A Double Album
“Few other albums, let alone double albums, have been so rich and masterful as Exile on Main Street.” AM This “sprawling, weary double album” AM “allowed the band to relax a bit.” CD “Greeted with decidedly mixed reviews upon its original release,” AM it is now “regarded as the Rolling Stones’ finest album. Part of the reason why the record was initially greeted with hesitant reviews is that it takes a while to assimilate.” AM
How It Stands Up to Other Stones’ Albums
“At the tail end of the ‘60s the Stones evolved not just into an unbelievable album band, but really lived up to their credo as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band.” PK “The semi-acoustic Americana of ‘68s’ Beggars Banquet got the ball rolling, but it was really the trio of albums after Mick Taylor replaced Brian Jones as guitarist that show the Stones at their very best – ‘69s’ Let It Bleed, ‘71s’ near-perfect Sticky Fingers, and of course Exile on Main Street.” PK
With Exile, the Rolling Stones’ tenth album, the band “transcended anything they’d made up until that point.” PM They “set out to prove once and for all they were the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world by recording the crowning jewel” RV that “caps the Stones’ great 1968-‘72 run.” AZ2 It “is the last great album from one of rock’s greatest bands.” RV
It came “during their most decadent and hedonistic period” CQ Given those “legendarily louche circumstances..it’s a miracle this double set…contains any great songs.” EW’12 However, the “angst and tension within their personal lives during this tumultuous period were channeled musically throughout Exile, which is kinda what makes it so great.” CQ
This was “some of the best work of the band’s career and the album that defined early ‘70s music.” CQ It “sets a remarkably high standard for all of hard rock” AM and has become celebrated as “one of the most essential rock records ever created.” BN
With “its overall murky adrenaline,” AZ1 Exile the songs take “the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme.” AM “If the late ‘60s were the Rolling Stones’ road trip through rock’s American roots, then Exile on Main Street was the stop at the highway diner.” CDU Author Jimmy Guterman asserts that the best word to describe the album is “mud.” JG
Mastering Old Sounds
Exile is “chaotic, loud, dirty and full of dark corners, radical mood swings.” RV It is “raucous, boozy, weary, violent and sex-obsessed.” TL It “sounds like the work of heathen outlaws, which of course it was. On the run from Fleet street mobs, narcotics officers and the Inland Revenue, the Stones…composed an epic blues that went beyond tribute and beyond blue.” TL
They don’t “leap into new worlds so much as master the old ones” AZ1 via an “excursion into back-alley Americana” EW’93 as they “speed through familiar neighborhoods of country, blues, and R&B.” AZ1 It “is a grab-bag of genius, never resting in one sound for too long.” PM For example, “no longer does their country sound forced or kitschy – it’s lived-in and complex, just like the group’s forays into soul and gospel.” AM
“The album is rich with some of the same rootsy Southern sprit” BN as theSticky Fingers recording sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “In this rich assortment of gospel and blues Mick is by no means out of his element,” CDU but Exile “found the Stones sounding more like Keith Richards’ juke-joint band than ever before.” CDU
At the same time, Exile isn’t just a throwback with its sound. USA Today asserted that “the band's scrappy, ramshackle blues-rock manifesto foreshadowed grunge.” UT
The Band
“The core of the music is the guitar interplay between Richards and Mick Taylor,” TB who are both “spinning off incredible riffs and solos.” AM “Jagger’s vocals are buried in the mix” AM leaving him “with something akin to pure singing, utilizing only his uncanny sense of style to carry him home…His performances [prove] that there’s no other vocalist who can touch him, note for garbled note.” RS He “manages to sound intently focused and deeply stoned.” TL Note: author Jimmy Guterman calls Richards “the greatest harmony singer in the history of rock and roll.” JG
Meanwhile, drummer Charlie Watts “minds the store with impeccable rhythm.” TL He has “room not only to set the pace rhythmically but to also provide the bulk of the drive and magnetism” RS while Bill Wyman, whose “bass has never been recorded with an eye to clarity…fulfills his support role with a grace that is unfailingly admirable.” RS
Many of the songs don’t feature all five of the Rolling Stones. JG They “assembled a brilliant set of personnel around themselves, too, with Nicky Hopkins, Billy Prestoon, Ian Stewart, Jim Price and Bobby Keys laying down some absolutely ripping ensemble pieces and accentuating the music with such unkempt gnarliness that it sounds like the antithesis of Pet Sounds.” PM
The Recording
To escape tax problems in England, the Rolling Stones headed to France, “breaking the rule that records are supposed to be made in recording studios.” TB While they did record some songs in more traditional settings in Los Angeles in London, most were via a mobile recording gig in the basement of a 19th century villa outside Nice that belonged to Richards, JG who served as the “prime architect of the material.” TB The house was “cold and damp, and overdubs were done in the kitchen while people were eating or talking.” TB
They recorded a batch of songs “written between 1968 and 1972. These legendary sessions defined the adage “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” before it became cliché.” CQ The “newly married Jagger, out to prove that he hadn’t completely made his peace with conventional mores, turned in some of the best performances of his career.” CC
“In the tradition of Phil Spector, they’ve constructed a wash of sound in which to frame their songs, yet where Spector always aimed to create an impression of space and airiness, the Stones group everything together in one solid mass.” RS “Much of it sounds as if it was recorded live at a gospel revival.” CDU
The Songs
Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.
