(Clockwise from lower left to right) Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards in 1976 (Express/Getty Images); Charlie Watts, Wood, Richards, Bill Wyman, and Jagger in 1977 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Jagger and Richards in 1971 (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Richards in 1995 (ERIC CABANIS/AFP via Getty Images); Watts, Jagger, Wyman, Richards and Brian Jones in 1967 (Keystone/Getty Images).Graphic: Allison Corr
More than six decades after the Rolling Stones performed their first show, at London’s Marquee Club in July 1962, the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band is still touring, making music (a new album is in the works), and living hard. As frontman Mick Jagger celebrates his 80th birthday on July 26, 2023, and with original surviving members Jagger, Keith Richards, and new kid Ronnie Wood (he’s only been with the band for 48 years) keeping the Stones legacy alive—no other rock band has persevered for this long and at this scale—The A.V. Club is taking a deeper look at the Stones’ body of work.
Of course, it’s difficult to consolidate the band’s career to a mere 20 albums, some of which rank among the best in rock history. That means leaving out a few high points and some interesting detours, like the career-sustaining 1994 set Voodoo Lounge, the vital punch of Out Of Our Heads, and the loose-limbed Black And Blue. But the resulting list most accurately conveys the power and range of what the Stones have achieved during their 60-plus spins around the sun.
This article originally published on July 11, 2022
19. 12X5 (1964)
Image London Records
Every British rocker of the 1960s has a complicated discography. The Rolling Stones are no exception. They crafted their albums for a British audience and then their American label assembled their respective counterparts with no respect for continuity. Still, the American versions of Stones albums often rivaled their British counterparts and, occasionally, even surpassed them. Such is the case with 12×5, the American expansion of the British EP Five By Five. Recorded at the Stones’ spiritual home of Chess Records in Chicago, Five By Five was anchored by a rollicking version of Chuck Berry’s “Around And Around,” an explicit nod to the pioneering blues label, as was the instrumental “2120 South Michigan Avenue,” which was named after the studio’s address. “2120 South Michigan Avenue” is credited to Nanker Phelge, the pseudonym the Stones collectively adopted for group compositions, an affectation they’d shake as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards grew as songwriters. Here, the Jagger/Richards tracks sit in tandem with the Nanker Phelge cuts and both demonstrate a band growing assured of their strengths: “Congratulations” is a sideways attempt at pop, “Good Times, Bad Times” is drenched in ringing 12-string guitars, while the tremolo-laden “Empty Heart” and the laconically malevolent “Grown Up Wrong” provide the sonic and spiritual foundation for the dark, dirty grime of garage rock.
*mentions Sticky Fingers, makes no mention of one of, if not the best, Keith Richards’ riffs in ‘Bitch’*Boo I say. BOOOOO!BTW, Steve, welcome—-big fan of yours from Allmusic!
This is not a shot at the writer, whose work on Allmusic I’ve enjoyed, but is this what we’re doing now? Listicles that have already been done to death by dozens nay hundreds of other sites and blogs and magazines since forever? (at least in internet terms).
To my surprise, he’s also quite wrong about the details of Exile in Main St., while it’s supposed to be the final and best entry on the list, which would justify more work into it. He indulges into the myth that the album was conceived in a villa on the French. It was the case for half the backing tracks on that album, but it actually relied on older tracks that had been recorded in an actual studio, and are still covered by some ABKCO musical publishing.Mick Jagger actually elaborated on the production of this album on his landmark Rolling Stone interview from twenty years ago. At the time he acknowledged that he wasn’t that into Exile (he later revised his opinion to match the critical consensus). If the best Stones studio albums were joint Jagger and Richards affairs, this one achieved this status separately. Richards recorded a lot of great tracks in Nellcote with whomever was awake and remotely functional (and Jagger resented the junkie mood at the place), while Jagger later spent a lot of time in a studio in Los Angeles, not just to put on vocals on these tracks, but also to adjust prior material recorded at Olympic (just like Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and most of Sticky Fingers) to the loose vibe of the Nellcote recordings, getting a lot of overdubs by people such as Dr. John added in the process. It was during these weeks in L.A. that Jagger and Watts ended up in the audience for the recording sessions of Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace (they can be spotted in the film version).So, even if the album sounds loose and dirty, it was partly achieved due to a ton of studio trickery added in post. It’s also what makes the Stones so riveting. They were never the genuine thing. They sounded raw even if they were coming from middle class families. And they were able to successfully mimic and build on many traditional genres by delivering their own spin on them that passed as genuine while it actually took a ton of effort to reach this. The Stones could make it pass as effortless.
