• The Rolling Stones Exile On Main St. Songs
• Exile On Main Street Meaning

Image captionThe Rolling Stones last hit the top spot with Voodoo Lounge in 1994The Rolling Stones have scored their first UK number one album for 16 years with a re-release of their classic LP Exile On Main Street.The album, which was first released in 1972, has been reissued with previously unheard tracks. Their last number one album was 1994's Voodoo Lounge.Another 1972 recording has appeared in the singles chart this week.A song by Leeds United FC's 1972 squad, re-released to celebrate the club's recent promotion, is at number 10.US rapper B.o.B is at number one on the singles chart with Nothin' On You, according to the Official Charts Company.

The Rolling Stones beat Faithless's latest release The Dance, which was a new entry at number two on the albums rundown.Exile On Main Street has been dusted off to tie in with the release of a documentary about the making of the album, which includes tracks such as Tumbling Dice and Rocks Off.David Joseph, chairman of the Stones's label Universal Music UK, said: 'It's quite a result for an album from 1972 to be back at number one. It proves the Stones's music is as powerful today as when it was created.' German covers band The Baseballs are at number four, while LCD Soundsytem have a new entry with This Is Happening at number seven.

Mick Jagger, 1972We could record from late in the afternoon until five or six inthe morning, and suddenly the dawn comes up and I've got this boat.We'd just jump in, Bobby Keys, me, Mick, whoever was up forit. We'd pull into Monte Carlo for lunch. Have a chat witheither Onassis's lot or Niarchos's, who had the big yachts there. Youcould almost see the guns pointed at each other. That's why we calledit Exile On Main Street. Whenwe first came up with the title it worked in American terms becauseeverybody's got a Main Street.

But our Main Street was that Rivierastrip. And we were exiles, so it rang perfectly true and saideverything we needed. The whole Mediterranean coast was an ancientconnection of its own, a kind of Main Street without borders. I've hungin Marseilles, and it was all it was cracked up to be and I've no doubtit still is. It's like the capital that embraces the Spanish coast, theNorth African coast, the whole Mediterranean coast. It's basically acountry all its own until a few miles inland. Keith RichardsIt wasn't made as an album, likeyou see it there (on the album sleeve).

Some of it was made in London,at Olympic. Some of it was made in Mick's house in Berkshire. Then wewent to France, and we finished it in L.A. It was just recording,and it was a way of using up old tracks. That's what we did in thosedays: just recorded. It kept you busy and out of trouble - as you've nodoubt recently noticed (refers to Ron Wood's recent amorous troubles) - and it was stuff you could use later.

Charlie Watts, 2009It was frustrating, and it tookquite a long period of time. A lot of the tracks were not made in thesouth of France. They were tracks we'd made or hadn't finished, orhadn't released on the previous album, Sticky Fingers, before we moved to France. Exilewas recorded under a lot of difficult circumstances, and in what wasnot a very good recording place. It was a bit uphill.

In retrospect,when I was forced to look at it when we were going to re-releasethe album, I saw that the time that we spent in the studio wasn'treally that long. It didn't go on for years, and years and years. Itwasn't - what was that Axl Rose album that went on for 15 years? ( Chinese Democracy.) (laughs) Exactly!

It wasn't Chinese Democracy.It was only six or seven months. And there were so many drug problems,and we had problems getting into the United States, so it was all sortof uphill and difficult. There were all sorts of other outside forcesthat were trying to take up time and energy. So that definitely made itmore frustrating than just doing a record. And then we were preparingfor a tour - and when we did the tour and the songs, everything wasfine.

Keith Richards, June 1971Stoned is the word that might describe (the band at the time). (Laughs)It's the first album Mick Taylor's on, really (sic).So it's different than previous albums, which had Brian on them - or Briannot on them, as the case may be. It was a difficult period, because wehad all these lawsuits going with Allen Klein. We had to leave Englandbecause of tax problems.

We had no money and went to live in the Southof France - the first album we made where we weren't based in England,thus the title. Mick Jagger, 1995We hadn't intended to record in my house.We did look around for studios around there once we'd all decided thatwas what we were going to do - but although there are plenty of very goodFrench recording engineers now, at that time in the South of France inthe early 1970s, there weren't too many.

There were no studios with goodrooms to work in, the equipment was shabby and nobody felt comfortablein any of the places we looked at. I had this basement, which was reallyvery ugly, but it was the biggest one of all the houses we had down there,and we also had our own mobile recording truck. So we said, Why don'twe just forget about looking for a studio.

