On the track listing it's divided into an "Easy Listening" side and "New Wave" side, but generally it's a babbling-brook intellectual update of 1970's Krautrock.
Often pigeonholed as a novelty act thanks to the one-hit wonder status Stateside of "Venus" - it wasn't their fault Bananarama filtered it down through a fogscreen of noxious 80's synth sounds and machines. The real deal was a garage-heavy foursome with Jefferson Airplane overtones thanks to their striking lead singer and her surprisingly versatile pipes. There's bit of James Brown-style rhythms, Americana-inspired themes and riffs, Middle Eastern instrumentation (mainly sitar), lots of psychedelic keyboards - in all, a neat grab bag of insubstantial pop played in a direct yet intriguing manner.
Despite what I think is an average start to the album, 12 x 5 is overall a moderate leap from the debut in a variety of ways. It's still the same batch of R&B and/or 50's covers, but there's more bite and vitriol to this collection, starting right from "Good Times, Bad Times" and rolling on from there. "It's All Over Now" reeks of classic Stones swagger and nastiness. Elsewhere, there are tons of little touches and imprints which make them stand way above the rest (the ultra-spooky twang-echo at the end of every measure of "Grown Up Wrong" for instance). Unfortunately, over in England they could only get this in EP format back in the day - hence, "Five by Five" - whereas…well, you get the idea.
Flowers was initially perceived as a mere cash-in, but as time wore on it has come to be regarded as a necessary listening stop in the Stones chronology despite the fact much of it revisits territory from the previous few records.
The Stones did the reverse of the Beatles in '67 - whereas the Fab Four put out Sgt. Pepper and followed it up with the odds-and-ends deal that was the Magical Mystery Tour - the Stones mish-mash record came first (at least Stateside), and they followed it up with their big 1967 psychedelic record, towards the end of that fateful year.
Whether that was intentional or not, Flowers is a record filled with so many entertaining tunes that, I even raised the rating of "Lady Jane" a half point, because it fits better with the flow of this record than it does with Aftermath! I mean, really, compare this with the previous effort and let's be honest - a lot of the tunes on Between the Buttons were half-cocked and disjointed in comparison.
Furthermore, Flowers succinctly sums up the 1966-67 era of the Stones and serves as a great lead-in for what would be one of the most controversial records in their career, and a real turning point.
