10 Amazing Albums Turning 50 In 2022
3. The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street
Few bands have had as great a run of concentrated success as the Stones from ‘68-’72. They ended a sequence of four impeccable albums with one of their defining statements, the grubby, sleazy, but somehow still genuinely cool Exile On Main Street.
Recorded in France when the band fled the UK’s skyrocketing taxes, it’s the sound of a group at the peak of their powers and self destructive urges. Shacked up in a chateau, they somehow avoided drinking and smoking themselves to death and came out with one of the tightest hours of rock ever recorded.
“Rocks Off” starts as they mean to go on: Jagger’s sneering delivery, Richards’ slippery guitars, and an avalanche of horns adding to the excess. There’s a kitchen sink approach here but it really works, with the band working themselves into a frenzy on “All Down The Line” and treating themselves to gospel choirs on “Tumblin’ Dice”.
Between those straightforward rockers, though, they helped pioneer the no-wave sound on the menacing “Ventilator Blues” and inspired the weirder era of Tom Waits with “I Just Want To See His Face”. It’s an album you’ll never forget, even though the players most likely can’t remember it.