Let's bring in the truck andwork around the problems; at least this way we don't have to ask interpretersevery time we want to turn it off or on. Andy Johns, 1979Youknow, a lot of the record was made in a big house, in a sort of bigsocial circumstance. It wasn't made in a studio. Making records in astudio can concentrate you - in a studio, you're just going to do onething. It makes it more finite.

You've got a deadline and that sort ofthing. When you move into a house and you don't have a deadline - theprocess, the whole thing, and all the people, it's just a longer pieceof string. It's the same with film - they just don't really want tostop.

It's such a good time. Why would you want to stop? You needsomeone to say, OK - that's it, now. And we weren't doing that ourselves, so it probably went on a big longer than it needed to. Mick Jagger, 2010We made this documentary film about the making of Exile,and I had to sort of think it through, what I thought the story was, totell the director what I think it was. (T)o say it was all difficultis bullshit.

It wasn't difficult. It was mull of mad acvivity,creativity. Yeah, there was outside trouble of all different nature, itwas a time of change - but what time isn't? People getting married,like me, other people having loads of children.

A lot of thingshappened. It was like a three-year period, you know? (I)t wasn't allbad.

Some of it was fantastic. It was very full of incident, but itwasn't all angst, when you see the photographs everybody's having awonderful time. You can paint it as this degrading experience, but itreally doesn't look like that when you look at it. There were definitemoments of ailment and despondency, but it really wasn't like that whenyou look at the footage, the pictures, the things that people said, theinterviews they gave. (W)hen you saw a picture, it was full ofchildren and families and so on, in this recording situation, whichwe'd never had before. It was not at all like the life of the RollingStones to have children - it was a completely new ewexperience. Sothat's very different, you know, and much more mature, if you want.There were at least three children being born during this period.

Sothat was very lovely, and different, at that time. It was a wonderfulperiod, a very creative period, but it also had its problems, some ofthem practical, some personal, and so on. MickJagger, 2010We cut atleast thirty tracks in France.

Mick was close to becoming a father andkept skipping off to Paris to see Bianca, which left Keith to lay downthe rhythm riffs. On many of the tracks, Mick came in later. It was mid-summeron the Riviera when we cut most of the album and very humid and very hotworking in the basement studio. Guitars didn't stay in tune and it wasoften difficult to get a really good drum sound. Many of the actual songscame quite late on. We had an awful lot of rhythm tracks with no songswritten to them.

Keith Richards, 2001There were all these little subdivisions in the basement,almost like booths. So what would happen was that, for a certain sound,we'd schlep an amp from one space to another until we found one thathad the right sound. Sometimes the guitar cord wasn't long enough!

Thatwas in the beginning, anyway. But once we started to work there, mylittle cubicle became my cubicle, and we didn't change places much. Butat first, it was just a matter of exploring this enormousbasement, saying, What other sound is hiding 'round the corner?' Cause you'd have weird echoes going on.

Soemtimes we wouldn't be ableto see each other even, which is very rare for us. We usually like toeyeball one another when we're recording. Keith Richards, 2010There was this stairway that came down from upstairs, and itturned - at the bottom of the stairwell it turned and there was a room.It was probably 9 foot square, maybe 10.

That was where we recorded.And it used to get so hot in there that the condensation used torun down the walls and all that. My bass amp used to be under thebloody stairs, out round there.

The horn players used to be down thecorridor, in the kitchen, when they were doing things, or vocals. Andit was all, like, spread, we couldn't see the engineer and he couldn'tsee us - Andy Johns, and Jim Miller the producer, they couldn't seeus. And it was just like an oven. Add it was not very conducive tomaking music really. And it's a bloody miracle we did. Nicky HopkinsActually, there were only four cuts that I wasn't on. Out of twentytracks, Mick made a mistake with the credits on two of the cuts.

We tendto fill in for each other, and the bass is easy to fill in for. If Charliewasn't there it'd be difficult. If Mick isn't around he can always addhis vocals the next day. If Keith isn't there - as he isn't on many tracks- he can overdub his parts later. I can never overdub, because you've gotto get that rhythm track down with bass and drums together. So I'm at adisadvantage in that my instrument has to be present to build the foundationwhether I'm there to play it or not.

