![\"Rod](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Rod-Stewart-1972-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ Allan Warren<\/p>\n
Thu 16 July 2026 9:11, UK <\/p>\n
It\u2019s insanely hard for any artist to keep the fire burning forever in one genre. Some great moments can come from someone who\u2019s on a roll playing one particular style of music, but there comes a moment where people start to wonder how far they can go when listening to the same style of song over and over again. <\/p>\n
Although Rod Stewart<\/a> has made a habit of changing things up with every album that he makes, he knew enough to realise when there were one-offs in his catalogue that could never be repeated.<\/p>\n Then again, some of them don\u2019t get repeated for a damn good reason. A song like \u2018Do Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy\u2019 does have its fair share of fans<\/a> and some decent production for the time, but given how vitriolic the backlash was for the song, even Stewart himself is content to move past it a bit, even saying that he would have been genuinely worried if he were a fan of his own music after that stunt.<\/p>\n Especially coming from his work with The Faces, though, his latest chapter of making adult contemporary music would have seemed miles away. Because before he had even though about channelling his inner crooner, he was more than happy to scream his ass off in The Faces, making sure that he could get the entire crowd moving in the same way his blues heroes used to do.<\/p>\n But that was only one side to what Stewart could do. He had a lot of different sides to him, and when he hit upon albums like Every Picture Tells a Story, it was clear that he was growing out of his old band in many respects. They could play blues all of their lives, but a song like \u2018Maggie May\u2019 was a priceless bit of folksy magic that no one could manage to repeat if they had a hard rock act behind them.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a freak album. It sold a ridiculous amount of records.\u201d<\/p>\n Rod Stewart<\/p>\n That success also created an awkward problem. Once Every Picture Tells a Story transformed Stewart into one of the biggest solo stars in Britain, every subsequent release was inevitably measured against an album that had captured lightning in a bottle. Matching its commercial impact was one challenge; recapturing the circumstances that produced it was another altogether.<\/p>\n Stewart himself was always careful to separate popularity from personal satisfaction. He recognised that some records arrive at exactly the right cultural moment and take on a life of their own, but that didn\u2019t necessarily make them the ones he held closest. In his eyes, artistic fulfilment and commercial success weren\u2019t always the same thing.<\/p>\n In fact, it might have been a bit too good for Stewart. Even though he was content to be in The Faces for the rest of his life, it was clear that he was moving away from their brand of blues, eventually finding some more magic in his back pages once the 1980s rolled around on tunes like \u2018Young Turks\u2019 and \u2018Forever Young\u2019.<\/p>\n Still, he always had a soft spot for those moments when everything was right on the money before his major break, saying<\/a> at the time, \u201cI can\u2019t expect to have another album as successful as Every Picture Tells A Story. That was a freak album. It sold a ridiculous amount of records. Yet Gasoline Alley was the best for me. If I could capture that again, I\u2019d be well pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n And given his history with blues rock before, you can\u2019t find much better than Gasoline Alley. It might not be the one with the most hits out of his catalogue, but there\u2019s a certain sense of swagger that manages to sustain itself all the way to the end, especially when he starts hinting at where he would be going by covering songs by his close friend and noted rival Elton John<\/a> on \u2018Country Comfort\u2019. <\/p>\n There are a handful of tracks that might not work and even be considered a lesser footnote in Stewart\u2019s body of work, but in terms of what he could do on the microphone, Gasoline Alley is the one moment where he\u2019s playing to his absolute strengths. Compared to the more lighthearted tunes of his later career, this is where to go to remind people of the muscle he had behind his greatest hits. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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