By: The Rolling Stones Average Rating: Binding: Audio CD Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered Label: Virgin Records Us Number of Discs: 1 Release Date: July 26, 1994
Product Description: No Description Available No Track Information Available Media Type: CD Artist: ROLLING STONES Title: EXILE ON MAIN STREET Street Release Date: 07/26/1994 Domestic Genre: ROCK/POP
Amazon.com essential recording: From the swaggering frustration in the first song ("I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping," Mick Jagger sings in the hyper "Rocks Off"), the Stones speed through familiar neighborhoods of country, blues, and R&B on Exile. They never even bother to stop when they've crashed into something. They don't leap into new worlds so much as master the old ones, turning Slim Harpo's blues obscurity "Hip Shake" into a harp-and-piano steamroller and setting spines a-cracking in "Ventilator Blues." Both "Tumbling Dice" and Keith Richards's "Happy" have become hits, but the 1972 album is most notable for its overall murky adrenaline. --Steve Knopper
Amazon.com: Before Keith Richards's 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
A Lesson in American Music What you have here is the Rolling Stones giving us back exactly what we had been missing right under our noses, and taking it to places that the creators never could have possibly imagined. Every element of pure American music is here and there isn't a sour note. From the smoke filled juke joints of the deep south, to the slick blues of Chicago's West Side, to a Texas roadhouse, to a gospel choir, right back to Chuck Berry, it's all here. Everything great about American music deconstructed and built back up to reach places never before imagined. This is music one could imagine spilling out into Beale Street in 1955 or shaking the rafters of a Mississippi blues hall or belting out of some Baptist church. It's what every Saturday night should sound like. No need to break down each song here. They all have their charms. Needless to say no music collection is complete without it, and if you don't get it, you don't get American music and you surely don't get Rock and Roll.
The Stones' "Exile on Main St" Although I've had the lp version of "Exile" for many, many years, I found some new jewels to treasure on rehearing. I especially like the blues orientation of most of the cuts.
It coulda been a contender For classic rock bands, the double live album was an essential part of their discography. The double STUDIO album on the other hand was a different animal altogether. Keeping an audience's attention over the course of 4 LP (now 1-2 CD) sides isn't always easy. And the few that worked (The White Album, Physical Graffiti, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Blonde on Blonde, Electric Ladyland) are rock and roll classics. The Who actually accomplished this feat not once, but TWICE (Tommy and Quadrophenia). Unfortunately, the Rolling Stones "Exile on Main Street" isn't one of them. "Exile" has always been a difficult album not only for fans, but the band themselves. In the book "According to the Rolling Stones", Mick Jagger says that Exile is not one of his favorite albums, admitting that while the atmosphere of the album is good, he'd love to remix it as it has some of the worst recorded vocals. And he's right. Half the vocal tracks sound like their buried under a combination of backing vocals and sonic sludge. It sometimes sounds like a badly recorded bootleg. And as gritty as they sound, they don't work well in a live setting either. So other than "Tumbling Dice", "Happy" and maybe "All Down the Line", tracks from Exile don't always figure highly when the Stones choose their set list. I resisted buying "Exile" for many years because of this, but also because ½ the songs aren't all that great in the first place. If the band had wised up a little and sliced off about half of them they would've had the knockout punch to finish off the classic series of albums that started in 1968 with Beggars Banquet and through 1971's Sticky Fingers (with the live Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out thrown in as a bonus). If this was possible, Exile would've been a much different (and better) album with only the following songs; Rocks Off Tumbling Dice Shake Your Hips Happy Loving Cup All Down the Line Sweet Virginia Casino Boogie Rip This Joint Torn and Frayed
So Exile isn't necessarily a bad album, it's just one of those Stones albums that should've been much better given the time it was recorded and their previous album (Sticky Fingers). It's also one that now benefits from the "skip" button on your CD player or IPod.
One of the best Rolling Stone Albums You have to have this album if you want to really appreciate the importance of The Rolling Stones impact on Rock & Roll. This is one of the best recorded works of a band ever.
Nova Jukebox This musta been the first Lp I bought with my own money. Got all the Beetle records for birthday, x-mas presents and, suddenly, teenbopper allowance in hand, found myself at Sears wondering what fab sounds I might add to my growing stack of disturbed fun. Well, here was the latest by the "next best thing," or something. A big sprawl of distorted steel guitars, grunting mutterings, splash drunk drums, honkytonk tinklings, groaning bass murk and lo-fi gospel pleatings. The formula was ironed on this one ~ degenerated Chuck Berry, deranged blues, discombobulated country ~ no epics, social statements or orchestration. Mainly what I heard (at the time) was crumb-bum sound and intoxicated grunge. Long and loose. Not Sgt Pepper. Not even Sticky Fingers. A buncha B-sides and demos. Who woulda guessed right then and there it was the Stones' last ~ and all-powerful ~ jam out extraordinaire? Yup, it's all one run, slapdash intuition, but there are peaks, elemental licks and outrageous lines like syncopated waves on a grimacing ocean of adolescent ire. Nanker Phelge. Yet, the wearied debauchery of old men, too. Hardly anyone, including Lester Bangs, got "it" at the time; that fuzzy jacked-up inertia, more than any other quality, was the intransigent essence of rocknroll, laid out low and feral, an overextended reverb hum of insentient discontent made luminous, disgruntled, horny, surly and lazy. Bewildering, and weirdly hungry. There I was, 12 years old, holding my 7 bucks, ready for revolution and it, what, like, ended that week. If you ever find a gurl who digs this album, marry her on the spot.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
