May. 26, 2010 - Issue #762: Timeland

Old Sounds

The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St

(Atlantic) Originally released: 1972

Last week I reviewed the bonus disc of outtakes that accompany the new reissue of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St, beginning with a suggestion that there's not much point in arguing the worth of the original album anymore, given the copious amounts of ink that have been spilled over the years elevating the record to the highest echelons of the Stones catalogue. That may not be the case, however: while the album is much beloved among a vocal percentage of Stones fans—though there are likely far more fans of greatest-hits collections like Hot Rocks than the sludgy, dark and rambling double record that is Exile—the 1972 offering is often described in only vaguely useful terms relating to the drug imagery surrounding its legend.

Part of the fondness for Exile on Main St no doubt arises from the mythology that has grown up along with the album. To be sure, the making of the record is cloaked in mystery, with even singer Mick Jagger stating in interviews for the reissue that he's no longer sure of when and where certain songs were recorded: in London, in the basement of guitarist Keith Richards' rented estate in France or sometime later in Los Angeles. The mythology—and Richards himself—would have the bulk of the material, and the album's heart and soul, coming together in France where the band had moved in an attempt to escape England's tax man.

But does it really matter where the parts were put to tape? Hardly. The album is what it is. The songs are all there, spread out across what was originally two vinyl discs, later becoming a single CD. As a whole, the work is a tough one to grab hold and make sense of, its dense mix of the usual rock 'n' roll suspects—guitar, bass, drums—mixing it up with horns, a variety of backup voices, harmonica, percussion and more, making it the sort of album that offers new gems nearly every time it spins. 

Really, Exile on Main St works so well not because it's a sprawling, 18-song masterpiece, but rather because it sprawls in a very careful and precise sort of way. The album has never worked quite as well on CD as it does on vinyl, owing largely to the ongoing ramble that is a compact disc: there's no stopping the disc once it starts, having a tendency to lose listeners—or at least see them drift in and out—as the album trudges onward. On vinyl, however, Exile is more like four EPs than a singular, mammoth beast: tightly wound and right to the point over short stretches.

Sure, the mythology plays a part in any assesment of this album, but it's the conciseness of each of the four sides of vinyl that gives Exile its edge: the songs have a grungy vibe overall, sounding very much the work of a band much like the one the group itself documents on Exile's "Torn and Frayed." But the band can get away with that because within that overarching sound structure there are four distinct sides that root the Stones while also giving the group the freedom to push and kick against the walls in ways seen nowhere else in the band's work. V

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