It’s the 60th anniversary so that warrants an re-evaluation, but the list really doesn’t present anything new. The only issue I have is included the universally reviled “Emotional Rescue” over a much better album like “Undercover”.
Neither record has aged well. I bought both on the day of release and would have a hard time playing the vinyl today. At least with a CD I can skip tracks quickly and both might make decent EP’s at best if we are being honest.
Not gonna lie, I actually dig Steel Wheels a fair bit. Not surprised that it didn’t make the top 20, but I think it’s a lot better than Stones historians give it credit for.
The US version of Out of Our Heads should be somewhere on here – I think it’s the best of the pre-Aftermath, stitched together LPs on either side of the pond.
It’s indeed puzzling to realize how much his potential was wasted for decades, not just because of drugs, but because he was just happy to play the guitar parts that Richards wasn’t bothered to handle on his own.Some Girls and El Mocambo 1977 paint quite a different picture, that really shows how the partnership with Richards could work, giving the band different dynamics compared to the Taylor days, with some more intricate interplay that builds into something powerful. Then, he remained in the background to fill the sound and add some slide guitar, until the moment Richards wasn’t up to capacity (after the blood clot) and he had to take over some heavier duties on guitar, becoming much more reliable in the process.That said, it’s quite unfair to give just a passing mention to Brussels Affair and not say anything about Leeds 1971, which are the best live recordings out of the Taylor years.
I have never heard Leeds 1971. I love Brussels Affair (a lot) and think El Mocambo is really good. If Leeds 1971 is better than B.A. I will be buying it very soon. Thanks
Leeds 1971 was the bonus set on the “Super Deluxe” (well, pricy) Stinky Fingers reissue. It’s also available for streaming on YouTube. It had been bootlegged for decades (it may have been broadcast on the radio), usually as “Get Your Leeds Lungs Out”, but this version is the complete concert, and freshly mixed. These are the Stones in peak form, before Richards started to have “off” nights, where Taylor would play forever as he was the de facto musical director (Brussels was an “on” night and is all the better for it).Leeds may be tighter (and has a shorter set), while Brussels is more experimental (the jam on You Can’t Always Get What You Want), doesn’t have Bobby Keys, and adds Billy Preston. So I’m glad that these two performances have been released, as with Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! we have the full scope of the Taylor years in three discs.
I will have to look for it on youtube. I found a bunch of it, but was missing a few tracks (I think it’s 11 tracks, but I thought in another place it was 13)First attempt was blocked…aargh. Will have to try later.Dead FlowersStray Cat BluesLove In VainMidnight RamblerBitchHonky Tonk WomenSatisfactionLittle QueenieBrown SugarStreet Fighting ManLet It Rock
Jesus Christ, this list is hot garbage. First of all, Exile On Main Street is probably the most overrated album in history. It’s not even their best album.Half of this list I don’t even recognize, and I don’t recognize any of the songs on most of those albums. Tattoo You was terrible, even Undercover was better.
Undercover is better than Tattoo You? Wow. I’m pretty sure that is a minority opinion. Undercover might be a good 4 track EP, but as an album it was not good.
Exile is properly rated. It sounds as amazing today as it did all those years ago when I first heard it (which in my case was probably 1974). There are a few tracks that aren’t great, but out of 18 that may be 3 or 4 at most.
I am not at all a Rolling Stones apologist, or even much of a fan, and I don’t think Exile is one of the best albums ever myself. That said, anyone who doesn’t recognize half this list may not be in the best position to judge whether the list is accurate.
Your post is also HG. Exile is rated properly, and whether it’s best of top 3 doesn’t matter much. It’s reputation is well earned.Undercover is a terrible record and definitely not better than TY
I didn’t know that was even up for debate. It’s not really a fair fight, though. The Stones are a Band- they’re at least as much about the performances as they are about the songwriting. The Beatles had two of the best rock songwriters who will ever live in it, and Harrison probably was an equal to Jagger and Richards in terms of songwriting all by himself.
It’s just dumb. Yeah, the Stones might not have as good a catalogue as the Beatles in 8 years, but who does? Then ask who has lasted for 60 years with as good a back catalogue as the Stones? The Beatles, as a band or solo, certainly haven’t.
