"Mick Jagger needs Keith Richards as much as Keith Richards needs Mick Jagger": Keef goes solo on Talk Is Cheap

Like Paul Hogan goading wannabe muggers in Crocodile Dundee as he unsheathed a whopping blade (“That’s a knife? This is a knife”), there were no half-measures when Keith Richards retaliated to Mick Jagger derailing the Rolling Stones in favour of his ill-advised solo career 30 years ago. Reluctantly at first, Richards formed a band that rocked and made what was hailed as the best Stones album in years.

The civil war between the two Stones flared in 1983 after Jagger sneaked solo opportunities into the band's new CBS mega-deal and released MTV-geared She's The Boss. This soured recording of Dirty Work, but touring behind his album with another band (playing Stones classics) ignited Keith's own offensive.

Like a polar opposite to Jagger’s synthesised clatter, Talk Is Cheap brimmed with humble soul and rolled like a train, with Keith in fine voice. Studded with loose, joyous rockers (Take It So Hard, How I Wish, the Jagger-directed You Don’t Move Me) and gorgeous ballads (Make No Mistake, Locked Away burnished in authentic Memphis soul), it sold a million and ignited Keith’s solo career, while precipitating the Stones’ return.

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Other albums released in October 1988

• Traveling Wilburys - Vol 1
• Blood Fire Death - Bathory
• Barcelona - Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé
• Rattle and Hum - U2
• The Land of Rape and Honey - Ministry
• Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
• Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth
• Everything - The Bangles
• Look Sharp! - Roxette
• QR - Quiet Riot
• I Am Kurious Oranj - The Fall
• Rage - T'Pau
• The Serpent's Egg - Dead Can Dance
• In the Spirit of Things - Kansas
• Till I Loved You Barbra Streisand -
• Living Years - Mike + The Mechanics
• Bug - Dinosaur Jr.
• Choba B CCCP - Paul McCartney
• Ultramega OK - Soundgarden
• Amnesia - Richard Thompson
• Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys

What they said...

"Talk Is Cheap was good, raucous, high-attitude fun in a way a Stones album hadn't been since Tattoo You in 1981, and if Primitive Cool unwittingly revealed Mick Jagger wasn't entirely sure what his musical identity was outside of the Stones, this album made it clear all Richards needed to do to make a good record was to be himself." (AllMusic)

"If Talk Is Cheap has a major flaw, it’s only that it is an all-too-simple pleasure, great grooves in search of a vital purpose, just as Jagger’s own solo trips were hip concepts lacking that randy Keef edge. If Jagger and Richards have learned anything from each other’s records, it’s probably that their greatest assets are each other." (Rolling Stone)

"Keith’s mission was to go against the 80s’ fixation with synths and drum machines ('toy department music') with a warts-and-all band sound, pulling it off with understated relish on potent, serrated-riff street-rockers like Struggle and How I Wish, along with sweet Southern soul ballads Locked Away and Make No Mistake (Like Satisfaction, written after a dream). Brimming with warmth, telepathy and funky soul, they tangibly sound like they’re having a blast." (Record Collector)

What you said...

Adam Ranger: This is not an outstanding record. It's not bad and has some good songs, just not outstanding. It's probably better to hear this in a late-night bar or small club with a few beers. The band is tight, but plays loose and easy like a good jam session. Keith's voice is OK, but it's not really strong enough for a whole album.

It lacks punch or direction at times, but it's not overproduced like Jagger's solo efforts tended to be. As good as it is musically, in parts it lacks the vocal and writing contributions Jagger brings. Keith needs Mick as much as Mick needs Keith. Together, they are brilliant. Separate, they're OK.

Chris Elliott: Because there aren't enough indifferent Stones albums already.

Nigel Mawdsley: There's some great songs and arrangements on this album, but Keith's vocals are (and always have been) an acquired taste. If Mick Jagger had got his vocal chops around this set of songs it would have made a fantastic Rolling Stones album. Still, despite my (minor) criticism, Talk Is Cheap is still a very good record.

Evan Sanders: I like this album, as many of the songs seem like they could have been an extra Keith track or two on various Rolling Stones albums. The first side is strong with a rock-blues vibe, and that continues on the second side, although the last few songs feel more like filler.

For those who listened to the 2019 reissue, the bonus blues tracks are enjoyable, really giving a feeling that Keith was having a good time jamming with his roomful of musicians. I have to imagine what would have been if parts of this album had been combined with Mick's solo effort, She's The Boss, from a couple of years earlier. Maybe we would have had the last great Rolling Stones album? 7/10 for an album that remains a good listen almost 40 years later.

Andrew Cumming: A fantastic record that sounds as great today as it did then. Capturing all the best of Keith - some great rockers (Take It So Hard), some brilliant ballads (Locked Away), and some great fun (I Could Have Stood You Up). It’s strong from start to finish, and his backing band were brilliant. His drummer (and main songwriting partner) was, of course, a certain Steve Jordan - so good he has credibly succeeded the unsuccessible Charlie Watts.

