Another is that because Jagger’s voice has been dropped to the level of just another instrument, burying him even more than usual, he has been freed from any restrictions the lyrics might have once imposed. The sound gives him room not only to set the pace rhythmically but to also provide the bulk of the drive and magnetism. One consequence of this style is that most of the hard-core action on the record revolves around Charlie Watts’ snare drum. Only occasionally does an instrument or voice break through to the surface, and even then it seems subordinate to the ongoing mix, and without the impact that a break in the sound should logically have. In the tradition of Phil Spector, they’ve constructed a wash of sound in which to frame their songs, yet where Spector always aimed to create an impression of space and airiness, the Stones group everything together in one solid mass, providing a tangled jungle through which you have to move toward the meat of the material. The fact that they take a minimum of chances, even given the room of their first double album set, tends to dull that finish a bit.Įxile on Main Street is the Rolling Stones at their most dense and impenetrable. The fact that they do it so well is testament to one of the finest bands in the world. And with Exile on Main Street, the Stones have chosen to sustain for the moment, stabilizing their pasts and presenting few directions for their future. This continual topping of one’s self can only go on for so long, after which one must sit back and sustain what has already been built. After, through “Midnight Rambler,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Sugar,” “Bitch” and those jagged-edge opening bars of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” they’ve never failed to make that affirmation of their superiority when it was most needed, of the fact that others may come and go but the Rolling Stones will always be.
Coming out of Satanic Majesties Request, the unholy trio of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Street Fighting Man” and “Sympathy for the Devil” were the blockbusters that brought them back in the running. The Stones have prospered by making the classic assertion whenever it was demanded of them. Pepper period) or manipulating them (Dylan, continually). Performers should not let their public make career decisions for them, but the best artisans of any era have worked closely within their audience’s expectations, either totally transcending them (the Beatles in their up-to-and-including Sgt. And as a result, the group has been given a responsibility to their audience which can’t be dropped by the wayside, nor should be, given the two-way street on which music always has to function. Backed by an impending tour and a monumental picture-book, its mere presence in record stores makes a statement. In that light, Exile on Main Street is not just another album, a two-month binge for the rack-jobbers and then onto whoever’s up next. If you can’t bleed on the Stones, who can you bleed on? And, as a result, they alone have become the last of the great hopes. Through a spectral community alchemy, we’ve chosen the Stones to bring our darkness into light, in each case via a construct that fits the time and prevailing mood perfectly. Along this road they’ve displayed a succession of sneeringly believable poses, in a tradition so grand that in lesser hands they could have become predictable, coupled with an acute sense of social perception and the kind of dynamism that often made everything else seem beside the point. The Stones have never set themselves in the forefront of any musical revolution, instead preferring to take what’s already been laid down and then gear it to its highest most slashing level. But in the end, Exile on Main Street spends its four sides shading the same song in as many variations as there are Rolling Stone readymades to fill them, and if on the one hand they prove the group’s eternal constancy and appeal, it’s on the other that you can leave the album and still feel vaguely unsatisfied, not quite brought to the peaks that this band of bands has always held out as a special prize in the past.
There are songs that are better, there are songs that are worse, there are songs that’ll become your favorites and others you’ll probably lift the needle for when their time is due.