That five album run from Beggars Banquet to Exile (yes I include Ya Ya’s) is as good a stretch as anything the Beatles or anybody else ever put together though. Each of those albums is perfect in it’s own way. And when you put it in the context of what was happening with the band and the world more broadly over those years, it’s some pretty mythic shit.
Apparently even including live bootlegs and compilations, they still don’t even muster 20 albums that would be considered “passable” or better, if they were by anyone other than The Rolling Stones. Hell, 15 is generous.
“#6″ Sticky Fingers not only has the band’s greatest song – a little ditty called Sway – but also an iconic blues ballad called I Got the Blues. Along with those other big hit songs.
I’m not big on combining live albums with studio recordings on lists like this, it just muddies the value of the ranking too much as it’s just double dipping on their best songs. Like, the live versions of Satisfaction or Brown Sugar is better than anything on Steel Wheels, so this live album is better than that album? You don’t say?Anyway, I’d switch in It’s Only Rock and Roll for basically any of the albums ranked between 11-20. Love that album. Otherwise, I do appreciate the arguments for their post mid-80s career. I will give those albums a re-listen.
“It’s a cliche to claim Exile On Main St as the quintessential Rolling Stones album, but when it’s on it not only sounds like the best Rolling Stones album, it sounds like the best album ever made.” lol… now that’s a take.
I know that music critics long ago decided Exile on Main Street was the best Stones album — and it is incredible! — but I’ve always wondered why Let It Bleed doesn’t get more consideration. In my mind, an album that starts with Gimme Shelter and ends with You Can’t Always Get What You Want, and along the way makes room for Midnight Rambler and Let it Bleed, has to be up there for best Stones album, one of the best of its era, and one of the best of all time.Also, it’s not a classic or anything, but I enjoy Voodoo Lounge from time to time.
I think you’ll see plenty of critics and fans making a case for any of the big four (Beggar’s, Let it Bleed, Sticky, and Exile). The critical consensus has sort of settled on Exile, but I think fans and many critics would go to bat for any of those four. The only real surprise in a Stones list like this if one of those 4 was not at the top, with the other 3 not in the top 5.
I would file Dirty Work under Underrated But Not Great. It’s…ugly. I mean that in terms of the production and the cover. It’s just not an album with any surface appeal. That isn’t to say there aren’t good things to be found if you can get past the look, feel, and the greatest hit, that really dull version of Harlem Shuffle. It’s just a whole lot to get past. I wish they’d done a decade or two of albums like Blue and Lonesome, well-executed covers solidly in their wheelhouse, maybe dotted with originals, like in the early days, so they don’t have to keep it for a whole collection. I could enthusiastically get behind several B & L-type projects with songs as good as Doom and Gloom sprinkled in.
If your argument is the Stones had 20 great albums, but you have to include two live albums and a singles comp, then the Stones did not have 20 great albums.
Their Satanic Majesties Request is wall to wall shit, easily their worst album and a pathetic attempt to match Sgt. Peppers. Of course, they wrote it during their famed battle of the bands with the Beatles in their effort to win back Ringo’s soul, but it still sucks balls.
Information about Sticky Fingers is incorrect. Brown Sugar had nothing to do with race , it is a song with lyrics written by Mick about Tina Turner his friend who he just adored. The guitar work on Can’t you hear me Knocking is not any open tuning by Richards or anybody else. The guitar work on the song was written and performed by the great Mick Taylor that he never got writing credit for , one of the reasons he quit the band. It’s been stated many times over the years Richards was not in the studio when the track was recorded. Probably true because there is only one guitar sound on the song , not two and it isn’t him , he could never play those licks.
Reading the phrase Dirty Work makes me think of Steely Dan, so now I’m trying to figure out if the Stones covering that song would be good or just weird.
“defined by the open-tuned chords of Keith Richards. He began experimenting with open chords”Oh hi, non-musician using musician terminology. Those are two different things. An open chord is any chord that involves unfretted (open) strings. The term is most commonly used to describe so-called “cowboy chords” or the basic standard tuning, first position chords that every guitarist learns early on. Keith was “experimenting” with open chords long before the Stones were a band. It’s like saying there was a point where Charlie Watts started experimenting with basic 4/4 back beats. It’s a foundational building block of the instrument. He was using them the whole time. Open-tuned chords are obviously any chords that are used in an open tuning (the guitar strings being tuned so that they create a simple major or minor chord without fretting any strings or while fretting all of the strings with one finger, etc. It’s a common banjo, slide guitar, and delta/folk blues thing). While some of Keith’s open-tuned riffs do utilize open chords (the beginning of Honky Tonk Woman or the verses of Tumbling Dice for example) many of the more famous ones (Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Street Fighting Man, Jumping Jack Flash, Rocks Off, etc) are based around barre chords that involve using one finger to fret most or all of the strings.
