Why is Exile on Main St. held in higher regard than Sticky Fingers?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by slunky, Dec 17, 2014.

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  1. TeddyB

    TeddyB Senior Member

    Location:
    Hollywoodland
    I like Sticky Fingers fourth best of the 1968-1972 studio run. I like Exile best of the run to listen to, and it has the best "story" and singular sense of feel (ironic at it was recorded piecemeal), while I think Let It Bleed is probably the single best album ever released in the "rock" era. Meanwhile, Beggars Banquet was the breakthrough and established the sound. If I was an academic or critic I would likely argue it was the most important. Sticky Fingers is sort of the one stop shopping of the era. GHS has its cool stuff and incorporates more seventies sounds but is far weaker than the four.
     
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  2. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Actually, among hardcore Stones fans, the debate is usually between Exile/Sticky vs. 60's era. It's not so much a Brian vs Mick Taylor thing (obviously, LIB is Taylor), but a difference over the prominence of horns and piano on Exile/Sticky. I get that.
     
  3. Mother

    Mother Forum Resident

    Location:
    Melbourne
    Width
     
  4. Dave Hoos

    Dave Hoos Nothing is revealed

    Well, actually Let It Bleed is part Brian (2 songs), part Mick Taylor (2 songs) and part Brian either not turning up or in no shape to play if he did (the rest of the album). Most of the album was recorded before Mick Taylor joined.
     
  5. crimsondonkey

    crimsondonkey Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midlands, UK
    Just personal preference but I like Sticky Fingers over Exile, and for me Beggars Banquet is the Stones album I have listened to the most.
     
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  6. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Sticky Fingers has more variation in the textures than Exile. And not only variations, but top notch production values on those peaks that Exile cannot boast. The horns on I Got The Blues sound like they were tracked with the band at the same time. On Exile, the horns sound like they were tracked later at Sunset Sound in LA for example. There is nothing as sophisticated arrangement wise as Wild Horses on Exile. And while Tumbling Dice has one hell of a iconic groove going on it, it does not top the rockin' groove they got on the intensely produced and recorded Brown Sugar. Sweet Virginia is a nice country romp - no match for Dead flowers which has been covered by tons of artists where Virginia has not been. CYHMK' nothing on Exile has that kind of class. Moonlight Mile as well, I mean forget it.

    Mick thinks Exile is over-rated, I believe Keith agrees. Keith usually says when asked "I can go along with that, sure" meaning he is flattered by the love of the album, but knows LIB and SF caught him in a peak "Keith as record producer" period that started with Street Fighting Man. Keith got vindicated by Exile having longevity going for it. But it was a train wreck of a production that became more apparent when they tried to mix it.

    Still Exile works so well because of the defused and obscured nature of the production. It takes a while, sometimes years or a decade to pull back it's layers and hear it fully, or to leave the layers covered and hear it as a combined thick sludge of Stonesy murk that rocks quite like nothing else. It works on different levels depending on the listener's place, listening experience, and the current playback system that they own. That's an amazing accomplishment especially given the circumstances that it was recorded and mixed under.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2015
  7. Tero

    Tero Forum Resident

    Sticky Fingers seems to me now the perfect Stones album. It was once upon a time the LP I did not buy. I got Exile, the cover was effective, mysterious. The word Americana had not been invented, but that is what it was.

    LIB no other comments but it has a weak song that I still skip every time. Monkey Man.
     
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  8. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    This could get me branded as a heretic, but I personally enjoy Satanic Majesties more than Exile.
     
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  9. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Monkey Man has very strong performances from Keith, Mick, Charlie, Bill, and Nicky, and sometimes it is the singer not the song.
     
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  10. Tero

    Tero Forum Resident

    Fine. Some songs I just don't get.

    Moonlight Mile took me 20 years to get into.
     
  11. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    [​IMG]
    A session on the rack will straighten you out! :laugh:
     
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  12. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    Because there isn't any. Usually the best songs on the album are pegged as "filler" by the non-believers (those whose tastes are too narrow to "get" the album). Let It Loose and Shine a Light typically top The Filler List.
     
  13. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Once I got my "filler" list down to "I Just Want To See His Face", I knew the battle was lost. :laugh:
     
  14. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    And I Just Want To See His Face is absolutely fookin' brilliant. I mean, how may rock bands have been covered by The Blind Boys of Alabama?
     
  15. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    I can understand that there is a difference of opinion on which songs are "filler" or if there is any, but except for the folky acoustic side and some brass on some songs, I really don't hear a lot of variety on Exile. I think it may have been better as a single album, but no 2 people would make the same choices as to which songs to keep, so we might as well leave it as it is. There are similar differences of opinion on the Beatles' White Album (although that one has the widest variety of any album I've ever heard).
     
  16. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Exile was not that well-received at the time, judging by most contemporary reviews; as late as the late eighties, it was viewed by many critics as flawed and inconsistent, with 'several boring songs.' Pretty much the same view was taken of the White Album, well into the 1970s.

    Revisionism began in the 90s, along with a feeling that Sticky Fingers was over-familiar and had, perhaps, been over-praised.
     
  17. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    It has a better album title.
     
  18. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    Most famously by Lester Bangs, who panned it and then reversed his opinion months later.
     
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  19. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    None that I've seen. ;)
     
  20. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Well, that's just great. Millions of people bunged their copies down the sewer only for Mr. Robitussin to change his freakin' mind. Thanks a lot, Lester! :laugh:
     
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  21. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    In my experience (memory) the critical shift with Exile started in the late-70's and grew from there. As far as The Beatles go, The White Album was the only album that anyone listened to in the early-to-mid-70's. I don't remember The Beatles getting any turntable time during my college years except for occasional spins of Sides 1 and 3 of The White Album. Nobody would put Rubber Soul or Magical Mystery Tour on during a drinking and smoking hangout... let alone Abbey Road, which was strictly squaresville.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2015
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  22. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    The answer, IMHO, is Muscle Shoals. I watched the documentary again last Saturday and a lot of the songs on Exile were recorded at Muscle Shoals. (If you haven't seen the documentary, do yourself a favor and watch it. You won't be sorry. I promise you)
     
  23. Guy E

    Guy E Senior Member

    Location:
    Antalya, Turkey
    To my ears, it is their most varied album in terms of the number of musical styles they explore and the quotient of fresh hybrid musical language that they deliver (a rare accomplishment). The layered, homogenized production puts it all in the same stew pot, glues it all together.

    I think a lot of fans struggled with the album because the one musical style they don't really deliver is a classic chrome-plated Rolling Stones Rocker in the linneage of Jumpin' Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man, Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Bitch... that certainly felt like a hole in the album the first few times I listened back in 1972. Happy comes the closest, but with Keith singing instead of Mick, it felt like a toss-off.
     
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  24. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    "Happy" was the first track I ever heard from Exile, and I kept thinking, "That ain't Mick Jagger - what'd they do, fire him?" :laugh:
     
  25. mick_sh

    mick_sh Hackney diamond

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    ‘Brown Sugar,’ ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘You Gotta Move’ were recorded (but not finished) at Muscle Shoals. True that Exile sounds like it was recorded there, but it wasn't.

    Here's the receipt. :)

    [​IMG]
     
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