Let It Bleed

A classic Stones CD....great songs that sound very "fresh", now that the CD is remastered...a CD that should be part of everyone's collection

"Let It Bleed" is no less than the best album The Rolling Stones have ever recorded. Of course, these things are subjective and always open to dispute (even unto myself), but I put this album to play and I am immediately transported back to the future. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the first, ominous chords that open "Gimme Shelter" (the album's first song) start to chime through the speakers (or headphones). And yet, each time I listen to this album, it is like I have never heard it before. Like a great novel or film, "Let It Bleed" never fails to entertain, amaze or inspire. The music is transcendent--its simplicity reveals layers and layers of complexity, both in feeling and musicianship. Recorded during times of turmoil for the band (primarily the failure of founding member and resident decadent, Brian Jones, to show up in the studio even when he did show up in the studio and the realization that in order to survive as a band, they had to get out there and perform live again after a self-imposed two-year layoff), the music nevertheless is focused, urgent and immediate. Jagger and Richards (and Watts and Wyman with help from Mick Taylor, Ry Cooder, Al Kooper and even the beleaguered Mr. Jones) compose, play and sing like their very lives depended on it. The result is a collection of songs that are more like a suite of music--it is an album that one cannot just start and stop at random. It must be played from beginning to end with no pauses. When the last notes of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" fade away, I am transported, refreshed and ready to face the world without fear. I think to myself: "Again?" I decide to wait for another day before I play "Let It Bleed" yet one more time as I savor the aural beauty of this album. As Oscar Wilde once said about cigarettes, the same could be said about "Let It Bleed": "A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?" Hard Knox and Durty Sox, indeed! (And, yes! This Album MUST Be Played LOUD!)

I am the Stones Authority. This is my personal favorite. Everything from the album artwork, the inner sleeve that came with the vinyl that admonishes the listener to play the record loud, to the opening track, which in my opinion is not only the best Rolling Stones song, period, but the best representation of what a rock song should be in general - the incomparable "Gimme Shelter". If you could only pick one song as the best in the genre then in my mind "Gimme Shelter" is it. Again, there are others who make the case for the album and the individual tracks - and they do a fine job. So I have nothing to add - be sure to read their reviews for the history and critiques, as most of them are quite good and insightful.

And I will not debate which is the better album, Sticky Fingers or Let It Bleed - I will leave that debate to others. My position is stated above. It is subjective. The two albums are very different from one another, but there is little doubt that these are the two best Stones albums. People can have their personal favorites, but no serious fan or critic of the Stones can be taken seriously if the say that the best Stones album is not one of these two albums. Period.

However, what I must address here, as I did with my review of Sticky Fingers, is what kind of rope are the 13 reviewers who rated this album as 1 Star smoking? What sort of scarey and abysmal music collection adorns their rooms and iPods? What, pray tell, rates a 5 Star album in their world? Is there any endeavor in their lives in which they engage in that others actually take them seriously? Are they allowed to influence others? These are the important questions that must be asked. Again, if this album is not in your collectin or you are not at least familiar with this work then you have no business discussing music as a serious subject with others. Period.

I got nasty habits. Small town boy, hung up on the only decent girl around. Eyes so blue they shoot me dead, the sky is grey with jealousy. Queue up for the bathroom 'round about 7:35, every Tuesday's early but her bad mood just makes me smile. Vain, private, recondite. Stylish! Why can't I resist this creature? Got class, cool, history. I actually cook for her. Think about her all the time. Sang to her once but she didn't hear. What's wrong with me? I should say it, I should blow it: "Don't you wanna live with me?" Yes is pop; no is rock ~ and bad news always travels faster than good.

Released just before the infamous Altamont debacle of December, 1969, "Let It Bleed" signals farewell to the peace-and-love Sixties in no uncertain terms. Once again, following "Beggars Banquet", an entire year went by until the release of the next Rolling Stones album. That year was 1969, and it had seen the death of Brian Jones, under suspicious circumstances, earlier that summer. Jones is present, posthumously, on "Bleed", participating in both the vicious "Midnight Rambler" (percussion), and "You Got The Silver" (autoharp), the latter track featuring Keith Richards' first solo lead vocal. Jones' replacement, the young Mick Taylor, was firmly in place, playing on "Live With Me" and "Country Honk"; though his relatively-unsullied image did not fit in with the rest of the group, he was probably the best guitarist the band ever had. In Jimmy Miller, who would work with them through 1973, the group also found its finest producer, a man who knew how to get the most out of their once-again-blues-based material. (With a cover of Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain", featuring Ry Cooder on mandolin, the band went straight to the motherlode.) "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is NOT blues, but, recorded with the London Bach Choir, it resonates, mournfully, as an end-of-an-era anthem. The Seventies lay ahead; the Stones, always bad boys and outlaws, were ready.