Exile on Main Street - Rolling Stones (The) (CD 1994)

This album is ragged. Everything about it is ragged. The singing's ragged, the guitar is ragged, the production is, for lack of a better word, ragged. But for the Rolling Stones, it's perfect. And sometimes when it's perfect in your own eyes, there's not a soul on the planet who can tell you otherwise. To put this album into context, we have to go back to 1970. Altamont. The decade of flower power and LSD came to a crashing halt when a black man was killed at the Stones' free concert at Altamont. It woke up a lot of people. It slapped a generation in the face and woke them up from their perfect world delusion that they had been riding for close to four years. And no one was listening as closely as the Stones.

Brian Jones died. Things were changing, their music first and foremost. The Rolling Stones' albums were morphing into stripped down, bluey testaments that stood stronger than their dime-a-dozen, hit laden earlier work. On "Let It Bleed," for example, they went so far as to poke fun at their own mega-hit, "Honky Tonk Women," with a laid back acoustic number called "Country Honk." Their attitude had changed about the world and the industry. They were no longer interested in selling records. They had been there, done that. Now to make some music that would last forever.

So, 1n 1972, they released a double album. It was really in the spirit of The Beatles' White Album, which also featured a similar nonchalance for record sales. But this album revolved around the blues. It dripped with the blues. The guitars were simple yet loud. The vocals were drawn back, letting the music flourish. Guitarist Mick Taylor, who had joined the group shortly before Brian's death, had his chance to shine on both the acoustic ballads and on the lead guitar riffs. It seems that most of the songs had been completed on one or two takes. Lay it down and put it on the record. That simple. What happened was magic.

There are only two or three songs on the album that can really enter into the term "hits." "Tumbling Dice" probably fits that category, but it in no way deviates from the overall mission statement of the album; strip it down and play it loud. "Happy," Keith's opus, was a playable radio number. "Soul Survivor," the album's last song, is the most approachable. So a lion's share of the 18 songs on the album will probably be unheard of by the casual listener.

The album begins with "Rocks Off," then drives right into "Shake Your Hips" and "Casino Boogie," both leading into "Tumbling Dice" with their open-G tuned guitars and driving bass rhythms. "Sweet Black Angel," "Sweet Virginia" with their acoustic stylings crafted by Taylor. "Torn and Frayed," an awesome song, with a band as the lead character, not unlike the band that sings the song. "Loving Cup," with a driving second half and some of the best vocals of Mick Jagger's career. "Ventilator Blues" and "Stop Breaking Down" are two straight ahead blues tunes. This album only has a few detractors, which are really, REALLY bad. Their presence on the album makes it imperfect. They are really that bad. "I Just Want To See His Face" and "Shine A Light" are awful.

But the album is amazing. Upon the first listen, you are treated to a cacophony of rock and roll in it's purest form. The Rolling Stones once called themselves the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the world. There are only a few times in their career when I actually believed them. This album is one of those times.