The Rolling Stones: Ranking The Albums Best To Worst

20. Sticky Fingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luf5WUUXmhI Date Of Original Release: 1971 Key Tracks: B*tch, Wild Horses, Brown Sugar, Sway Stellar design is a standout here with the classic, Andy Warhol designed sleeve featuring a black and white shot of Mick Jagger's crotch. Original versions of this record featured an actual, functioning metal zipper, which could operate to let you inspect Mick's bits. This is just a flat-out dirty rock and roll record, with a killer horn section on "B*tch" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking". "Sister Morphine", a standout track originally intended for Marianne Faithfull, is a chilling anti-drug tale, and "Moonlight Mile" might be one of the prettiest tracks for a band not well known for doing "pretty". Even "Sway", one of the lesser known tracks here, lurches and wheezes with a strange noble grace that only the Stones could produce.

19. Aftermath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqNcdXgWAo Date Of Original Release: 1966 Key Tracks: I am Waiting, High and Dry, Flight 505 A pivotal release in the Stones universe, this LP saw them abandoning the blues template and stretching their musical wings past the 3-minute pop song format, expanding "Flight 505" into a 10-plus minute jam, remaining to this day the Stones longest album track. "I Am Waiting" highlights Mick's heretofore unseen vulnerability, and was used to perfect effect in the movie "Rushmore". "High and Dry" is a leisurely harmonica driven blues ramble of the sort the Stones could knock off in their sleep. A very transitional record with few well known "hits" but among their very best.