Yet if someone has filled in for me,I can't change it or overdub later on. Often when that happens I shiftover to another instrument like keyboards or synthesizer. Keith Richards, 2010Jimmy (Miller) did an incredible job, especially under thosecircumstances. We had no control room. We had a mobile truck outsidethe front door.

So every time we had a playback, it was like a ritual.And after a while you'd be down in the basement and say, Do you want to hear that back?, and we'd all look at each other and say, Nah. We couldn't take the stairs anymore. So we'd say to Jimmy, What do you think?

And he'd say, I think it's a good one, and they'd say, OK,and then you'd tramp up the stairs and check it out. It was a weird wayof making a record, but it proved it can be done almost anywhere. It'smuch easier these days, actually.

Gien the equipment that wasavailable in 1971, it was quite a feat. Keith Richards, 2010I think (the integrated horn section is) another one of thebeauties of the album. The fact that the horns are actually playingwith the band. There is something to be said for having it all in oneroom. Bobby (Keys) and Jim (Price) were amazing, 'cause they had tomake up their parts virtually on the spot. The songs were coming outtwo or three a night. Sometimes I'd lay an idea for a song on them atthe end of a session, early in the morning, so they'd have it intheir heads by the time they got back the next day.

There were only twoof them, a sax and a trumpet, but Jimmy played great trombone as well,so we'd double them up until they became a section. Keith Richards, 2009I supposed we had the band there, the WHOLE band there,probably 30%, 40% of the time. The rest of the time it's just bits.Bobby, me and Charlie, and Mick hadn't come, Mick Taylor didn't come.And me, Charlie and Keith, so we'd work on something. Next day, Keithwouldn't come because Mick wasn't there, so then Mick'd come and he'dsee Keith wasn't there, so next day HE wouldn't come. And sometimeswe'd all get there to do a session and Keith wouldn't even come, he wasupstairs sleeping. Charlie had come five hours, you know, me and MickTaylor had come two hours, Mick had come an hour, and Keith's upstairs,he didn't come down to the session. And it was like madness.

Bill Wyman, 2009Time to Keith was a very loose thing. It was a very smallt-i-m-e because it meant - he was like he's now. Keith's time - I don'tmean his playing time but his time of getting up and going - it's quitenormal for Keith to work from sort of late in the evening till, youknow, three o'clock the next afternoon. And Mick works from eight atnight to twelve at night and goes home.

So as a drummer you're in themiddle of doing it all. That's why it was good at Nellcote, I livedthere 'cause you could do that.

It didn't matter when I wanted tobathe, you know. With various other things going on, you might notwork for two days and then do a whole two days without sleep.

Mick Jagger, September 1971(We were j)ust winging it. Staying up all night. Stoned on something;one thing or another.

So I don't think it was particularly pleasant. Ididn't have a very good time. It was this communal thing where you don'tknow whether you're recording or living or having dinner; you don't knowwhen you're gonna play, when you're gonna sing - very difficult. Too manyhangers-on. I went with the flow, and the album got made. These thingshave a certain energy, and there's a certain flow to it, and it got impossible.Everyone was so out of it.

And the engineers, the producers - all the peoplethat were supposed to be organized - were more disorganized than anybody. Mick Jagger, 1995Probably 10% of whatever you heard (about the myths surroundingthe album) is anywhere near it - all that debauchery and that kind ofcrap. We didn't have time! (laughs) We were fucking making a record.

Wewere turning out two or three tracks a night sometimes. There waslittle time for debauchery.

I'm not saying it never, never went on. Butwe working. (But o)f course (drugs were) bloody well (part of theprocess).

Are you kidding me? That was normal fuel. Of course drugswere around. Mick Jagger, 2010It was a very difficult recording environment. Well, in someways it was very difficult, in some ways it was very interesting. Inthat period, there were always a lot of people.

That wasn't new. But itdid sort of reach new heights. There were obviously loads of drugsused in the sessions, but everyone had different drug habits. Theyweren't all the same.

And people who take drugs tend to hide their drughabits from other people. You don't always know what people are taking.But there were a lot of drugs.

There were loads of drugs. Mick Jagger, 2009(Mick's hangers-on complaint is) all in retrospect. It wasprobably the fact that Gram Parsons was around.

Mick didn't like me tohave other friends. I was supposed to be married to him. I never feltthat way, quite honestly, because I mean. But Mick had apossessive thing about that. I don't think there were any morehangers-on (at Nellcote) than if we were cutting it in L.A.

