Onto Exile on Main Street. Is it a masterpiece? It's definitely the band at their most exploratory, absorbing a broad range of Americana - blues, gospel, country. As I said before I'm really not that keen on the two guitarists Old Hat and Lacklustre. Actually Lacklustre is fine, but Old Hat makes me cringe on the rock out moments where he falls back on his own clichés. But here that's rarer than on other albums. Almost by necessity it's the slower songs that make it and there are plenty here. The album rocks because Charlie and Bill make it rock, it's glorious because of the vocals/backing vocals and the brass. I have really mixed feelings about Mick Jagger's voice, I think it works in some contexts well but not others, but if you like it, he's really going for it here.
It has a reputation for being an acquired taste and what that usually means is that when you see past the problems you will learn to love it. It took me three listens to get into it but that was a matter of working past certain aspects to get there, but the fact that those aspects are there to be worked past has to count against it not for it. [I'm very familiar with the song Tumbling Dice because it was on a compilation I've long had, but I really hate that song, even if it's good I still hate it with a passion. It actually makes me feel ill. Somehow the stew is too thick and too repetitive.]
One thing I don't think is true is that it is an album without any standout hit songs. I think that's only the case because they didn't release them as singles. Sweet Virginia is absolutely fantastic and the real highlight of the album for me. And eg. Shake Your Hips, Ventilator Blues (topical eh?), Stop Breaking Down, Soul Survivor are great as well. But is eg. Torn and Frayed a great album track or is it just filler? The organ and Jagger's vocals work really well together, but the song itself isn't anything, the "rock" thump to it is heavy handed for what is a soulful little number. It's a bit of both really, there's enough there to make it interesting and it's just a bit ugly and a bit of a blank of a song. Some songs are plain dreadful eg. Loving Cup. It's definitely an album where I want skip ahead to the songs I like. I don't find it a good "through" listen, but if you make it as far as the fourth side it's a good run of songs.
The other thing I don't agree with are comments that I have seen that it's messy/sloppy. I think it's really tight especially Charlie's drumming. For most of it there is simply too much going on. For a lot of the tracks I could happily lose at least one of the guitars, possibly both of them, other times I could happily lose the keyboards or the horns. If you track various individual horn players/keyboards/guitars they're often just noodling or providing a bedrock for the rest of the instrumentation is built on. But actually they would more often than not be fine with that bedrock removed. It becomes extraneous, lumpy, thick. Too often it feels like they have everybody there and they have to use them all. The stripped down moments are where it really shines and there's precious few of them. The album is not not under polished, it's under honed.
So a flawed, patchy gem, that's more ambitious than its predecessors. I find the band to be just a bit tired by the end of 60's and there are times here where it sounds revitatilised, I might even say it is a return to form. But I would be happier with a single LP of the best bits rather than the double.
I apologise for all of the above. This was a weird obsessional post about an album that I don't really like. But when the inspiration takes me what's the harm?
