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

Common sense would have you believe that if an album is to be hailed as one of the greats in the rock pantheon it shouldn t be very difficult to enjoy. After all, if we are truly talking about a legendary work of art, rooted in some timeframe or era yet remaining undated, it shouldn t take time and effort to find its greatness. The music should speak for itself, and it would seem that it should do so rather rapidly.

The mindset above has to be the greatest undoing of the Rolling Stones murky 1972 release Exile on Main Street. Fans of the world s greatest rock and roll band , as they began calling themselves (debatably deservedly), expect what is supposed to be the culmination of the band s indisputable reign of dominance to absolutely be a can t miss, knock out album. In the immortal words of Sum 41, all killer and no filler.

On the contrary, Exile on Main Street appears to be the exact opposite. Some might argue that every song on this album can be considered filler. There isn t a genuine hit on here in the traditional sense (save maybe Tumbling Dice or Happy). To make matters even worse every single song sounds similar. It s hard to have immediate, Gimme Shelter-esque catchiness when an entire double album has been constructed in the same vein. It s even legitimate to say Mick Jagger was never more indecipherable or the band was rarely even in unison when it produced some of the songs.

So why does Exile on Main Street receive such unwavering loyalty and praise from the music community? Is it even worthy of all the accolades with such glaring flaws?

First off let me tackle the concept of the flaws I have presented. The most obvious and possibly destructive of these is that all the songs sound alike. I won t even attempt to argue that point, at least throughout one s first few journeys into the album. I admit that my first several listens to Exile on Main Street were unfulfilling and redundant. Of all eighteen songs on the double disc album I could only identify the opening, more naturally rocking, Rocks off (my favorite song on the album) and Rip This Joint (A cover of a Big Mama Thornton rocker which sounds about a thousand times rougher and dirtier than the Stones version) along with Tumbling Dice and Happy. The latter two I probably only knew because of my familiarization with them from my Forty Licks album. I categorized every other track as a messy, unimportant collage of soul, blues and rock. Never at any point in time did these tracks sound terrible, they just couldn t quite hold their own as individual beings.

And that my friend is the key philosophy you must grasp if you are to enjoy what may be the Rolling Stones finest accomplishment. These songs, for the most part, can t be considered as individual entities. They just can t stand up for themselves that way. That s why if ever there was an album that needed to be seen as just that, an album, this is it. All of these songs combine to form a sum that is great than the individual parts. Exile on Main Street is the Detroit Pistons of music. It lacks a star performer, but it performs incredibly well as a whole unit.

At the same time, and I realize I m contradicting myself here, the more you listen to Exile understanding what makes it excellent, the easier it becomes to see each song as its own great achievement. In other words once you see the whole grand scheme of things for what it really is you can begin to pick out intricate elements of its plot.

The main elements of the aforementioned plot are an eclectic mix of gospel style soul and the blues-rock the Stones are immediately recognized for. One of the best examples of the rock/soul is, and again I stress how difficult it is to pick out specific songs, Shine a Light which, complete with its gospel choir in the background, wouldn t sound at all out of place in a church. Of course this would have to be a ridiculously rocking church, and one that wouldn t be embarrassed to let their satanic majesties request headline a service. In fact many of the songs, for example Let it Loose and Soul Survivor, on Exile feature a full blown gospel choir helping cover some of Mick s slurring, and adding some true emotion to the music.

Before I mentioned that Exile on Main Street is said to be the culmination of the Stones five year run of excellence that included four necessary Stones albums besides Exile: Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Get Yer Ya Ya s Out (live album), and Sticky Fingers. This couldn t be truer. Exile is the perfect embodiment of the ideological Stones sound. It s dirty, it s gritty and it s freakin Rolling Stones rock and roll at some of its best. Mick Jagger had never sounded quite so unabashedly liberated and Keith Richards, despite his best efforts to end his life with drug over usage, was at some of his finest guitar soloing work. I won t go as far as to say Exile is hands down the best album of this five year outburst, but it certainly is a nice, albeit time consuming, capstone.

Song Rankings

I m not going to try to separate each individual track on this album like I normally make a habit of doing. Not because I can t due to their similarity (I m at the point now, finally, where I can decipher the likes of Casino Boogie from Loving Cup), but because I feel I d be doing the cohesive effort of the entire work a disservice. I will go as far as to say if there is just one song you can choose to have from Exile it should be Rocks Off. The Stones continue their trend of putting some of their best music first here with a very grimy, dense package of pure ecstasy.