Exile on Main St.

Dirty Work is a much better record than its reputation or its horrendous sleeve would have you believe, but it's still nowhere near prime Stones.

I've heard it, it's ok

bar Emotional Rescue, which has none)

"Summer Romance," "Let Me Go," "Dance Pt. 1," "All About You," and "Where the Boys Go" beg to differ. All would've fit in beautifully on SG, most benefit from Jagger on third guitar.

Why isn’t it called “Exile on High Street”? Dudes are British...

Well, they were exiled from Britain when they were making the record

Exile on Rue Principale

"Exile on the High Street", to be properly Britishes.

They were too rebellious to pay taxes is it!

almost unthikable that the stones would use an american idiom right enough

There's also a cultural appropriation issue (among many others) imo.
These guys wouldn't survive 5min in today's context !

Sorry that is just how i feel

makes u think

No love for black & blue? I gave it a listen recently and thought it had a pretty nice 'we're just fucking around here, don't worry about it' vibe... I daresay with a different title it has some real "I've got my own album to do" energy

"Memory Motel," "Crazy Mama," "Hand of Fate." C'est tout.

as Keef acknowledged, it exists as their we-auditioned-guitarists album.

ahhh did not know, that's fantastic

xps Black And Blue is the only one pre-1984 that I don't own and have never heard, someday I'll find a cheap copy

i hadn't heard black & blue in full til earlier this year, and it's definitely a worthwhile part of the stones catalog. there's some filler, but the high points, like "memory motel" and "hey negrita" and "fool to cry," are excellent and it's got an appealingly loose vibe.

"Summer Romance," "Let Me Go," "Dance Pt. 1," "All About You," and "Where the Boys Go" beg to differ. All would've fit in beautifully on SG, most benefit from Jagger on third guitar.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 April 2019 13:04 (one hour ago)Permalink

They beg to differ, but I don't like any of 'em! They bizarrely feel more like outtakes to me than the stuff on Tattoo You!

As for Black and Blue, I like about half of it. I've plenty of time for 'Hand of Fate', 'Fool to Cry', 'Memory Motel' and the "we're just fuckin' around and jammin'" vibe of 'Melody' ... 'Hot Stuff', too, if pushed.

I bought a really nice reissue of this album that's supposed to just be a straight replication of the originals from 1972. No bells and whistles, just the album in its original packaging. This purchase was made at least two years ago.

It's still sealed. I've yet to ever hear this album in its entirety; I certainly know songs from it.

3 > 1 > (2 or 4)

"Ladies and Gentleman: the Rolling Stones" live record/film from the Exile tour is really good and features Nicky Hopkins playing some total madcap piano. Well worth checking out.

and "loving cup," man, still a mystery how it gets from point a to point b. there's a point early on where keith's rhythm anticipates the horn charts. i think that's the key.

― Thus Sang Freud, Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Interesting, do you have a timecode on that?

To my ears, the piano and drum lines tie it together (assuming you’re talking about the transition into the final “outro” section with the horns).

It’s def. a good example of a song with three heterogenous-feeling sections (main, bridge, outro) that somehow cohere really well.

No bells and whistles

the deluxe version of this is a real enhancement, tho

Exile on Rue Principale

― pplains, Thursday, April 18, 2019 9:06 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like this post a lot

Except there are no rue principale in France !

I was just about to say – it's a French Canadian thing. The idea of Jagger, et al. exiling themselves to Quebec pleases me even more.

Obligatory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVDT02kwD-g

Except there are no rue principale in France !

:)

Mercí. The sum of my French is basically only what I've gotten from living within six hours of the Cajundome.

https://i.imgur.com/7yStCY5.jpg

Interesting, do you have a timecode on that?

most explicitly, i'm hearing it around 1:14 and again around 1:30. electric guitar (telecaster?). the five fast downstrokes that mimic the "gimme little drink" line and that little answering pulloff thingie.

i can't get enough of this thing lately. all of it except for "let it loose"... everyone has to let one loose from time to time i guess lol.

i'm hearing / connecting with a lot of tenderness in the songs this go-around.

I love Let it Loose. What makes it the exception for you?

i think the chord progression is bland, the tempo is leaden, and the scrunch-faced vocals sound over-wrought and constipated as a result.

i pretty much love every other song though and find it easy to overlook.