“Rocks Off”
The noise fest kicks off with “the hyper Rocks Off” AZ1 which “sets the tone for the rest of the album.” RV “The Stones have come up with a monster, an all-out assault of guitars and dueling vocals (not to mention one of the most definitive rock & roll lyrics of the last thirty years: ‘The sunshine bores the daylights out of me’).” PK It features “one of Richards’ patented guitar scratchings” RS and Jagger’s “swaggering frustration” AZ1 “over an incredible horn section like a roadhouse rocker with an orchestra.” RV
This is “a proto-typical Stones’ opener…great choruses and well-judged horn bursts, painlessly running you through the motions.” RS “Ostensibly a bar-room rocker, ‘Rocks Off’ was probably closer to the Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat,’ both in its unadulterated onslaught of sound and in its speed-driven , brain-addled reportage.” CC
“Rip This Joint”
Rip This Joint, with its “Little Richard groove,” JG “is a stunner, getting down to the business at hand with the kind of music the Rolling Stones were born to play. It starts at a pace that yanks you into its locomotion full tilt, and never lets up from there; the sax solo is the purest of rock and roll.” RS It “was built for clubland…the floor caving in with the crush of bodies whipped into a frenzy by two minutes of classic rock ‘n’ roll.” CC
“Shake Your Hips”
“The funky juke joint take on Slim Harpo’s Shake Your Hips” JG “mounts up as another plus, with a mild boogie tempo and a fine mannered vocal from Jagger. The guitars are the focal point.” RS It “was handled well, without falling into parody, or sophisticated, whited-out blues blandess.” CC
“Casino Boogie”
This is “not one of the album highlights.” CC The “skeletal, exhausted Casino Boogie” JG “is saved by Bobby Keys’ artful sax break.” CC
“Tumbling Dice”
The “luxuruious Tumbling Dice” CDU “is the epitome of The Stones’ distinctive groove.” TB It “is one of the most rambunctious blues-rock tunes in history, with a boogie-woogie rhythm that is a resounding gem of the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards songwriting partnership.” PM “The song builds to the kind of majesty the Stones at their best have always provided…Keith’s simple guitar figure providing the nicest of bridges, the chorus touching the upper levels of heaven and spurring on Jagger, set up by an arrangement that is both unique and imaginative. It’s definitely the cut that deserved the single.” RS
“Sweet Virginia”
“Producer Jimmy Miller valued atmosphere over precision in his recording techniques, so Mick Jagger competes with a wooly sax and a juke joint piano and still his vocals make Sweet Virginia feel…like a bruise that’s fun to touch.” TL It “is a perfectly friendly lazy shuffle that gets hung on an overemphasized ‘shit’ in the chorus.” RS It was “the nearest the Stones ever got to a round-the-campire singalong.” CC “If one Stones’ song was written by Keith and Gram Parsons up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, ‘Sweet Virginia’ must have been it.” CC
“Torn and Frayed”
“Torn and Frayed has trouble getting started, but as it inexorably rolls to its coda the Stones find their flow and relax back, allowing the tune to lovingly expand.” RS This “could be the epitaph to the Stones’ career. Richards goes unplugged and Jagger puts away his patented swagger to create a beautiful homage to the blues.” RV
“What could have been a throwaway was elevated by some splendid gteel guitar, courtesy of Al Perkins, atmospheric organ from horn player Jim Price, and Jagger providing just the right featherlight touch the song required.” CC
“Sweet Black Angel”
“Sweet Black Angel,” is built on a “vaguely West Indian rhythm and Jagger playing Desmond Dekker, comes off as a pleasant experiment that works.” RS It features “Jagger’s wildly exaggerated delivery of a tender message of support to black American radical Angela Davis.” CC “There is something distinctly odd about Jagger’s most outrageous act of mimicry yet…as he delivers the ‘free de sweet black slave’ punchline, but the sentiments sideswept the almost painful parody.” CC
“Loving Cup”