As a guitarist I do agree with you, and my old man even had a Tele in Open G tuning so he could play the Stones. That being said, I felt like I was reading a post on the Reddit Guitar Circle Jerk forum 🙂
Nonsense. I didn’t say “toan” even once. See if you can find the other articles in which I chastised Erlewine for incorrect application of guitar terminology. He also has no idea what chicken-picking actually entails.
It really is one of those “miles better than it has any right to be” late period albums by a legacy band. I always love when I’m genuinely surprised by an album like this. Totally different band/vibe, but I felt the same way with Van Galen’s A Different Kind of Truth. What, on paper, sounded like kind of a train wreck money grab actually rocked far more than I ever thought it would.
It’s Only Rock & Roll and Black & Blue, while not flawless, are FAR better than anything the stones have done since Tattoo You, especially the monstrosity that is Dirty Work. Also there are dozens of amazing Stones tracks that don’t have any official release. Check out Stones Unknown on twitter for some of the best.
It isn’t that hard to get a top 10 Stones album list because there are many that clearly have to be on there and very few would disagree about Exile, Sticky, BB, LIB, SG etc.. But this list of 20 is overall atrocious for how much the 2nd half is botched. Bigger Bang and Satanic are way too high and probably shouldn’t even by ranked. Dirty Work is way too high, and Blue and Lonesome is fine for what it is (a covers album, but saying it’s the 12th best Stones album is ludicrous).
El Mocambo and Ya-Ya’s are both incredible so if you must rank live albums, these two should be well ahead of their placements here.Older albums at 10,9 are way too high and the singles collection is silly at #3. If you were going to do something like that, at least include Hot Rocks which is a much better collection.
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*mentions Sticky Fingers, makes no mention of one of, if not the best, Keith Richards’ riffs in ‘Bitch’*Boo I say. BOOOOO!BTW, Steve, welcome—-big fan of yours from Allmusic!
That opening riff on “Bitch” is so nasty. I love it.
It’s a kick in the gut with a steel-toed boot every time I hear it.
This is not a shot at the writer, whose work on Allmusic I’ve enjoyed, but is this what we’re doing now? Listicles that have already been done to death by dozens nay hundreds of other sites and blogs and magazines since forever? (at least in internet terms).
Also, this. https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2022/7/7/what-the-hell-is-happening-over-at-the-av-club
To my surprise, he’s also quite wrong about the details of Exile in Main St., while it’s supposed to be the final and best entry on the list, which would justify more work into it. He indulges into the myth that the album was conceived in a villa on the French. It was the case for half the backing tracks on that album, but it actually relied on older tracks that had been recorded in an actual studio, and are still covered by some ABKCO musical publishing.Mick Jagger actually elaborated on the production of this album on his landmark Rolling Stone interview from twenty years ago. At the time he acknowledged that he wasn’t that into Exile (he later revised his opinion to match the critical consensus). If the best Stones studio albums were joint Jagger and Richards affairs, this one achieved this status separately. Richards recorded a lot of great tracks in Nellcote with whomever was awake and remotely functional (and Jagger resented the junkie mood at the place), while Jagger later spent a lot of time in a studio in Los Angeles, not just to put on vocals on these tracks, but also to adjust prior material recorded at Olympic (just like Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and most of Sticky Fingers) to the loose vibe of the Nellcote recordings, getting a lot of overdubs by people such as Dr. John added in the process. It was during these weeks in L.A. that Jagger and Watts ended up in the audience for the recording sessions of Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace (they can be spotted in the film version).So, even if the album sounds loose and dirty, it was partly achieved due to a ton of studio trickery added in post. It’s also what makes the Stones so riveting. They were never the genuine thing. They sounded raw even if they were coming from middle class families. And they were able to successfully mimic and build on many traditional genres by delivering their own spin on them that passed as genuine while it actually took a ton of effort to reach this. The Stones could make it pass as effortless.
