Exile on Main St.

Still not a huge Stones fan, although I liked this album as a whole better than Let It Bleed.

You can hear this album's influence everywhere, from La Grange by ZZ Top to Shania Twain.

Overall though, solid, just wasn't blown away.

The style of this album doesn't really suit me as a listener. The country and gospel elements are off-putting. It's not terrible - it lands somewhere between meh and annoying.

The Stones keep doing this "funky Americana" thing, vacillating between Gospel, Soul, straight blues, country, bluegrass... I mean, it's good, the band is tight but spontaneous (for the most part - I think they play up the sloppiness a bit to the detriment of the tunes), Keith Richards is always excellent. But it's more of the same since they started, this one has a little more orchestration. They're kind of poseurs, though. I guess they were the original Blues Poseurs™. Paves the way for a lot of fairly mediocre stuff to come later like the Black Crowes and Creed.

Doesn't suck but a bit long.

I was really hoping the song "Turd on the Run" would change my opinion of this album as a whole, but they even managed to fuck that one up for me. I don't know what it means that the only song I liked was "Soul Survivor." I felt it had drifted away from the rest of the stolen R&B sound of the album back into the moodier rock sound that I enjoy from the Stones. Having heard the title Exile on Main Street before, I knew this album was iconic. It just isn't for me. The blues ain't my thing, man.

A little bit sleazy, a little bit sloppy, and some fantastic tunes. I love it.

I’m at another 10 – that was a fantastic album.

Nobody told me the Rolling Stones were like this, you know? This is the third time we've gotten them, and they get better every time for me. To say “70s rock band” feels like an understatement – it’s obviously the easiest way to describe them, but this album is just a wonderful blend of rock, country, blues, soul, and a lot of other genres with the right amount of guitar flair and heavier percussion to mold them into something that Mick Jagger could just glide on vocally, and for the rest of the band to work in a harmony that’s kind of indescribable.

I could type a lot of things that sound similar to what I wrote yesterday, when we got Sgt. Pepper’s, but I don’t want to tread on the same stuff – it all feels like a buzzword to me right now. It’s critic speak, and I don’t want to engage in that when the album just evoked something in the soul for me that feels hard to put into words. This feels like the type of album that was made for me, as a sort of endgame to all the Gram Parsons-driven country/rock hybrid albums we’ve been getting for the last 417 days, and I think it’s the best of them. Hell, when this blends with harmonica & sax to bring in a poppier vibe that evokes Stevie Wonder and others, it gets even better.

I’m sure someone else has the words for this – I don’t. I can only encourage other people to find the same zen state I did, because there is nothing like it. For someone else, it might just be “overrated ragtime/rock/blues/country that Mick Jagger sort of yells over”, and that’s fair enough – for me, it’s just that easy to find the rhythm and feel as in harmony with the band, more so than on any of the other albums from the Stones that we’ve gotten so far. It’s not a flawless album – there are lull spots, and one egregious use of the N word, but I understand why this is called the best Rolling Stones album by some people, and why the magazine gave it that much praise. I think it’s that damn good, and it’s a 10.

P.S.: “Stop Breaking Down” is a perfect track with headphones in. I will not hear otherwise.

Pleasant enough listen. The album seems to start with its Hard Rock bangers and then proceeds to transition into more Country-esque songs. There are some nice tracks on here but I find Rolling Stones albums to be really lacking without their hits. It feels (and sort of is) more of a compilation of non single and non album tracks from the past years. Nice to listen to but god knows how this ever came to be one of the best albums of all time.

Epochal pantheon record of dirty blues rock, backed up with numerous extraordinary songs.

Straight up blues record. I dig it. Hilarious that the background is them holed up in France, evading taxes and the album becomes this personal anthem to their own outlaw status. Also fascinating that this mostly grows out of hours-long jam sessions, many with other musicians sitting in too.

American country western inspired
British blues/Chicago blues inspired
Top Mick Jagger performances
Great groove based performances

Tumbling Dice
Sweet Virginia
7/10

General quality was great - Nothing stuck out as being amazing though.

The Good: album #199 on the list is my first The Rolling Stones album to listen to, and that made me excited!
The Bad: that it wasn’t Goats Head Soup
The Ugly: me realizing that I should have listened more critically to this album decades ago…

Funny how time changes tastes. When going through a phase of listening to all albums in a bands repertoire several years ago, I did not understand why this album is considered one of the greatest rock and roll albums period.

Today, I am still a bigger fan of Goats Head Soup, but I really enjoyed the listening experience and will keep enjoying it for days/weeks/months to come

Just not certain if I can give it 5*…. but 4 1/2* for certain!

Good bluesy rock and roll.

Why does this have to be a double album? I just don't get rolling stones. It's just a bunch of drunks playing mediocre blues. maybe I'm missing something

Great Blues rock. I was unfamiliar with most of this album, but it was really solid. The album did suffer a bit from being a little long winded, which led to some of the songs being a little same-y, but overall really well done.

Favourite songs: Ventilator Blues, Tumbling Dice, Sweet Virginia, Torn and Frayed, Shine a Light, Happy, Turd on the Run, All Down the Line, Rip This Joint, Rocks Off

Least favourite songs: I Just Want to See His Face

4/5

The early 70's had so much cool shit going on. One notable exception to this was the fucking Stones. Their boring over the hill blues rock sucks ass and I hate it to this day. Oh and they recorded this album while they were being tax cheats in the south of France. Yeah fuck this album and truck this band.

For what I can only assume is a B-Sides collection this was still pretty bad. Still, plus one for horns.

It's fine, I guess. 🤷

Good album to have in the background while you're carving pumpkins. Does feel a bit bloated.

Underwhelming.