Or London.It depended if they were his hangers-on or mine. If they were hishangers-on, they were cool. Keith Richards, 2009(Gram Parsons would) be playing upstairs.

When I wasn't in thestudio, Mick and I would be playing with Gram. I think Gram really didnot want to intrude.

I think he really deliberately didn't want to pushhimself forward in any way as being part of the record. I think hejust wanted to watch how we did it and how we were going toget out of this thing.

I think it was a just a matter of respect,really. I think the only way it could have happened is if we said, Hey, Gram.

We need another guitar here. But Gram's a gentleman, and he saw we knew what we were doing and didn't want to be distracted. Keith Richards, 2010Ithink the Keith relationship thing wasn't bad at all. Yeah, it wasfine.

I don't think it was an issue here. Keith might tell youdifferently, but I mean, as far as I could see - obviously we haddisagreements about the songs, but that was normal. If you all thinkexactly the same, that's not how any band works, as far as I can see.What I can see, from looking at all this stuff, is that thebiggest problems were a change of management, and problems with visasand general kind of practical problems. Tax problems, money problemsdue to all these previous things that had gone on that I don't reallywant to elaborate on. But there was an accumulation ofpractical problems that had to be constantly dealt with, and myexperience is when you're wrangeld with people, with the tax people, ittakes an enormous amount of energy. Yeah, it pulls you away from thecraetive process.

And it's just very tiring and annoying and constantlyinvading your creative space to get all this together. MickJagger, December 1992Exile was a double album. And becauseit's a double album you're going to be hitting different areas, includingD for Down, and the Stones really felt like exiles.

We didn't start offintending to make a double album; we just went down to the South of Franceto make an album and by the time we'd finished we said, We want to putit all out. We could have cut it in half and released a single albumand then made another one, because double albums were very unpopular withrecord companies: the fact that you have to charge more is just one ofthe reasons why you shouldn't make a double album. MickJagger, 2003Listen, if you believe Mick, you'll believe anything. Onceagain this is the difference between Mick and me.

His recollection isquite honestly bullshit. The only things we did in L.A. Were thingslike, you know, We need three chicks to sing back-up on Let It Loose.Or we need a fiddle player. I mean, just extras.

You see, the reasonMick says that is because he doesn't think his vocals are loud enough.But lead vocalists never thinktheir vocals are loud enough. I would never take Mick'srecollection of anything seriously. If Mick says that we just took aload of 'grungy' stuff out of France, and really made the record inL.A., that's bullshit. Keith Richards, 2010Not all the lyrics were written in a Nellcote environment. That doesn't mean they're not aboutNellcote. But a lot of them were written later in L.A.

And theydon't reflect the Nellcote thing at all. A lot of them are about goingon the road, which was actually what was going to happen next. With Tumbling Dice,there's an outtake I've found that has completely different lyrics.

Itwasn't until we got to L.A. That I rewrote them. The original lyricswere crap. So it was nothing to do with the original experience ofrecording the album, if you see what I mean. Mick Jagger, 2009Idon't think (we were writing about a hangover from the '60s). I reallycan't see it.

Especially as it straddles such a long period. The onlysort of slightly, vaguely conscious decision that we could've made isthat it was going to be quite a tough-sounding album. Not too muchsentimentality or ballads or anything like that. In fact, there aren'tany ballads.

There's no soft edges about Exile on Main Street. Even the slow songs - Loving Cup is kind of getting there, but it's not Angie.

Shine a Light isvery tough. It's a very tough record. I don't think that speaks toanything historical, or letting-go-of-a-decade or anything like that. Idon't think we thought because it's in the '70s, it's got to bedifferent. I certainly don't remember that. But there's an inherentfeeling that it's sort of tough and hard.

Mick Jagger, 2010The fact that the Beatles had (released a double album) probably gave us a sense of, Oh, there is a precedent.But our point was that we'd put down this body of work and when it cameto chopping it down to one album, nobody could agree on which songs tocut. After a while, Mick and I looked at each other and said, Thisis impossible.

How about a double? This is all one piece.

It's gonna beunique just because of where it was recorded and the way it was recorded. We sort of nodded at one another and said, Let's go for it. Which gave us hell from the record company: Aw, the public hates double albums, and all of that.

But we insisted. Keith Richards, 2010Mixinga double album was different than mixing a single album.