World’s Greatest Brand. Well, maybe behind Margaritaville.
Oh yeah. Give us the punishment we deserve, Rabin.
Gotta feed the content mill
It’s the 60th anniversary so that warrants an re-evaluation, but the list really doesn’t present anything new. The only issue I have is included the universally reviled “Emotional Rescue” over a much better album like “Undercover”.
Neither record has aged well. I bought both on the day of release and would have a hard time playing the vinyl today. At least with a CD I can skip tracks quickly and both might make decent EP’s at best if we are being honest.
This list is a hell of a lot more entertaining than another gripe about Dave Chappelle.
As far as I’m concerned, on a list of 20 best Rolling Stones records, No. 1 is “Exile on Main St.”Nos. 2 through 20 are also “Exile on Main St.”
Not gonna lie, I actually dig Steel Wheels a fair bit. Not surprised that it didn’t make the top 20, but I think it’s a lot better than Stones historians give it credit for.
Swap it – or just about anything – in in place of Dirty Work. This reappraisal attempt is some bullshit hot-takery.
Wrong. Dirty Work is that goofy kid who gets pushed around a lot by bullies but knows karate and then kicks their asses.
The US version of Out of Our Heads should be somewhere on here – I think it’s the best of the pre-Aftermath, stitched together LPs on either side of the pond.
To be fair Ronnie Wood will always be in The Faces AFAIC.
I’ve struggled to see him not as bass player from The Jeff Beck Group 🙂
It’s indeed puzzling to realize how much his potential was wasted for decades, not just because of drugs, but because he was just happy to play the guitar parts that Richards wasn’t bothered to handle on his own.Some Girls and El Mocambo 1977 paint quite a different picture, that really shows how the partnership with Richards could work, giving the band different dynamics compared to the Taylor days, with some more intricate interplay that builds into something powerful. Then, he remained in the background to fill the sound and add some slide guitar, until the moment Richards wasn’t up to capacity (after the blood clot) and he had to take over some heavier duties on guitar, becoming much more reliable in the process.That said, it’s quite unfair to give just a passing mention to Brussels Affair and not say anything about Leeds 1971, which are the best live recordings out of the Taylor years.
I have never heard Leeds 1971. I love Brussels Affair (a lot) and think El Mocambo is really good. If Leeds 1971 is better than B.A. I will be buying it very soon. Thanks
Leeds 1971 was the bonus set on the “Super Deluxe” (well, pricy) Stinky Fingers reissue. It’s also available for streaming on YouTube. It had been bootlegged for decades (it may have been broadcast on the radio), usually as “Get Your Leeds Lungs Out”, but this version is the complete concert, and freshly mixed. These are the Stones in peak form, before Richards started to have “off” nights, where Taylor would play forever as he was the de facto musical director (Brussels was an “on” night and is all the better for it).Leeds may be tighter (and has a shorter set), while Brussels is more experimental (the jam on You Can’t Always Get What You Want), doesn’t have Bobby Keys, and adds Billy Preston. So I’m glad that these two performances have been released, as with Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! we have the full scope of the Taylor years in three discs.
I will have to look for it on youtube. I found a bunch of it, but was missing a few tracks (I think it’s 11 tracks, but I thought in another place it was 13)First attempt was blocked…aargh. Will have to try later.Dead FlowersStray Cat BluesLove In VainMidnight RamblerBitchHonky Tonk WomenSatisfactionLittle QueenieBrown SugarStreet Fighting ManLet It Rock
Jesus Christ, this list is hot garbage. First of all, Exile On Main Street is probably the most overrated album in history. It’s not even their best album.Half of this list I don’t even recognize, and I don’t recognize any of the songs on most of those albums. Tattoo You was terrible, even Undercover was better.
So there!
Undercover is better than Tattoo You? Wow. I’m pretty sure that is a minority opinion. Undercover might be a good 4 track EP, but as an album it was not good.
Exile is properly rated. It sounds as amazing today as it did all those years ago when I first heard it (which in my case was probably 1974). There are a few tracks that aren’t great, but out of 18 that may be 3 or 4 at most.
I am not at all a Rolling Stones apologist, or even much of a fan, and I don’t think Exile is one of the best albums ever myself. That said, anyone who doesn’t recognize half this list may not be in the best position to judge whether the list is accurate.