“Loving Cup and other songs on Exile “betray their Southern gospel leanings.” CDU “With Nicky Hopkins and a punchy brass section in tow, the Stones furthered their own white gospel ambitions in tub-thumping fashion.” CC The song dates back to 1969 when the Stones introduced “Loving Cup” at a concert at Hyde Park in July. CC
“Happy”
Happy is “essentially…Richards’ show.” CC He wrote it, sings it, and plays bass and guitar, CC letting “loose on some of his best riffs.” RV It “provided the template for his future lead vocal sorties.” CC It “lives up to its title from start to finish. It’s a natural-born single,” RS “the closest thing to a pop number…on the album.” RS
It “was basically cut as a warm-up, hence the impromptu backing group of just Jimmy Miller on drums and Bobby Keys on sax.” CC
“Turd on the Run”
“Turd on the Run, even belying its gimmicky title, is a superb little hustler; if Keith can be said to have a showpiece on this album, this is it. Taking off from a jangly ‘Maybellene’ rhythm guitar, he misses not a flick of the wrist, sitting behind the force of the instrumental and shoveling it along.” RS The “instrumental backing [is] very much the outraged offspring of the obscure B-side ‘Stoned’ almost a decade earlier.” CC
“Ventilator Blues”
The band rework Harpo’s “Hip Shake” “into a harp-and-piano steamroller…in Ventilator Blues” AZ1 with Mick “spreading the guts of his voice all over the microphone.” RS “Keith claims [it] was inspired by a grate, while the song plays like an ode to a pistol.” AZ2 “It was a measure of the band’s greatness…that they could…transform a grizzly riff into something invested with all the ‘soul’ they’d once sought to locate in second-rate covers of Otis Redding songs.” CC
“I Just Want to See His Face”
I Just Want to See His Face is a “Dr. John-influenced voodoo incantation.” CC “Jagger and the chorus sinuously wavering around a grand collection of jungle drums.” RS
“Let It Loose”
With its “frank blues,” JG “the soulful, redemptive” JG “Let It Loose…is one beautiful song, both lyrically and melodically. Like on ‘Tumbling Dice,’ everything seems to work as a body here, the gospel chorus providing tension, the leslie’d guitar rounding the mysterious nature of the track, a great performance from Mick and just the right touch of backing instruments” RS alongside his “rare display of genuine emotion.” CC The “horn arrangements were all but Memphis in name.” CC
“All Down the Line”
“Rocks Off,” “Happy,” “Ventilator Blues” and “the rollicking boogie of All Down the Line” PK “are some of the best country-rock joints ever conceived by a band from England.” PM This “all-out rocker” JG dates back to October 1969 when it was recorded at Elektra Studios in Los Angeles in acoustic form. CC It features “a rip-foaring Taylor slide solo.” CC
“Stop Breaking Down”
Stop Breaking Down, “a luxurious cover version” JG of a Robert Johnson song, “shows their undeniable respect for American blues.” CDU “This was exactly the kind of song Brian Jones wanted the Stones to make during the Beggars Banquet sessions.” CC
“Shine a Light”
“Shine a Light and Soul Survivor sound as energetic and powerful as they did when recorded 38 years ago.” CQ “The gospel-influenced reckoning of” JG “Shine a Light” “begins deceptively with a flashback of electronically generated psychedelic sound, before Jagger sermonizes to the sound of Billy Preston’s hotline-to-heaven organ playing.” CC “The band weren’t afraid to experiment, as the highly echoed guitar, and an ‘underwater effect’ on the backing vocals, amply illustrate.” CC The song “provides a contrast to the narcotic murk and sudden snarls that preceded it.” JG
“Soul Survivor”
“Soul Survivor” “provides a fitting end to the Stones’ finest hour.” CC “The song captures the band at their best; getting the most out of a riff, verses that shy clear of melodic flamboyance, and a deceptively rousing non-chorus.” CC “It’s one of the last truly awesome expressions of the Stones’ greatness.” CC
Notes:
The 2010 reissue added another disc of other songs from that era: “Pass the Wine,” “Plundered My Soul,” “I’m Not Signifying,” “Following the River,” “Dancing in the Light,” “So Divine (Aladdin Story),” “Loving Cup (alternate take),” “Soul Survivor (alternate take),” “Good Time Women,” and “Title 5.”
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