So wewere going into uncharted territory. Mick and I would look at oneanother and say, How many more songs to go?mopping our brow, so to speak. But I can't remember it being thatdifficult. I think we were so intimate with the tracks by then that,listening to the overdubs and mixing, it just put the icing on thecake. I remember it as being a very joyous couple of weeks. We were allon top of it.

Jimmy Miller, all of us - we all knew what wewere doing. It was just a matter of watching it fall into place.It was one of those rare things: a perfect mixing session. Keith Richards, 2010Jimmy(Miller) was SORT of there, but he was burnt out too. I'm not saying Irecorded the tracks poorly, but the sound was unusual, shall we say.And Mick was sort of driving me up the wall.

One night I said, Look, man, I can't fucking tell what this is going to sound like on the radio. He went, Well, let's have someone play it on the radio.So he hires a limousine with a phone in it - obviously, this is longbefore cellphones - and I'm in this bloody great Cadillac limo withMick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards, and it's all on me nowbecause ANDY mentioned the radio. And Mick picks up this telephone andsays, All right, have him play it now. And we hear, Hey you folks out there, we have a surprise for you, blah blah blah blah blah blah. The song finishes - I think it was All Down the Line - and Mick looks at me and says, What do you think, then? I say, I can't really tell.

Well, I'll have him play it again. So he gets on the phone - Have him play it again.This is power, right?

And it's very surreal for me. I mean, is thisreally happening? (Mick eventually told me) I've had it with this bloody record. Here's the tapes, there's you, there's the mixer.

You got two days. And I sat there without splitting for two days and mixed the rest of the album on me own pretty much. Keith Richards, March 1972Trying to get the track order down was murder, actually(laughs). I'd be sending cassettes to Mick in the middle of the night -putting my version of what the order should be under his door. I'd comeback to my room and there'd already be a cassette under my door withhis version of what it should be. Hey, Mick, that's pretty good, but you've got four songs in a row in the same key. We can't do that!You'd come across all these weird little problems that you neverthought of.

It was like making a jigsaw puzzle. By the time I got thefinal version, I didn't give a shit anymore.

Mick Jagger, April 1972Sometimes it's the hardest part of making an album it's, like, OK, what order do the songs come in? And, like, you kind of get used to listening to them, like jumbling them up kind of thing. And saying, Well that one works nice off of that. And you kind of work it like that. Sometimes (it's) a good track but it doesn't seem to work coming out of that track, or going into that (track).It's quite a process. We were successful, I suppose (laughs), in thatrespect, that it is - it hangs together well. And that's an importantthing with a record.

You can have the same record, the same songs, butif they're in a sort of order sometimes it can jar and not quite hangtogether, you know. And that's the difficult thing: you've made a greatrecord and you know it's good stuff, but will it hang together? So withExile I think we did it.

Keith Richards, 2009APPRECIATIONThis new album is fucking mad. There's so many different tracks. It'svery rock & roll, you know. I didn't want it to be like that. I'm themore experimental person in the group, you see I like to experiment.

Notgo over the same thing over and over. Since I've left England, I've hadthis thing I've wanted to do. I'm not against rock & roll, but I reallywant to experiment. The new album's very rock & roll and it's good.I think rock & roll is getting a bit. I mean, I'm very bored withrock & roll.

Everyone knows what their roots are, butyou've got to explore everywhere. You've got to explore the sky too. Keith Richards, 2003Critics always like to give the Stones bad reviews. One day they'regoing to be right.

They just haven't been right so far, because we alwaysmanage - I don't mean to be conceited, but we always manage - to come upwith the goods, and the public seem to like it and buy it. Then three yearslater the reviewers turn around and say, Yeah, that was a great album,after saying at the time, It was a load of old shit. Most of themdid that with Exile, and came back and said it was probably oneof the greatest albums or packages that the Stones had ever put out.

I don't care what they say anymore. MickJagger, 1978It's a wonderful record, but I wouldn't consider it the finest ofthe Rolling Stones' work.

I think that Beggars Banquet and LetIt Bleed were better records. They're more compressed. You know, whenyou put a double album out, there's always going to be something that couldhave been left off and would have made it maybe better. But, you know,Exile. Its reputation just seems bigger now than it was back then.I remember it didn't sell well at the time, and there was only one singleoff it (sic). And we were still in this phase where we weren't really commerciallyminded; we weren't trying to exploit or wring dry the record like one woulddo now, with a lot of singles.