It's the vocals I really love! Jagger sounds more honest to me in this song than anywhere else - the way he sort of plunges into this emotional whirlpool of longing and jealousy and self-reproach as he's watching his friend (Keith, I guess?) fuck up yet again, until it doesn't even matter what lyrics he's singing, it could just be nonsense words and I would still get the same meaning from it, that we're all struggling through this terrible, flawed, difficult world, and the bedroom blues (but it could be anything, really) are the burden the world has laid on us that's almost too heavy to carry, and just when we've been pushed to the absolute edge of endurance, here comes Mick to bring us catharsis and preach us the gospel of letting it loose.

But then to me the whole album is about trying to push through the noise and muddle of the world around you and get some kind of meaning and beauty out of it - people at the end of their rope somehow finding a way to endure. And so "Let it Loose" feels to me like the moment on the album where all that crystallizes. But maybe that's just me.

well that's a very appealing description, i'll have to give it more chances.

the best stones album, easy

agree

This remains the greatest album in the history of ears, and it's my favorite work of art by anyone in any medium. I only play it a few times per year these days (after a thousand or more spins in the first decade or so of discovery), which is silly because it'll never grow old, but there are more new bits that pop up the longer you wait before playing it again. It feels like spending time with a close friend from high school you don't see often anymore, but when you do, you hit it off without missing a beat. Seems fitting this was released in May: when the weather breaks, it's one of two albums I reach for each year on the first day the windows are opened (house)/down (car).

I've never seen much (if any) criticism of "Let It Loose"--it seems to be a beloved tune, especially by Stones fans--and find it wild that someone would love the other 17 songs but not "Let It Loose." Not a criticism/understand it's subjectivity, et. al. However, it's consistently struck me as one of Mick's greatest vocals on any song, ballads in particular. (Scorsese also used it to great unobtrusive effect in "The Departed" during a scene with Nicholson & DiCaprio chatting in a bar.)

"Exile" is also the best Stones album for lyrics alone, numerous phrases heavily quoted because they read so well out of context. And as has been mentioned above, the drumming is outstanding throughout (plus "Loving Cup" indeed has one of the all-time great fills). "Tumbling Dice" is in a never-ending battle with "Beast of Burden" for my favorite Stones tune and seeing "All Down the Line" performed live in 2005 remains one of my most cherished concert memories.

The album is so sublime that I have seven copies of it on vinyl (three unipak first pressings, two gatefold second pressings, the 94 remaster, & the 10 remaster plus a bootleg LP of the CD bonus tracks), the CD, the double CD, the Japanese mini LP replica CD, the cassette, the 8-track, a weird little mini album replica (Musidor 1983) with a piece of bubble gum in the still unopened packaging, the Pussy Galore LP and limited edition numbered cassette (#475 out of 550), and a bootleg CD of the Phish Halloween show with artwork (plus the "Phishbill"). My girlfriend has rolled her eyes in too many record stores whenever I've giddily found a first pressing with intact postcards as if I need another set. No other album elicits such outlandish indulgence from me. Yet I'm certain my "Tales from an OCD Exile Collector" anecdotes are far from uncommon. I know it's a problem but can't help it because the album is just that phenomenal. Simply writing these few paragraphs about it has cheered me up after a shitty day.

I always think of what Tom Waits said about it: "This is just a tree of life. This record is the watering hole." Amen.

Saw the Stones a couple days ago in Seattle, I had floor seats and they came down the to the b-stage and did an acoustic "Sweet Virginia," it was pretty great.

You lucky duck! Saw 'em in Foxborough last month & was grateful they did "Dead Flowers," one of the night's highlights. "Sympathy for the Devil" seems to be the tune they nail better than anything else live (at least from the times I've seen 'em). How was it at Centurylink?

I really enjoyed it. They did "Dead Flowers" on the b-stage as well, right after "Sweet Virginia." That and Keith singing "You Got the Silver" and "Before They Make Me Run" were my favorite moments of the night, but it all sounded pretty good to me. Liked "Sympathy for the Devil" a lot as well - it's never been my favorite of theirs, but I thought it was great live, and seeing Jagger strutting around in his glittery jacket with the tails certainly added to the effect.

beautiful post Wally, it's this kind of thing which keeps me coming back to ILX

I was about to post the same thing.

Add me to the "I cannot wrap my head around someone loving this album except for 'Let It Loose'" camp... someone posted the demo upthread a while back, that song might be my favorite on the album.

"Let it Loose" is my favorite song in the world. I want it played at my funeral. Jagger is so dismissive of it in interviews, and it's hard for me to believe he can't tell how good it is. I wonder if the level of genuine emotion he brought to it makes him uncomfortable.

lol at genuine emotion
I think this is one of the weaker tracks on the album