Exile on Main St.

This album is a bit long in my opinion, I think 3-5 songs could’ve easily been trimmed. It’s easy to forget how inspired by blues music the Stones are if your knowledge of them extend only to their radio hits. I enjoyed quite a few songs, but I kept finding myself tuning out from time to time.

I don't know how many times I've listened to this album, and for the life of me, I don't get the hype. There are some really good songs (Tumbling Dice, Shake Your Hips, Ventilator Blues, Let it Loose, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor), but no really great or timeless ones. The rest of it just sounds messy and in need of editing, to my ears. Not as bad as some of their earlier albums though, I guess.

I think I've said before I've basically heard enough Rolling Stones. I'm good. This isn't painful or anything, though. Not like Oasis or Coldplay. This is another example of a band doing just a really good job at the thing they've decided to do and then where I meet them is at the juncture of what they've decided to do and whether I enjoy that thing. Also that thing is co-opting.

The Stones stumble into a juke joint and ingest the vibes via osmosis... Stone cold classics on this album like "Tumbling Dice", "Sweet Virginia", and "Shine A Light" and the whole thing is just an experience, even if it's cribbing the black mans music...

My first Stones album. I really liked it 👅

I'll side with the original assessment of this album when it came out, its uneven, song quality is all over the place...mostly meh.

This is yet another album that revisionists are trying to make a masterpiece, its not.

I think I'm at a point where I have to admit that I enjoy Rolling Stones hits, but I just find albums to be too much filler.

Every time I check out The Stones part of me is convinced that I'll finally have some kind of revelation and see what so many others seem to see in them. The only major success I've had thus far is figuring out that Gimme Shelter and Paint It Black are really fucking good (and there are a couple of other Stones songs I go back to as well). Although, going into this, I was feeling pretty good, this album *is* held in extremely high regard, and I could only imagine there must be something here. And in short, there are things about Exile On Main Street that I like, but this is largely an hour plus of music I don't feel very strongly about. Firstly, I'd like to say I think I get what The Stones were going for here, this very much feels like a "sum of it's parts album", but it just never really came together for me. I do like the overall production aesthetic here, there's plenty of rock and roll grit, and I think everyone is doing what they need to do to achieve the sound. I'd like to single out Mick Jagger's vocals in particular, for being a kind of loose and mushy that makes it seem like he's using his voice more like an instrument than anything. I think this all works best on songs like the opener, Rocks Off, which is probably my favorite here. They really sell their particular rock sound, and there are some really great lines here, "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me" hits in particular. However, nothing else here quite reaches this high again, although there are some other songs I like: Ventilator Blues and All Down The Line, among others are also pretty good. Although my biggest issue I think is that I just don't really like The Stones' brand of blues rock. I think my problem may be that while I have no doubt The Stones truly love the (predominantly black) art that they are inspired by, their mode of appreciation seems to be to attempt to clone it so exactly that their whole shtick feels way more put on (to me at least) than I think it would have otherwise. I actually think it may be more distracting here than on some of their other stuff I have heard, like it really feels like they want me to think they're from New Orleans or something. Anyways, aside from this, I do have some other more tangible complaints about this album. It feels like they're trying to do the "song fragments that create a coherent work" thing, but some of these "fragments" are like 3 minutes long so they just feel like underdeveloped songs. I Want To See His Face has a cool sound, but it may be the most egregious example of this I can think of here. It also feels like The Stones don't know how to end a song. A trick they pull out again and again is repeating a couple bars of music and maybe a single line for slightly longer than you want, then abruptly stopping. It happens quite a bit, and feels really awkward to me. Like I said, there is some stuff I appreciate here, I like a couple of songs, I like the production quality, it just doesn't come together for me. I did at least add a couple of songs to "The List of Rolling Stones Songs I Like" so I got a little out of this. But I really can't tell if I'm closer or farther from figuring The Stones out, maybe it'll happen someday, maybe it won't, we'll see.

Could have been a three if I actually like Mick Jagger's voice

An absolute favorite 5/5

Never heard this album before, more familiar with their 60s singles and probably because they are more radio friendly. It's not a bad album by any means, was expecting more of a hard rock sound but got more blues.

It finished strong with Shine A Light and Sole Survivor. I don't know why this goes down as their 'best' album on critics lists though. To quote the wiki:
"Exile is not one of my favourite albums" - Jagger

"Jagger also stated he did not understand the praise among Rolling Stones fans because the album did not yield many hits."

3.5/5. Raising to a 4.

Exile On Main Street is an album that i had a hard time keeping up with. I am mostly just going to blame it on it's length and the fact that there isn't all too much variation on the formula. The songs tended to flip-flop between two formulas, one being a more country like style and the other being a harder, more rock and roll style and that lasted for about an hour. I don't think that this album is bad, far from it actually, the music is pretty good especially from the latter formula and the vocals are also really good hear as well. I just wish that it were cut down a bit. This may be another album where I'm struggling to find a favorite and least favorite song due to them being overly similar to each other. It's not bad, i just wish it wasn't so long.
Best Song: Stop Breaking Down
Worst Song: Sweet Virginia

I haven't really listened to the Rolling Stones since high school and now I've had 2 albums generated in less than a week!

In my Sticky Fingers review I stated that it's probably not my favourite Stones record, but I'd figure that out when I had more generated for the project. Both records are great in their own right, but Exile On Main Street feels like the more polished and arranged record, whereas Sticky Fingers seems to have some of the bigger hits and felt more in-your-face rock and roll. I'm enjoying the second half of Exile a lot more than the first half and it might be squeezing out Sticky Fingers a bit.

Favourite tracks: Sweet Virginia, Sweet Black Angel, Loving Cup, Ventilator Blues, I Just Want to See His Face, Let It Loose

It's never been my *favorite* Stones record, but I can't pretend anymore like I don't absolutely love it. Not sure I'd change a thing about it.

5/5

A few standout great songs - I forgot I love all down the line! :) It just felt very unfocused and bloated?

solidno

Stones eh.

Over an hour of jangly mumbling white man bs blues. Blegh.

Stones + American Blues influence = gold. This is home to my favorite Stones single too - Tumblin Dice.

definitivamente é rolling stones.
67 minutos de puro bluezinho feito por britanicos que queriam muito ser estadunidenses. meia boca.