Commenters from Missouri are overrated, sorry to say…
Your post is also HG. Exile is rated properly, and whether it’s best of top 3 doesn’t matter much. It’s reputation is well earned.Undercover is a terrible record and definitely not better than TY
More evidence that after 60 years, the Stones still don’t have as good a back catalogue as The Beatles amassed in just 8.
The Stones have some absolutely classic cuts… but has there been a group that has as many filler tracks?!
I didn’t know that was even up for debate. It’s not really a fair fight, though. The Stones are a Band- they’re at least as much about the performances as they are about the songwriting. The Beatles had two of the best rock songwriters who will ever live in it, and Harrison probably was an equal to Jagger and Richards in terms of songwriting all by himself.
“I didn’t know that was even up for debate.”If you’re a fan of the Beatles, it’s not.
It’s just dumb. Yeah, the Stones might not have as good a catalogue as the Beatles in 8 years, but who does? Then ask who has lasted for 60 years with as good a back catalogue as the Stones? The Beatles, as a band or solo, certainly haven’t.
Such a boring take. Both bands are good. Both bands have lots of great songs.
Maybe. But it’s less boring than your take.
That five album run from Beggars Banquet to Exile (yes I include Ya Ya’s) is as good a stretch as anything the Beatles or anybody else ever put together though. Each of those albums is perfect in it’s own way. And when you put it in the context of what was happening with the band and the world more broadly over those years, it’s some pretty mythic shit.
Apparently even including live bootlegs and compilations, they still don’t even muster 20 albums that would be considered “passable” or better, if they were by anyone other than The Rolling Stones. Hell, 15 is generous.
Matter of opinion.
The headline should be your astounding scoop that A Bigger Bang is a better album than Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out.
“#6″ Sticky Fingers not only has the band’s greatest song – a little ditty called Sway – but also an iconic blues ballad called I Got the Blues. Along with those other big hit songs.
Sway should soundtrack every bleary morning after scene in any movie.
I’m not big on combining live albums with studio recordings on lists like this, it just muddies the value of the ranking too much as it’s just double dipping on their best songs. Like, the live versions of Satisfaction or Brown Sugar is better than anything on Steel Wheels, so this live album is better than that album? You don’t say?Anyway, I’d switch in It’s Only Rock and Roll for basically any of the albums ranked between 11-20. Love that album. Otherwise, I do appreciate the arguments for their post mid-80s career. I will give those albums a re-listen.
Singles collection instead of Black and Blue. Youse are wrong-o!
Things weren’t bad enough at the AVC, and now Erlewine? Fuck this.
“It’s a cliche to claim Exile On Main St as the quintessential Rolling Stones album, but when it’s on it not only sounds like the best Rolling Stones album, it sounds like the best album ever made.” lol… now that’s a take.
Sticky Fingers, WAY too low. WAY TOO LOW.
Well, my faves are Let It Bleed and Beggars, but so many of their albums have 3-4 songs I dig, I can’t say this would have been an easy task.
I know that music critics long ago decided Exile on Main Street was the best Stones album — and it is incredible! — but I’ve always wondered why Let It Bleed doesn’t get more consideration. In my mind, an album that starts with Gimme Shelter and ends with You Can’t Always Get What You Want, and along the way makes room for Midnight Rambler and Let it Bleed, has to be up there for best Stones album, one of the best of its era, and one of the best of all time.Also, it’s not a classic or anything, but I enjoy Voodoo Lounge from time to time.
I think you’ll see plenty of critics and fans making a case for any of the big four (Beggar’s, Let it Bleed, Sticky, and Exile). The critical consensus has sort of settled on Exile, but I think fans and many critics would go to bat for any of those four. The only real surprise in a Stones list like this if one of those 4 was not at the top, with the other 3 not in the top 5.
I would file Dirty Work under Underrated But Not Great. It’s…ugly. I mean that in terms of the production and the cover. It’s just not an album with any surface appeal. That isn’t to say there aren’t good things to be found if you can get past the look, feel, and the greatest hit, that really dull version of Harlem Shuffle. It’s just a whole lot to get past. I wish they’d done a decade or two of albums like Blue and Lonesome, well-executed covers solidly in their wheelhouse, maybe dotted with originals, like in the early days, so they don’t have to keep it for a whole collection. I could enthusiastically get behind several B & L-type projects with songs as good as Doom and Gloom sprinkled in.
