Here, you’ve got Jagger shouting the chorus while Richards and a bevy of guests (including Dr. Many of the songs on “Exile” really take off near the end. This song also has one of rock’s great fade outs (a very short list), with Richards launching into a solo just as things get quiet. The contributions from sidemen, including Hopkins and horn players Jim Price and Bobby Keys, are essential to the full-bodied power of the album. One of the great album openers ever, it really gets supercharged at the 3:35 mark when Watts changes up his drum beat, Jagger is nearly drowned out by backing vocals and overwhelming brass then Nicky Hopkins comes in bashing on the piano. So in honor of “Exile” turning 40, here are my five favorite seconds from the album’s five best songs. I’m intrigued because “Exile” is so densely packed with memorable moments that I’ve spent countless hours dissecting and debating the best bits of each song. Zito appears to have done this because he could only find small portions of each tune that he liked. The salute to Watts is welcome (eternally underappreciated, he has always offered perfect stone-faced sturdiness in the midst of a bunch of stoned faces) but the callouts to individual components of specific songs is interesting, as well. There are some few other moments: a nice riff on “Ventilator Blues” and the delightful sound of Charlie Watts rocksteady drumming (he seems to be the only consistently good member of the group) crashing in over Nicky Hopkins’ piano on “Loving Cup.” But I’m stretching to say nice things about the album.” “Of the album’s 18 cuts, perhaps three are worth more than a few paltry listenings: a rocked-up version of John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson’s “Stop Breaking Down” (for which the dead man is given no credit) that has the only notable guitar solo on the entire album a haunting, sentimental “Let It Loose” that evokes the musical texture of the Stones’ earlier “Back Street Girl” and a gospel-tinged “Shine a Light” wherein Billy Preston plays piano and organ. “One can only wonder if the Stones are deluding themselves into thinking this is good music.” It would be bad enough as one disk, but two make it nearly unbearable.” “The basic problem with Exile is repetition. For years, the band had described confusion-with Exile, they embodied it.“Exile seems to make final the decline and fall of the Rolling Stones.” “I hear you talking when I’m on the street,” Mick slurs on the opening line of “Rocks Off.” “Your mouth don't move, but I can hear you speak.” For the next hour, the paradoxes keep coming: light in darkness, clarity in chaos. The story of Exile is probably oversold-after all, they only spent part of the time in the basement. And the blues that had once served as the band’s shorthand for earthly hardships and desires now sounded mysterious and arcane-less the entertainment of juke joints than the vernacular of some underground society. For every “Tumbling Dice” or “Torn and Frayed“-two of the album’s more coherent moments-there was an “I Just Want to See His Face” or “Let It Loose,” tracks that functioned less as finished thoughts than open-ended suggestions, seeds for new growth. Exile, by contrast, wasn’t just born in the basement, it evoked one: a place of clutter and darkness, strange things forgotten and unfinished. But Exile was also the closest The Rolling Stones ever got to something truly avant-garde, an album whose perceived mistakes-the muddy mix the sloppy, dislocated performances-conjured a feeling something more correct would have wiped away.Įven in its looser moments, 1971’s Sticky Fingers had sounded professional-raw music gussied up for the main stage. A great party album, yes, and a party unto itself. Listen close: Can you hear the young gods sweating it out in the basement of a French mansion overlooking the Mediterranean? Surrounded by junkies and hangers-on? Eating lobster and stuffed tomatoes in the afternoon and working all night? Never had the band managed to translate their myth-the sloppy, redemptive glory of rock ’n’ roll-so faithfully into sound. More than songs or performances, 1972’s Exile on Main St.