bedheadchicken

The Rolling Stones double album masterpiece Exile On Main Street is being reissued today.

Anyone who has ever wondered why people give a fuck about the Stones needs to listen to this album. Raw, violent, drug obsessed, murky and exhilarating, it's the most rock and roll of all rock and roll albums. It barely even has songs. One groove runs into the other, the vocals are lost in the mix, it sounds like shit and it's brilliant.



The album was cut at a time when the Stones had weathered years of drug busts, the OD of one of their founding members, Brian Jones, tax exile from the UK, and Altamont. The band decamped to the south of France and recorded the entire album in the hot, claustrophobic basement of the mansion Keith Richards had rented- a mansion that had been used as a Nazi headquarters less that 30 years before. Keith's heroin addiction was raging. (notice how he's barely in the above videos). Most sessions took place at 3AM or so, when the guitarist would appear. Most songs betray frustration or world-weariness. Moments of true beauty, like the gorgeous "Let it Loose", are countered with a sneering lewdness ("I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping" Mick Jagger growls in the opening song) and paranoia and nastiness. And I mean that in the best possible way.

I'm as embarrassed as anyone at what the Stones have turned into. Keith remains Keith. Mick, however, has become the CEO of Rolling Stones Inc and occasionally poses as a rock star to push his product. They can still bring it live, of course, and everyone marvels at Mick's energy or that Keith isn't dead. But that's not what we want from the Stones- THIS is what we want from the Stones. I don't care that Mick is in shape and high energy. He was cooler when he was stoned and nasty. Slash once said that Mick Jagger should have died in 1977. He was right.

Steal this album online today and give it some time. It takes a few listens to get used to the sludgy sound. But this may very well be the best rock and roll album of all time. There's nothing like it.