Fantastic album. 10 out of 10 all day long. Ever wondered why the Stones could sustain such a long career? Because in his mid-40s, Keith can produce an album this good.

Greg Schwepe: So, you’re one of the original guitarists in The World’s Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band with a little downtime while you and your strutting lead singer don’t see eye to eye. Time on your hands (or is it on your side?). What to do? What to do? Oh, you’ll make a solo album with a ton of top-notch musicians.

It seems that’s exactly what Keith Richards did with Talk Is Cheap. Big Enough leads off this album with a little keyboard swirl, a Hot Stuff-style riff, and the star of this show right behind Richards; the drums of Steve Jordan. That funky beat makes his presence known right off the bat. Hypnotic. Just like someone is swinging the little watch on a chain in front of me, chanting, “You are now locked into the groove and you will listen to this whole album…”

And after that groove, you get a visual as you hear the opening Keef Riff of Take It So Hard. I can totally see Keith standing there in the studio, Telecaster in hand (maybe tuned to Open G?) and laying down a riff with his fingerprints all over it.

Face it, if you’re a Stones fan, you’ll like this. I’ve always liked the 1-2 songs Keith might get to sing on a Stones album, and now he’s got the album to himself. The guitar tone and riffs are unmistakable.

Here’s the million-dollar question when a member of a high-profile band does a solo album: Are they going to make something totally different from their “day job band” because they want to? Or is it going to be something similar because of their influence in their “day job band?” And yeah, it sounds like the Stones, and I bet Keith didn’t care. He just got to call the shots on everything here.

A few years ago, while on a Stones binge, I bought this and all Keith’s other solo albums. For me it was a great way to hear “even more Stones.”

8 out of 10 on this one for me. Grooving, chugging stuff from Keith with a great beat from Steve Jordan.

John Davidson: I have the Stones compilation The London Years. That's pretty much all the Keith Richards I need.

Talk Is Cheap has the loose blues style of their 70s output, charmingly shambolic at best, lacking direction at worst. It sounds like it was fun to record.

It's pretty easy on the ears and doesn't suffer too badly for being laid down in the 80s, but there's nothing memorable about it either.

It doesn't help that Richards has the vocal chops of most guitarists. He's not awful, but for all that Jagger no longer moves him, he could have done with his phrasing. 5/10.

Michael Garvey: It's a great album, but it lacks direction and, like Mick's solo albums, something is missing!

Philip Qvist: It's okay, it's loose and the songs are pretty good, but for all the feuds between the two main men of the Rolling Stones, one fact remains the same - Mick Jagger needs Keith Richards as much as Keith Richards needs Mick Jagger. Talk Is Cheap, just like any of their solo albums, is proof of that.

Big Enough is a good opener, and you have the duet with ex-Labelle singer Sarah Dash on the rather good Make No Mistake, while the rest of the songs all chug along quite nicely, courtesy of good musicianship and decent songwriting from Keef and drummer Steve Jordan.

It may have jokingly been called the best Rolling Stones album in years when it was released in 1988, but it doesn't even come close to what the Stones were releasing during their 60s and 70s heyday. And although Keef's vocals are more than adequate, there is a very good reason why Mick is the Stones' lead singer.

Talk Is Cheap is a decent, rocking and fun-filled album - but it isn't on my essential list. I'll give it a 7.

Andrew Johnston: I loved this album. It came out when I was in art college, just when the sleaze rock boom was cresting, and it stands head and shoulders above most of that stuff.

Loose-limbed, funky but with a foot firmly planted in the gutter. From Big Enough, Take It So Hard and, my fave, it’s a stone cold (no pun intended) classic and nearly three decades on it’s still easy to hear why it remained wedged into the shitty cassette player of my Ford Fiesta through the winter of ‘88 and well into the summer of ‘89. A banger. 9/10.

Mike Canoe: Well, it's a Keith Richards solo album. If, like me, you have a playlist of the Stones songs that Richards sings lead on, you'll probably like Talk Is Cheap a lot. If you like commercial 80's bar band rock'n'roll, you'll probably still be fine. Either way, it's hard, almost 40 years on, to remember what the fuss between Keef an' Mick was all about.

I grew up on 80's Rolling Stones and Talk Is Cheap sounds like what Richards would have contributed to an 80s Rolling Stones album. It's made by great musicians (who else would Keith Richards hang out with?) and is enjoyable as such, but no one is going to confuse it with Some Girls or even Black And Blue, much less anything earlier than that.

It's an album with an 80s sound made for the 80s marketplace, which, because I came of musical age in the 80s, I like. Not revelatory but certainly replayable.

Final score: 6.84 (53 votes cast, total score 363)

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