Undercover is pretty good. It’s better than the underwhelming Emotional Rescue, but a few notches below Tattoo You. She Was Hot, Pain Of Love, All The Way Down, the title track… Undercover does have a few aces up it’s sleeve, certainly.

Actually, I think Steel Wheels is their last GREAT work. It's a safer record than Undercover is, but it has a very late '80s sort of charm to it. It's sort of an in between point--in between the Stones trying new stuff, and the safer, more "retro" material that came later.

So yeah I just wanted to revise my opinion a little--Undercover is great, but so is Steel Wheels, for different reasons.

Steel Wheels' 80's production sounds really dated now. Check out the raw mixes of some of the alternates and outtakes and it really is a case of what might have been. Its a patchy album, but it has three utterly wonderful songs - Continental Drift, Almost Hear You Sigh and Slipping Away. None of which are typical Stones-sounding songs either.

Undercover's pretty underrated. Loud and nasty album. Best song on it for me is the hugely underrated 'Feel On Baby' - and the 12' dub mix of this song (released only on vinyl) is one that really SHOULD be on a rarities album. One of the few remixes/dub versions of a Stones song that was successful.

Undercover is possibly the Rolling Stones' most ambitious album since Some Girls, if not their entire career, as it is a mix of hard rock, reggae, dub, soul, and new wave. The inclusion of new wave in the mix is not surprising considering it is 1983 and the Stones were attempting to reinvent themselves for the MTV era; however what makes this album stand out in the Stones' catalog is the fact that it is so bleak, violent and nihilistic in attitude and overall feel, as it makes previous Stones' albums such as Let It Bleed sound like The Carpenters.

The album teems with Sadism & Masochism ("Tie You Up (The Pain Of Love)," "Feel On Baby," "Pretty Beat Up," and "Too Tough"), nymphomania ("She Was Hot," (a minor hit) and "All The Way Down"), political violence and corruption ("Undercover (Of The Night)" and "It Must Be Hell"), and to top it all off, the overblown slasher imagery of "Too Much Blood." Keith Richards' "Wanna Hold You" seems like an anomaly in the whole mix as it is a straight-forward rocker in the middle of unrelenting mayhem. This particular formula was probably too much for people to stomach as it was a commercial fall off from Tattoo You and most of the Stones' previous albums, failing to top the charts (stalling at #4) and providing only one Top 40 hit with "Undercover (Of The Night)," which barely cracked the Top 10 at #9. The commercial fortunes of the album are not an indicator of the album strengths or weaknesses; on the contrary, time has done a great service to this album as it has aged gracefully in spite of its disturbing atmosphere.

The mix of genres combined with the lyrical content and the ever-growing feud between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards make this album stronger and more substantial (depending on one's taste or lack therof) than Tattoo You. An underrated gem in the Stones' catalog, if not 1980s music in general. It seems as if Kurt Loder had it right back in 1983 when he gave this album four and a half stars in his review for Rolling Stone Magazine.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3170978

I feel Undercover is an underrated record by the masses. The album had solid rock songs and two fantastic singles that could be played in the dance halls and clubs. Some people may say this album sounds dated due to the production, but I think the production makes it stand out with Tattoo You among the few releases the Stones had in the eighties. Dirty Work didn't have all the Stones working together on the album. Steel Wheels was overproduced, reducing some of the effectiveness of the songs, making them dull, lifeless and unmemorable tunes. Undercover, to me, was the last great Stones album.

Love it; glad I'm not the only one who digs "Feel On Baby." 
Brainy

This album is a little bit cold sounding like lots of materials from 1980 years , in a same way Jagger's "she is the boss" got the same sound and i don't like them so much .

For me their last good album was Woodoo Lounge , great sounding , warm , it was a prolific period , woodoo brew and all the materials they were  recording during this period sound awesome .

"You Got It Made" is one of the best song they ever done.

Definitely better than Emotional Rescue and more daring than Steel Wheels but SW and Voodoo Lounge just deliver the goods more. "It Must Be Hell" and "Tie You Up" are pretty third-drawer, "Too Much Blood," "Pretty Beat up" and "Feel on Baby" aren't quite the dance successes that tracks like "Hot Stuff" and "Miss You" were. I like a few tracks still, "Too Tight," "She Was Hot," "Wanna Hold You" and "Undercover of the Night" being the only ones that merit a four or five star rating in my books. Final grade: B (3 stars out of five). Better than Dirty Work and Bridges to Babylon but not by much.

i was listening to undercover the other day. LOUD. i agree with angieblue. the album is way underrated. she was hot-- rocks, all the way down--awesome guitar riffs and too much blood a hilariously entertaining attempt at rap. i wanna hold you is a cute pop tune. i heard keith perform a more bluesy version was it at MSG?

I wish I had seen this when fresh...but I was tied up in a major move ( still in Chapel Hill)...

\anyway...UNDERCOVER is in my top 3...top 5 at worst...I LOVE this album...for too many reasons to mention w/o becoming "that poster".

Some great somgs that have already been mentioned...some funny/great/stupid MTV moments...and i will never pose as someone who doesn't like the title track, Too Much Blood or She Was Hot ( my name on SHIDOOBEE), PBU...It was the Stones embracing the 80's and what the 80's had become all too fast...with TY being just re-writes of older songs...they evolved from the ER ( FM Radio disco??) Stones to the multi-platform  Stones of the MTV generation...seamlessly...

Great memories and I was really sorry that they didn't tour the LP...