Sticky Fingers

[Zint]

Sticky Fingers is a perfect album, there's no argument there. It's a part of probably the best line of albums ever made, including Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup. It sat the standards for the gritty, sleazy feel that music adopted later, with bands like Guns N' Roses and Mötley Crüe. Its influence is, to put it mildly, enormous, especially with little details like the controverisal bulge-cover.

Its strength, and what it basically is known for among album-oriented music-listeners is how well the songs are put together. Whether or not it's intentional or not, I think only Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Co. can answer. You've got the ones that the two aforementioned bands really take influence from, the ones that defined sleazy rock, like "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "Brown Sugar", the calm, sort of mellow ones, like "Moonlight Mile" and "Wild Horses", and the ones where their blues-influences really shine through, like "I Got the Blues" and "You Gotta Move" - and they all match each other so well, it's nearly frightening!

My favourite song, at least in 2008, is "Moonlight Mile". About six months ago, I saw the last episode of the first part of the sixth season of The Sopranos for the first time, where "Moonlight Mile" is playing in the background when Phil Leotardo walks towards the wire room with his comàre and the whole thing explodes. Before that, you know, I liked the song and all, but it wasn't really a standout track to me. After seeing that Sopranos-episode six months ago, I've listened to "Moonlight Mile" 573 times, according to iTunes.

Although I loved that album to bits and pieces, I've got absolutely nothing bad to say about it, it's still in the shadow of the work of genius that is called Exile on Main St.. Only in a few select cases, double albums are rarely all killer, no filler. Together with absolute masterpieces and magnum opuses like London Calling, Tommy, The Beatles (White Album) and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Exile on Main St. is one of them.

On Exile on Main St., the Stones mix everything they did before recording it, much like The Clash did with London Calling. They play around with honky tonk-country, some people even think it's the closest rock music has ever come to country music, except Gram Parsons-era Byrds. They even experiment with a little gospel, and those who read my posts often enough in this section knows how much I love it when artists like this experiment with different types of music.

They mix the blues with country, which is rarely a bad thing to do, if you ask me. Take the blues feel and put some country rhythm in there, something The Rolling Stones are masters at, and you've got yourself a great song.

Exile on Main St. culminates in the epic "Shine a Light", where the gospel they have been playing around with really steals the show, like it did three years earlier, on Let it Bleed.

And the thought of this perfect masterpiece having been recorded in a little portable studio is just overwhelmingly bizarre. It is definitely one of my all time favourite albums, perhaps even in my top 20. Missing out on this album is like missing out on sex.

Here's my top ten Stones albums:

1. Exile on Main St.

2. Sticky Fingers

3. Let it Bleed

4. Some Girls

5. Beggars Banquet

6. Aftermath

7. Goats Head Soup

8. Out of Our Heads

9. Between the Buttons

10. Black and Blue

Great post man!

And I completely agree...especially with your top ten choices.

Although I'd have them in a different order.

B)

[Lithium]

Thanks, man. In what order would you put them in?

[Lithium]

I don't know, I've always loved it, since I can remember. I don't get why you don't like it.

Because, as aforesaid, it's a poor man's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Plus the fact they are so obviously trying to gain from another, superior band's success, with pure commercial goals. Not that there's anything wrong with commercialism; we are both living in a capitalist society after all, but it takes away a lot of the Stones legitimacy, it seems to me and to a lot of other people. "She's a Rainbow" is a fucking strong track, though - the definition of a standout track if you ask me.