I mean, we weren't really looking at thefinancial and commercial aspects of it. But the truth it, it wasn't a hugesuccess at the time. It wasn't even critically well received. I think ifyou go back and look at the reviews, you'll see I'm right. It mostly gotvery indifferent reviews. And I love it now when all these critics sayit was the most wonderful thing, because it's a lot of those same guyswho, at the time, said it was crap!

Anway, I think Exile lackeda bit of definition. I'm being supercritical, I know, but the record lacksa little focus. Keith Richards, 2010We kind of expected (the mixed reviews) just from the fact thatit was a double album. First of all, the record company wanted to cutit in half. So we said, Oh, this is not looking good. But also we insisted, No, this is what we did.

This is Exile On Main Street, and we insist that it's a double album.So it kind of got a slow take-off, but ever since then, it's been upthere. I would put it up there with (our best albums). It's verydifficult for me to pick my babies apart, you know? But, Beggars Banquet, Exile, Sticky Fingers, Let It Bleed - I mean, it was part of that period where we were really hitting it, you know? Keith Richards, 2010Itwas a bit overwhelming, I think, for anyone who wasn't a major fan. Itwas a very eclectic album.

It had lots of little departments. It was abig spread, not just in terms of length, but also being spread overtime. It hasn't got any unity of time and place. I know people talkabout Nellcote, but only half of it were recorded there. The rest wasrecorded in other places, over longer periods, with other influences.So it's got no unity.

The Rolling Stones Exile On Main St. Songs

It's got a very sprawling identity. MickJagger, 2009The thing about Exile is that everyoneloves it, but I don't really know why. There aren't any real hits on it,apart from Tumbling Dice. And although it's great to listen to,it isn't that great when you try and play songs from it. There are a lotof tracks on that double album, and only a handful of songs youcan perform:TumblingDice, Happy, All Down the Line and Sweet Virginia,which is a nice country tune. So there's a good four songs off it, butwhen you start to play the other nineteen (sic), you can't, or they don'twork, or nobody likes them, and you think, OK, we'll play another oneinstead. We have rehearsed a lot of the tunes off Exile, butthere's not much that's playable.

MickJagger, 2003Exile On Main Street is not one ofmy favourite albums, although I think the record does have a particularfeeling. I'm not too sure how great the songs are, but put together it'sa nice piece. However, when I listen to Exile it has some of theworst mixes I've ever heard. I'd love to remix the record, not just becauseof the vocals, but because generally I think it sounds lousy. Of courseI'm ultimately responsible for it, but it's really not good and there'sno concerted effort or intention.

As long as people like the album, that'sfine. It's just that I don't particularly think it's a great album. Keith Richards, 2010(W)hen people started saying, Is this your favorite album? I was one to say, Well, I don't think it really is. I'm a great fan of Sticky Fingers.This is a very different album 'cause it's so sprawling.

It doesn'tcontain a lot of hit singles for instance. Over the years a lot of thesongs have been played onstage and they've acquired another life. Soit's a very different kind of album than Sticky Fingers or Let It Bleed inthat way. The production value is different. It's just a differentvibe.

But, I mean, there are really great things on it. Ialways had a lot of respect for it. It was difficult, because peopledidn't like it when it came out. I think they just found it quitedifficult because of the length of it. People didn't access it quite soeasily at the time. It got kind of mixed reviews. People found it a bitimpenetrable and a bit difficult.

Everyone said, It's my favorite, it's my favorite, I love it! And I said, Well, it's not mine. It was just a sort of toss off remark and it's come back to haunt me, really. Sounds,May 1972There are songs that are better, there are songs that are worse,there are songs that'll become your favorites and others you'll probablylift the needle for when their time is due. But in the end, Exile OnMain Street spends its four sides shading the same song in as manyvariations as there are Rolling Stone readymades to fill them, and if onthe one hand they prove the group's eternal constancy and appeal, it'son 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 heldout as a special prize in the past.

Exile On Main Street is theRolling Stones at their most dense and impenetrable. In the tradition ofPhil Spector, they've constructed a wash of sound in which to frame theirsongs, yet where Spector always aimed to create an impression of spaceand airiness, the Stones group everything together in one solid mass, providinga tangled jungle through which you have to move toward the meat of thematerial. One consequence of this style is that most of the hard-coreaction on the record revolves around Charlie Watts' snare drum. The soundgives him room not only to set the pace rhythmically but to also providethe bulk of the drive and magnetism. Another is that because Jagger's voicehas been dropped to the level of just another instrument, burying him evenmore than usual, he has been freed from any restrictions the lyrics mighthave once imposed.Happily, though, Exile On Main Street has the Rolling Stonessounding like a full-fiedged five-into-one band. Much of the self-consciousnessthat marred Sticky Fingers has apparently vanished, as well as that album'stendency to touch every marker on the Hot 100.

