Urban Hat€monger ?

The first Stones album I ever bought & still my favourite.I had been aware of the Stones ever since I can remember.I can remember watching them on TV when I was very young playing Get Off My Cloud & loving it and hearing my mother taking about 'old rubber lips Jagger'It wasn`t until about 10 years ago I really started getting into them heavily.I`d bought a couple of compilations (My Hot Rocks CD almost worn out by this time)so I decided to start buying their proper albums. I chose this one first because it had 2 of my favourite Stones songs on it at the time , Street Fighting Man & Sympathy For the Devil.What I wasn`t expecting was to hear the Stones returning to their roots on this album.It`s filled with blues & country songs , yet they still sound like pure Stones. And a much welcome change to the awful psychadelia that filled their previous album Satanic Majesties Request.The album kicks off with Sympathy For The Devil a song I have never really understood how such a dark song could sound so funky , which gets even better when Keiths harsh loud guitar solo kicks into it towards the end.It`s still one of my favourite singles ever.
After that we get two country songs in No Expectations and Dear Doctor , the former featuring some wonderful slide guitar in it.Jagger & Richards had become good friends with Gram Parsons at this time (Even writing Wild Horses for him)and it`s not difficult to see his influence rubbing off on them with these two songs and also there`s a light country feel to Jigsaw Puzzle with an unusually restrained Jagger on vocals.
There`s also the Stones blues influence on this album. Parachute Woman being one of the most underrated Stones songs in my opinion.It`s a raw dirty blues song , the kind of thing that wouldn`t be out of place on any of the White Stripes early albums.There is also a more traditional blues song in Prodigal Son.
The second half of the album contains that as well as three real gems.Street Fighting Man everybody knows , another of the Stones legendary singles.But it also contains my favourite Stones song EVER in Stray Cat Blues , easily the heavist, dirtiest , seediest song they have ever recorded.The main riff just dripping in slease , the kind of riff that Joe Perry & Steven Tyler spent their whole careers trying to emulate.And how the hell Jagger managed to get away with writing a song about screwing a 15 year old i`ll never know.I guess times were different then.
The next song Factory Girl is a real oddity , the Stones attempt an Irish folk song.It`s weird , it`s a good attempt but Jagger struggles to make it totally convincing, leave it to Shane MacGowan in future.
The final song Salt Of The Earth is interesting. It`s very much like a less polished 'You can`t always get what you want'it starts off with just Jagger and an acoustic guitar until it build & builds until you end up with a full blown rock song with gospal style backing vocals.
This album started my love of the Stones and I still think they never bettered it.It was Brian Jones last album with the band too & you can really see the direction Jagger & Richards were taking the band.For me this is the Stones first real 'proper' album as in it`s not just a collection of singles with a few blues covers to make up the numbers.Jones had very little to do with this album & left shortly afterwards.And to be honest listening to this album and the ones that followed it (Let it bleed , Exile , Sticky Fingers) I don`t think they missed him that much.

__________________