that period, or also discussed the behind the scenes stuff surrounding its creation?

Possibly...as that was used many times as the critics punching bag to say the album sucked.
Hard to avoid with the 2 openers, One Hit and Fight.

IMO, the album is full of re-done Jagger solo tunes ( likely from She's The Boss) mashed up with the band stuff...Winning ugly and Back To Zero sounds like the closing credits of a 80s film
It's a shame that Had It With You has never been played live...along with Too Rude, it's the standout gem on the album

I have a hard time listening to DW, almost as bad as ABB...wait...maybe worse...

Paranoid Android wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 10:43am:

1) It had a different cover?  Maybe...it's god awful, though current with the day-glow / pastel splash  of the times 2) If there had been a tour supporting or even a select run of shows? Likely not...Charlie was heavy into smack at the time, if I recall..."The Vampire Charlie" 3) If M&K hadn't been badmouthing each other so publicly in that period, or also discussed the behind the scenes stuff surrounding its creation? Possibly...as that was used many times as the critics punching bag to say the album sucked. Hard to avoid with the 2 openers, One Hit and Fight. IMO, the album is full of re-done Jagger solo tunes ( likely from She's The Boss) mashed up with the band stuff...Winning ugly and Back To Zero sounds like the closing credits of a 80s film It's a shame that Had It With You has never been played live...along with Too Rude, it's the standout gem on the album I have a hard time listening to DW, almost as bad as ABB...wait...maybe worse...

From what I understand the album musically is mainly a Keith/Ronnie creation and Mick just added lyrics / vocals to the songs they'd written.

StickyStones wrote on Jun 28^th, 2024 at 10:56am:

From what I understand the album musically is mainly a Keith/Ronnie creation and Mick just added lyrics / vocals to the songs they'd written.

I wasn't aware of that...

Personally I think the album.may have done better if they went with One Hit as the first single release rather than Harlem Shuffle. It was more powerful.

http://www.rocksoff.org/maxlugar1983.jpg

Dirty Work

Thanks to you.


I'm hardly ever blue.


Upon the morning dew.


I caress your hard rockin' stew.


It always feels new.


You make me purr and koo.


And if you all had a clue.


Tonight, you'd play Had It With You.


Maxlugar 1/11/02
Photo is Maxy Von Kinky Kink Kinko Kinkily in 1983

What a poem!! a Poem dedicated to "Dirty Work" the album

...Back to topic, Dirty Work is the reflection, not just of the relation between Mick and Keith, and the intervention of Ronnie with them and not Ronnie alone, is also the result of the low that music fell in the 80s

I also think they were using bad drugs back then like cocaine (Charlie was on heroin)

Is not that bad, for "better reception" well, it reached platinum or gold in several countries, including the United States and the UK. The problem with Dirty Work was not the reception, it just didn't make it for retention,was an album toi listen a few times. not bad but too far from the classics

I remember one day I was listening DW with my walkman, and just changed the tape for another... not bad, but far for being a food one

Had It With You is a masterpiece.....

and btw, my first LP had "side one" on both sides and instead of keeping it as a rare item I complained at the record store and they gave me the one with sides A and B - GRRR!

It's one of the very few Stones albums that I have also the original cassette tape, most of the albums I have the LP and the CD only, and some the deluxe box set too

https://rocksoff.org/headers2024/j4-dirtywork.jpg

Tbh I like the cover ;D and I also like the album itself, love how rough and dirty and angry the sound is and also Mick's voice... Satanic Majesties is WAY worse xD

Mick said this about touring: "The health was diabolical. I wasn't in particularly good shape. The rest of the band, they couldn't walk across the Champs Elysées, much less go on the road... Touring Dirty Work would have been a nightmare. It was a terrible period."

loved it on day one, still love it

cover art: great. i especially like keith being the star of the pic and
kneeing mick in the balls

one hit: beyond great
fight:great
harlem shuffle: great
harlem shuffle extended: beyond great
hold back: great
too rude: great
winning ugly: very good
back to zero: good
dirty work: great
dirty work: alt/extended beyond great
had it with you: great
sleep tonight: great

There are more pics from the cover art photoshoot btw :)

https://i.ibb.co/5KwQjkS/H2548-L74530020.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/QpD9CZn/3K2gF7s.jpg

my fave songs are One Hit and Had It With You btw

(via a pdf i found on iorr dot org)