If your argument is the Stones had 20 great albums, but you have to include two live albums and a singles comp, then the Stones did not have 20 great albums.
They did, but for some reason Out of Our Heads, Black and Blue and England’s Newest Hitmakers weren’t included.
Their Satanic Majesties Request is wall to wall shit, easily their worst album and a pathetic attempt to match Sgt. Peppers. Of course, they wrote it during their famed battle of the bands with the Beatles in their effort to win back Ringo’s soul, but it still sucks balls.
Their Satanic Majesties Request is a cool little record.
Information about Sticky Fingers is incorrect. Brown Sugar had nothing to do with race , it is a song with lyrics written by Mick about Tina Turner his friend who he just adored. The guitar work on Can’t you hear me Knocking is not any open tuning by Richards or anybody else. The guitar work on the song was written and performed by the great Mick Taylor that he never got writing credit for , one of the reasons he quit the band. It’s been stated many times over the years Richards was not in the studio when the track was recorded. Probably true because there is only one guitar sound on the song , not two and it isn’t him , he could never play those licks.
Reading the phrase Dirty Work makes me think of Steely Dan, so now I’m trying to figure out if the Stones covering that song would be good or just weird.
How did Dirty Work get on this list?
“defined by the open-tuned chords of Keith Richards. He began experimenting with open chords”Oh hi, non-musician using musician terminology. Those are two different things. An open chord is any chord that involves unfretted (open) strings. The term is most commonly used to describe so-called “cowboy chords” or the basic standard tuning, first position chords that every guitarist learns early on. Keith was “experimenting” with open chords long before the Stones were a band. It’s like saying there was a point where Charlie Watts started experimenting with basic 4/4 back beats. It’s a foundational building block of the instrument. He was using them the whole time. Open-tuned chords are obviously any chords that are used in an open tuning (the guitar strings being tuned so that they create a simple major or minor chord without fretting any strings or while fretting all of the strings with one finger, etc. It’s a common banjo, slide guitar, and delta/folk blues thing). While some of Keith’s open-tuned riffs do utilize open chords (the beginning of Honky Tonk Woman or the verses of Tumbling Dice for example) many of the more famous ones (Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Street Fighting Man, Jumping Jack Flash, Rocks Off, etc) are based around barre chords that involve using one finger to fret most or all of the strings.
As a guitarist I do agree with you, and my old man even had a Tele in Open G tuning so he could play the Stones. That being said, I felt like I was reading a post on the Reddit Guitar Circle Jerk forum 🙂
Nonsense. I didn’t say “toan” even once. See if you can find the other articles in which I chastised Erlewine for incorrect application of guitar terminology. He also has no idea what chicken-picking actually entails.
I feel like you’re a lawyer or dentist with a buttascotch Tele and 10 Les Pauls…do you even 0-3-5 bro?I’m just busting chops btw.
My Tele is black like my heart. It’s a serious condition.
A Bigger Bang is one of my favorite Stones albums. Very underrated.
It really is one of those “miles better than it has any right to be” late period albums by a legacy band. I always love when I’m genuinely surprised by an album like this. Totally different band/vibe, but I felt the same way with Van Galen’s A Different Kind of Truth. What, on paper, sounded like kind of a train wreck money grab actually rocked far more than I ever thought it would.
It’s Only Rock & Roll and Black & Blue, while not flawless, are FAR better than anything the stones have done since Tattoo You, especially the monstrosity that is Dirty Work. Also there are dozens of amazing Stones tracks that don’t have any official release. Check out Stones Unknown on twitter for some of the best.
Ya Ya’s…end of story
Fuck slide shows and fuck this site.
Hard to listen seriously past Some Girls, maybe Tattoo You. They had a legendary run.
It isn’t that hard to get a top 10 Stones album list because there are many that clearly have to be on there and very few would disagree about Exile, Sticky, BB, LIB, SG etc.. But this list of 20 is overall atrocious for how much the 2nd half is botched. Bigger Bang and Satanic are way too high and probably shouldn’t even by ranked. Dirty Work is way too high, and Blue and Lonesome is fine for what it is (a covers album, but saying it’s the 12th best Stones album is ludicrous).
El Mocambo and Ya-Ya’s are both incredible so if you must rank live albums, these two should be well ahead of their placements here.Older albums at 10,9 are way too high and the singles collection is silly at #3. If you were going to do something like that, at least include Hot Rocks which is a much better collection.