Sold Date: December 21, 2023
Start Date: September 29, 2023
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Exile On Main Street


ROLLING STONES Exile On Main St. (1994 UK Dutch-pressed 18-track CD album originally released in 1972 the album innovatively wove varying musical genres instruments and even artists into a compelling rhythmic masterpiece with guest appearances from an electric array of talent such as Dr. John the late Billy Preston pianist Nicky Hopkins and guitarist Mick Taylor. Includes the singles Tumbling Dice and Happy picture sleeve booklet CDV2731)
Before Keith Richards' bad habits took over for a time in the mid-'70s, his work ethic was quite high. Stories abound of the long, if somewhat off-schedule, hours he spent working on this classic album in the basement of his home in France. Hanging together as much because of great songwriting ("Rocks Off," "Soul Survivor") as its fabled grungy atmosphere, Exile caps the Stones' great 1968-'72 run with a force that belies their supposed spiritual tiredness. What some of these songs are about is anybody's guess--Keith claims "Ventilator Blues" was inspired by a grate, while the song plays like an ode to a pistol--but that's just part of this album's hazy game. --Rickey Wright
Like a musical scrapbook chronicling the decay, decadence, excess and torpor of the Stones’ camp, this rough and ready collection of curios, questionable filler, and the occasional flash of blazing brilliance is frequently hailed as one of their best all-time albums. At first glance it’s not easy to see why. Jagger is sometimes barely audible in the already overcrowded channels, as though his parts are a grudging concession to commercial needs. Just about every track is filled with knotted tangles of drums, keyboards, horns, guitar, hoots, handclaps and sundry embellishments, all snarled up in the often impenetrable murk of the mix: a bit like the aural equivalent of your soles sticking to a grungy club carpet.
Like the band itself, the record was strung out between different locations and times. A newlywed Jagger was understandably distracted, whilst Keith Richards was holed up in the squalid luxury of his Southern France mansion awash with drugs, booze and a legion of hangers-on. Such was Bill Wyman’s distaste for the company kept at Chez Keef, he was only on eight out of a possible eighteen backing tracks. Indeed it could almost be a text book demonstration of how not to record an album.
Yet out of such adversity there emerges moments of astonishing intensity that you find yourself forgiving them their industrial-quantity sins. The hard-won insolence of “Tumblin’ Dice� (rumoured to have gone into 100 plus takes) and driving urgency of “Rocks Off� whilst being busy full-on Stones highpoints somehow find their match in the stripped-back minimalist slapback of “Shake Your Hips� whilst “I Just Want To See His Face� sounds as though a roving microphone had chanced upon a revivalist meeting somewhere in the deep South of their minds. “Let It Loose� - a real gem of a ballad, with cascading piano - feels like the emotional heart of the album, breaking free of the uninspired blues-by-the-numbers and too-lazy licks that dominate. When it does clicks together though it’s an oddly moving experience, reminding us why the Stones, even at their most dishevelled, aren’t to be underestimated. --Sid Smith