The Rolling Stones, Exile On Main Street

In honor of its release 39 years ago today (5.12.72) I am going to repost a review from more than a year ago. The Rolling Stones, Exile On Main Street.

Exile On Main Street ends the greatest four studio album stretch in rock history. Between 1968 and 1972 the Stones released Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and finally Exile. Are you fucking kidding me? Today bands take longer breaks between albums than this and the Stones release 4 of the best 100 albums ever during this time.

Exile is among one of the tougher records in rock history to get into, the first two or three time I listened to it I hated it. Alot. So much so that I didn't listen to it for years after that. Where was the 'Brown Sugar' or 'Sympathy For The Devil', the only song my local classic rock radio station played from this album was 'Tumbling Dice', really? That's the best song on it? If you were lucky they played 'Happy', which was sung by Keith and really doesn't count as a Stones song.

The production was muddy, Jagger was buried somewhere underneath everything and the second half of the album, what the hell? This is a classic album? It sounds like the engineer was deaf and the band was too high to care.

Then, years later, I listened to it again and was shocked. How the fuck did I miss this the first time? I know its trite, but its the kind of album that you discover something new each time you listen. Like the piercing horn parts, the hidden piano parts, the words to 'Just Want To See His Face.' It's like an ogre, it has layers.

Its an amazing double album and you barely know its the Stones. There's a reason their greatest hits Hot Rocks encompasses 1964 to 1971. Exile has no real singles. There really isn't a riff on the album that you sing and people know the song (i.e. Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction, etc). Keith and Mick Taylor seem more interested in hiding their parts and solos, daring you to separate them from the organic noise of the album.

Charlie Watts proves that he is a great rock drummer and not just a four-on-the-floor kind of guy. The second half of the album, contain some of his best grooves, as well as one of the best (yet simplistic) drum lines ever (aka 'Ventilator Blues') which sounds like an evil whip cracking experiment gone wrong.

And they were never more poetic than on Exile. "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me", "I would love to spill the beans with you till dawn", "Always took candy from strangers", "In the bar you're getting drunk, I ain't in love, I ain't in luck." Genius. That's if you can understand the words. It's taken me ten plus years to find those buried on the album and I can still sing along with only half the album, maybe.

After repeated listens gems do emerge like 'Shine A Light', one of the greatest Stones songs you've probably never heard unless you own this record. It contains Mick channeling his inner Van Morrison with this couplet, "May the good lord shine a light on you/ make every song your favorite tune/ may the good lord shine a light on you/ warm like the evening sun."

Exile On Main Street is one of my top 10 albums and if you don't own this album, you need to.

I understand reposting something is in bad taste and lazy, but a 39th anniversary is something I can't pass up. Just last year the Stones released a special edition of Exile that contains a second disc with 10 additional songs recorded during the sessions.