From the '90s onward, The Stones made a concerted effort to "be like The Stones," releasing albums every five years or so that self-consciously tried to recall the band's '60s and '70s prime. The best Stones album from this period is 1994's Voodoo Lounge, which plays like a survey of the band's various guises from 1964 to 1972, from the folky chamber-pop of "New Faces" to the dark blues of "Thru And Thru" to the straightforward rock of "Sparks Will Fly." It's a pretty good record, though it's occasionally forced. (When Jagger sings "I wanna fuck your sweet ass" on "Sparks Will Fly," he's asserting his fiftysomething sexuality a little too strongly.) While it isn't technically a Stones record, Jagger's 1993 solo effort Wandering Spirit is the best Stones-related release since Tattoo You. Working with professional late-career rehabber Rick Rubin, Jagger pushed himself beyond the conservatism of late-period Stones albums on rubbery dance tracks ("Sweet Thing") and gorgeous country numbers ("Evening Gown") that spotlighted his still-powerful vocals well. Wandering Spirit also rocks more convincingly than any recent Stones record. "I'm as hard as a brick, I hope I never go limp," Jagger sings on "Wired All Night," a defiant, tour-'til-we-drop mission statement for The Stones as they approach 50 years in rock.
The essentials:
1. Singles Collection: The London Years
The Rolling Stones didn't make a bad album in the '60s—even the maligned Their Satanic Majesties Request has more good songs than terrible ones—but for most of the decade, the group hit hardest on its singles, which are collected (both A- and B-sides) on this three-disc collection. A reading of the track list tells you all you need to know about how essential The London Years is: "Tell Me," "The Last Time," "Heart Of Stone," "Satisfaction," "19th Nervous Breakdown," "Play With Fire," "Get Off Of My Cloud," "Let's Spend The Night Together," "Ruby Tuesday," "Honky Tonk Women," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and dozens of other indispensable classics. Taken together, these singles tell the story of how a British blues group called The Rolling Stones because the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band.
2. Exile On Main St.
Often called the best Stones album, Exile On Main St. best distills in a single package what made the Stones great. There's all kinds of songs—blues standards, country songs about black angels, gospel hollers haunted by voodoo spirits—but it all sounds like rock 'n' roll. And make no mistake, this is the most desperate rock 'n' roll of the band's career. Exile is the sound of a band trying not to fall down; soon afterward, The Stones would succumb to creative (if not necessarily physical) exhaustion after maxing out its capabilities in every possible way for a decade.
3. Sticky Fingers
If The Stones fretted about their reputation after the Altamont tragedy, they didn't show it on 1971's Sticky Fingers, the most overtly sexual and druggy album of their career. (Which is saying a lot.) With its Andy Warhol-designed "crotch" cover brazenly hinting at the sleaze contained within, Sticky Fingers is an in-your-face desecration of all that is good and decent in the world, and (not coincidentally) one of the great "rock 'n' roll" rock 'n' roll albums. Kicking off with "Brown Sugar," a still-scandalous song about a white English slavemaster having sex with a comely slave, Sticky Fingers is the seven deadly sins set to a killer riff and a danceable beat, though the slow songs ("I Got The Blues" and the epic "Moonlight Mile") hit the hardest.
4. Beggars Banquet
Bob Dylan once said that he could have written "Satisfaction," but Mick Jagger couldn't have written "Mr. Tambourine Man." Maybe so, but Dylan would have killed to write an opening line as memorable as "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste." The sinister salutation opens "Sympathy For The Devil," which opens 1968's Beggar Banquet on an appropriately foreboding note. The band's commitment to stripped-down country blues was commendable at a time when the jammy psychedelia of Cream reigned supreme, but this record belongs to Jagger, who committed some of his most unsettling, disturbing, and darkly funny lyrics to this scathing collection of songs documenting the sad degradation of so many hopes and dreams as the '60s came to a close.
5. Some Girls
Most of the big '60s rock bands either ignored punk or denigrated it for the lack of musicianship, playing directly into the hands of the "keep it simple, stupid" crowd. Never ones to shy away from aggression, The Stones were invigorated by the chesty upstarts and responded with Some Girls, the band's nastiest, most energetic record in years, and its last indisputable masterpiece. Jagger proved he could be as provocative as any punk on the title track, where he talked about the attributes of bedding women of various races, while "Shattered" was a paranoid nightmare set in New York City, and powered by mounds of cocaine. On the pop charts, The Stones scored another No. 1 with "Miss You," which was danceable enough for disco fans, and rocking enough for disco haters not to notice.
Miscellany
Martin Scorsese isn't the first A-list director to document The Rolling Stones at work. That distinction goes to French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard, who filmed the band recording "Sympathy For The Devil" for his arty, disjointed, '60s counterculture treatise Sympathy For The Devil, released in 1970. Also from 1970 is the Maysles brothers' Gimme Shelter, still the definitive Stones movie, and one of the great films about the 1960s. Hal Ashby's Let's Spend The Night Together from 1983 isn't even close to being in the same league, though the Stones weren't in their old league, either, at this point. Filmed during the stadium tour for Tattoo You, The Stones play their old songs poorly and way too fast, and Ashby films the band to accentuate its distance from the audience. It's an accurate depiction of the band at the time, perhaps, but pretty uninvolving as a viewing experience nonetheless.
The most infamous Stones film is the toughest to see: Robert Frank's Cocksucker Blues. A lurid, cinéma vérité, black-and-white documentary about the 1972 North American tour in support of Exile On Main St., Cocksucker Blues is full of scenes depicting drug use, orgies, heavy drinking, and other (probably staged) acts of rock 'n' roll awesomeness by The Stones and their depressing cloud of hangers-on. Except Cocksucker Blues isn't all that awesome or exciting to watch; it's intentionally dull and monotonous, proving once and for all that even the most disgusting acts of debauchery become no more dangerous than taking out the garbage once you have license to commit them. The Stones filed a court order to block the film's release, though it can still be screened if Frank is present. Otherwise, Stones fans have had to track down bootleg copies to see scintillating footage like this:
Along with numerous concert films, The Rolling Stones have released nine live albums, from 1966's no-fi Got Live If You Want It! up through this year's soundtrack for Shine A Light. Most are of interest only to diehards and completists, but three are worth a listen for casual-to-committed fans: 1970's Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!, an absolutely essential document of the band at its live peak, recorded at Madison Square Garden in 1969; 1977's Love You Live, if only for the side of smoky blues covers recorded at Toronto's El Mocambo club; and 1995's Stripped, which offers likeably intimate versions of some lesser-known cuts from the band's catalog.
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