Panel 1: A dominatrix workout instructor, complete with
whip tells her class, “All right, you lard buckets! Fall
in line. In my gym ya do what I say. Follow orders and
we’ll get along, disobey and you answer to Olga!!!” Olga
is her assistant and endowed with a huge upper body. A
sign on the wall says,“the instructor is always right.”
A tower speaker in the corner plays a beat, “Humpa, Rumpa,
Pumpa,Rumpa”

Panel 2: the instructress wakes women lying on the gym
floor with her whip apparently to inspire them to do leg
raises. “Let’s go! Lift those fat limbs! Up! Up!”: One
two one two” the thick legged women reply “Ughhh!”and quiver

Panel 3: An unfortunate man captures the attention of the
instructress who slaps him in the face and says, “You! Did
I say stop?!” He replies, “I can’t go on. I told you I
was sick.”

Panel 4: A workout scene unfolds as the Stones Emotional
Rescue drifts out of the speaker, “Is there nothin’ I can
say, Nothin’ I can do…” The instructress works with five
gym rats, whip in hand, “Faster!! All the way down.” A man
at the far left pinches a large woman to his left. A man
wears a shirt that says “THEM ANY”. On the right side
of the panel Olga cracks a woman’s back with her left hand
as she commands, “Touch the floor, ya” With her left hand
she snaps the back of another woman.

Panel 5: Shows the entrance to a sauna room with five naked
men entering the sauna. Those near the front are melting
from the heat. Olga stands behind the crowd pushing them
toward the sauna door. One of the men says, “Hugo Phurst.”
The instructress has morphed into a slightly Egyptian
looking character who is saying, “You call that sweat!?
I’ll show you sweat!!”

Panel 6: The instructress morphed back into her former
face, tells a man, “So Mr. Universe! Looks to me like there
was a sale on cheese steak this week. Olga!”

Panel 7: Olga swings into action heating up a branding
iron for potential use on the poor cheese steak
consumer whom the instructress is busy forcing onto
a treadmill as she says, “Ya, vee had vays of
making you valk!!”

Panel 8: We are back in the front of the gym before a
cowering gym class. Olga is urging, “Shnell! Shnell!” as the
instructress says, “Hopeless pack of slouchers…all of you!
You’re not worth the sweat under my armpits. In one week I’ll
have you shaped like people! Real people! Not FREAKS!!

Panel 9: Here the instructress tells Olga, “Watch those
sleaze beats for a minute, Olga.” We see Olga’s
“OX” tattoo on her left arm as she replies, “Ya.”

Panel 10: The instructress is enjoying a bottle of 3X’s
Cola and a cupcake as she philosophizes aloud,
“When you’re a kick-ass leather faced old bitch of an
aerobics instructor you can do just about anything
to a group of disgusting fat people.” In the background
Olga can be seen kicking a man’s tooth out.

Panel 11: Here we see the attack of the fat people who
have turned on the instructress. One man
squeezes her throat and demands “gimme that!” A woman has
the instructress’s leg and is stretching it.
Other gym warriors surge forward to get soda and cupcakes.
The instructress chokes out a “Gak.” In the
lower right corner a woman says, “Omigod! Food!!” in
the upper right, Olga walks toward a gym rat
saying “Back! Get Back!”

Mark Marek is a Los Angeles-based comic book artist and illustrator, who
plies the border between primitive and savage in his artwork and between
underground and mainstream in his markets. He came to work on Dirty Work
because he had worked previously with the album art director, Janet Perr
on the Cyndi Lauper EP for "She Bop.” He created the green and red Dirty
Workout cartoon featuring a sadistic gym trainer found on the inner sleeve
while working in New York City’s Lower East Side.

Asked how long he was involved with the Dirty Work project, Marek says
he works fairly quickly, “The comic probably took a week or so. Same with
all the lyrics, so 2 weeks total. Estimate.” Marek added some back story
and said, “Interesting story, however…my first illustration was approved
by the Stones but was quashed by their legal team. They were afraid it
would offend too many people. It was entitled "Dirty Father Harry, Private
Celibate Dick." Marek describes "Dirty Workout" as a “Safer alternative
and much less interesting.”


https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/79/30/Oh8sqEYb_t.jpg

It's not as bad as many make out, but it's not great either. The biggest problem with it is that you can sense the total lack of unity and purpose in it. You can almost hear the problems within the band in the record (even outside of songs like Fight). Never thought the cover was as awful as everyone says.

