In the wake of all the fawning, sycophantic reviews and accolades surrounding the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street reissue (one of the brown-nosing reviews I chose at random – Mark Morgenstein’s 5/18/10 review at cnn.com – says: “…To millions of music fans, since 1972 you only need four words to define rock 'n' roll: ‘Exile on Main Street.’"), I will finally, at last, say what everyone else is somehow afraid to say:
Exile is not the Rolling Stones’ best album. It’s not their second best album. It is not, in fact, their third or fourth best album. A list of the Stones’ top-5 albums looks like this:
Exile is not the Rolling Stones’ best album. It’s not their second best album. It is not, in fact, their third or fourth best album. A list of the Stones’ top-5 albums looks like this:
1) Beggars Banquet
2) Aftermath
3) Get Yer Ya Yas Out
4) Let it Bleed
5) Sticky Fingers
5) England’s Newest Hitmakers
You may throw in Exile wherever you like after that. It doesn't matter, really. There are, of course, a slew of singles that are as integral a part of the Stones' oeuvre as the above albums (Jumpin' Jack Flash, Paint It Black, et al), but the above albums are their Statement of Intent. These, and a good singles collection, are the foundation of the band's legacy.
A friend of mine once defined a truly great album as having two, three or four A-List Songs, and a bunch of great filler. “Filler” wasn’t a pejorative in this instance; it was an acknowledgement that even the best bands aren’t capable writing an entire album’s worth of A Day in the Lifes, so they come up with a handful of gold nuggets, and then some great second-tier songs to glue it all together. As a short definition, it works.
This album is good.
The problem with Exile: there simply are no A-List songs. At best, you can argue that it’s comprised of great filler. This, however, is also wishful thinking, as any self-respecting Stones fan would cop to, were the wave of revisionist theory surrounding Exile not at a fever pitch.
Pipe down, now, pipe down, all you Stones apologists – I KNOW, I KNOW: Exile isn’t about A-list songs vs. filler; it’s about the relentless, oozing vibe you’re imbued with when you listen to it from beginning to end. As Morgenstein writes, “The album isn't so much about individual songs -- it's about a cumulative feeling.”
Right on, man.
I’ve been told repeatedly by Exile lovers over the years that this is the case. I’ve also been told by the same people that Rocks Off is one of the great album openers, as it single-handedly and comprehensively captures this era of the sleazy, grungy, dark, drug-addled Stones in under five minutes.
This album is not.
Two things. One: totally wrong. As someone who absolutely loves the Stones – their impact on my life is profound – Rocks Off has never been anything more than standard Stones filler. And certainly Rip This Joint, the supposedly exhilarating rocker that follows Rocks Off, is the Stones on autopilot, simply playing a standard blues riff faster than usual and dressing it up as balls-to-the-wall rock’n’roll, but only feigning genuine energy.
Two: any song single-handedly capturing the Stones during this era of their history is nothing to brag about. What most Stones apologists refuse to admit is the fact that by 1972, the band was well into their Decadent Era, an era which found Richards oftentimes in a heroin-induced stupor (check out the scene in Cocksucker Blues where he falls prostrate as a girl thinks she’s helping him out by stroking his head), and Jagger proudly strutting around stage in heavy make-up, perfecting his impossibly idiotic limp-wristed, mega-stadium cock-rock mannerisms. The ’69 tour was the last time the Stones truly were the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world. Sticky Fingers was the Stones opening the doorway into decadence, and Exile was the final nail in the coffin. This wasn’t the Stones of ’66, exploring the nether reaches of their formidable creativity and getting everything that was spilling out of their heads down on tape. This was a bunch of fatigued rock stars, stinking up the air with rock’n’roll carbon monoxide from their own idling, realizing that The Beatles were gone, and they had nothing left to prove. It was five guys giving about 60%.
The most aggravating thing about being a Stones fan was watching the transformation, from 1968 to 1972, of a bunch of kids with nothing to lose behaving as obnoxiously as possible, into rich megastars with all the drugs and groupies you could ever dream about effortlessly at their disposal. This isn’t a bad thing unless you let it go to your head. And that, the Stones certainly did. They got soft. They lost their edge. John Adams always feared the trappings of decadence, and you need look no further than The Rolling Stones of the early 1970s to see what he was talking about. Even Jagger’s vocal inflections changed around this time, often assuming an annoyingly smug, east coast accent.
These guys rock.
Listening to it again, I was struck by the palpable ennui creeping through Exile’s grooves. It’s one thing when an artist converts feelings of lethargy and languor into incendiary art, but in Exile’s case, the music itself is just literally boring. Casino Boogie, Loving Cup, and Soul Survivor – which can’t be considered anything other than filler by the Stones’ standards – are all dull filler. In fact, the whole of side four is dullsville; Stop Breaking Down is a sterile, soulless Robert Johnson cover (surprising considering their brilliant reworking of Love in Vain on Let It Bleed and Ya Yas), and Soul Survivor sounds like an outtake.
And herein lies the rub of Exile, and so many other double albums (Tommy, anyone?)- had it been pared down to a single album, it might have been a force to be reckoned with. At the very least it would’ve been strong.
These guys don't.
Truthfully, the first 40 seconds of the non-song/dirge I Just Want to See His Face capture some of the Stones’ darkness way more effectively than anything else on the album. Of course, the cult of personality exhibited by so many Stones fans won’t stand for this kind of blasphemy, or the assertion that Aftermath – in its British or American format – is light years ahead of Exile, or that Exile itself simply doesn’t measure up to everything that came before it. But such is the way of it. The initial critical reaction back in ’72 was dead-on, in retrospect: the Stones had come down a notch. Two, even. And with the aid of hindsight – Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock’n’Roll, Black and Blue, Some Girls – the band would never regain their footing.