It's been replaced by atight focus on basic components of the Stones' sound as we've always knownit, knock-down rock and roll stemming from blues, backed with a pervadingfeeling of blackness that the Stones have seldom failed to handle well.(T)alking about the pieces of Exile On Main Street is somewhat offthe mark here, since individually the cuts seem to stand quite well. Onlywhen they're taken together, as a lump sum of four sides, is their impactblunted. This would be all right if we were talking about any other groupbut the Stones. Yet when you've been given the best, it becomes hard toaccept anything less, and if there are few moments that can be faultedon this album, it also must be said that the magic high spots don't comeas rapidly. Exile On Main Street appears to take up where StickyFingers left off, with the Stones attempting to deal with their problemsand once again slightly missing the mark.

They've progressed to the otherside of the extreme, wiping out one set of solutions only to be confrontedwith another. With few exceptions, this has meant that they've stuck closeto home, doing the sort of things that come naturally, not stepping outof the realm in which they feel most comfortable. Undeniably it makes forsome fine music, and it surely is a good sign to see them recording soprolifically again; but I still think that the great Stones album of theirmature period is yet to come.

Hopefully, Exile On Main Street willgive them the solid footing they need to open up, and with a little horizon-expanding(perhaps honed by two months on the road), they might even deliver it tous the next time around. Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, July 1972The Rolling Stones are into a new thing: music. Well, that's notquite fair, because they've always been more than competent, but Exileon Main St. Does tend to bury Mick Jagger's vocals in the band's soundand stress the group's eclectic musical abilities at the expense of wordsand messages.

Which is too bad; we miss Jagger's mean, smartass trenchancyin most of these tunes. The zingers are on the jacket covers, in photosof assorted freaks, in penciled notes ( I gave you the diamonds, yougive me disease) and in the montages of Mick and the band. In the processof exposing the black roots of the Stones' music (Gospel, blues and boogie),the album shows how well the Stones can play in a variety of styles. ShakeYour Hips is a dark, heavy-sounding boogie with a fine ricky-tick riff;Gospel comes on strong in Just Wanna See His Face and Shine aLight; there are good vocal tracks, like Let it Loose with ClydieKing, Vanetta Fields, Dr.

John, et al.; and the straight-ahead rockers,such as Soul Survivor, were never better. But where are the Stonesof yesteryear?

Playboy,September 1972The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main Street. Incontrovertiblythe year’s best, this fagged-out masterpiece is the summum of Rock ’72.Even now, I can always get pleasure out of any of its four sides, but ittook me perhaps twenty-five listenings before I began to understand whatthe Stones were up to, and I still haven’t finished the job. Just say they’reAdvancing Artistically, in the manner of self-conscious public creatorscareering down the corridors of destiny. Exile explores new depthsof record-studio murk, burying Mick’s voice under layers of cynicism, angst,and ennui: You’ve got a curtthroat crew / I’m gonna sink under you /I got the bell bottom blues / It’s gonna be the death of me.” A +. Robert Christgau, Consumer Guide, 1972The Stones still have the strength to make you feel that both weand they are hemmed in and torn by similar walls, frustrations, and tragedies.Exileisdense enough to be compulsive: hard to hear, at first, the precision andfury behind the murk ensure that you'll come back, hearing more with eachplaying.

What you hear sooner or later is two things: an intuition fornonstop getdown perhaps unmatched since The Rolling Stones, Now!,and a strange kind of humility and love emerging from a dazed frenzy. If,as they assert, they're soul survivors, they certainly know what you canlose by surviving.

Exile On Main Street Meaning

As they and we see friends falling all around us, onlythe Stones have cut the callousness of '72 to say with something beyondnarcissistic sentiment what words remain for those slipping away. Exileis about casualties, and partying in the face of them. The party is obvious.The casualties are inevitable. When so many are working so hard at solipsism,the Stones define the unhealthy state, cop to how far THEY are mired init, and rail at the breakdown with the weapons at their disposal: noise,anger, utter frankness. It's what we've always loved them for.