(more from the unidentified pdf which i'll link below. i just want to
say that the "crotch" thing discussed here i figured out the minute
i bought the album on its release date. yay me.)

The album cover was shot by Annie Leibovitz on August 9 and 12, 1985
presumably in Leibovitz’s studio while the Stones were recording in New
York. The shot is instantly recognizable as a Leibovitz work due to its use
of bright colors, intense lighting and unusual poses.

Coral pinks and bright reds dominate the cover, with four of the five
Stones wearing the funky, bright colors, that were a Leibovitz trademark
along with their ‘can we go yet’ expressions. Jagger’s outfit is the most
colorful befitting a front man. The sea foam green section of couch
provides a powerful contrast to the Stones fashion choices. The dark
blue background provides a further level of contrast that allows for
the Stones to stand out. Leibovitz’s overhead photograph puts the band
into a somewhat vulnerable position. We don’t often get to see the band
this way, as if lounging around backstage at a concert.

The photo provides a level of intimacy rarely seen in their photographs.
Richards alone sits on the sectional, fitting, given his central role in the
album’s production. He wears his handcuffs bracelet, skull ring, and
necklace. He must have stifled a grin when the proofs appeared to
show him kneeing Jagger in the crotch.

Charlie sits against the sectional in all blue avoiding eye contact.
Purportedly, Watts refused to make eye contact with the camera
during the photoshoot and he returned to England in disgust.
There has been speculation that this cover, showing the band, was done
to reassure fans who feared the band was about to break up due to the
dire state of the relationship between Jagger and Richards. If so, the jury
is divided because one writer says Leibovitz scarcely disguised a band
drifting apart, suggesting that on the cover the Stones look as scattered
as the victims of a bomb blast

https://iorr.org/albums/dirty-work.pdf

The Wick wrote on Jun 30^th, 2024 at 2:38am:

It's not as bad as many make out, but it's not great either. The biggest problem with it is that you can sense the total lack of unity and purpose in it. You can almost hear the problems within the band in the record (even outside of songs like Fight). Never thought the cover was as awful as everyone says.

Tbh exactly that fact that you can actually hear the tension between Mick and Keith and probably also other band members at the time is what makes this record interesting to me...sure do we get an overall greater record with more feel and tighter playing and just overall greatness like Exile or also HD where you can just tell the band was having fun just jamming around and trying things out and actually wanted to work together...as opposed to whatever the fuck was going on during Dirty Work, I read in an interview that sometimes not even Charlie showed up for some recording sessions and then Ronnie or Mick were playing the drums instead ...but it's kinda what makes it interesting in some way

Thanks for sharing the background info on the cover art, Rev! Tbh if Annie Leibovitz's goal was to create intimacy between the band that wasn't there atm then probably they rather should have chosen that pic I posted above where Keith has his hand on Mick's leg instead of the one looking like he is kneeing him in the crotch LOL but that's just my humble opinion  ;D ;D

Dirty Work would have flown higher if some of the better outtakes (and there are a lot of choices) had been put in place of Back to Zero, Winning Ugly, and the pointless Fight - all attempts at pop singles that fell very flat.  Using some of the more Keith/Ronnie-centric outtakes would have made for a better album.  It was all product to Jagger, so why not better product?  The best unofficial outtakes collections are better than the finished LP.

Suggested interview quote for Mick: "Keith and Ronnie came to the studio with some really good stuff, really soulful.  So we decided to stretch out a bit and put out something representing our heads at the time."  How hard would that be to say, especially since that version of the album would have worked?

I prefer Dirty Work over Undercover.

I think it is almost trendy to dislike Dirty Work.

It is far from my fav but it is not my worst.

MarshallG wrote on Jul 1^st, 2024 at 7:07pm:

I prefer Dirty Work over Undercover.

:booze

Same^^ I dunno why but I just cannot get warm with Undercover, the only song I can listen to is Undercover, all the others are weird and all over the place, even Satanic Majesties seems to have more consistency