Sticky Fingers

goodbye brian jones, welcome mick taylor. keith’s best partner i think. some of the best two guitar music out there. guitar heaven, this album.

brown sugar certainly wouldn't fly today. but what a song. lyrically, i’d like to think it’s got more in common with randy newman’s “good old boys” than it probably does. these guys weren’t randy newman.

sway is never the first song i think of, but it’s great. jagger is great. mick taylor’s slide is perfect for the stones. scuzzier than duane. his solo near the end trills and soars too.

wild horses is a great song, like, a really great song, but i usually skip it. part of that is classic rock radio overexposure and part is because i like my stones scuzzy. and also because

can’t you hear me knocking is next. and i can’t wait. i’ve got a thing for studio reactions that stay in songs. the stones have a few great ones (after marianne faithful’s voice cracks when she’s going ultra hard in “gimme shelter”, someone loses their shit and yells WHOO!). and here, during keith’s first run through one of the sickest rhythm riffs of all time, there’s a “guh!” halfway through and a back of the studio “yeah!” at the end of it. i swear to god i usually listen to the first seven seconds of this song three or four times in a row. there are a few more peppered in there. you can hear they were feeling this one.

this song was built for two guitars. or maybe two guitars were made for this song. worth listening on headphones for the mix. keith in your right ear, mick taylor in your left. perfect counterpoints.

you gotta move. you gotta include a faithful blues cover cuz you do it so good. this album's "prodigal son." works great after knocking. keith’s backing vocals.

bitch. drivin'. mick jagger really is an excellent frontman. another masterclass in how to use two guitars. the mix stays the same. keith on the right as the engine; mick left as the spitting flames; watts and wyman behind you, clacking on the tracks; jagger in your face, preening and mugging. lots of sax on this record.

naming a song "i got the blues" is funny. stones as stax. stones as the mg’s. mick jagger as otis redding. it's great. mick can't do what otis did but otis didn’t do what mick does. or did he? the stones are indebted to him. but he loved them too. satisfaction.

sister morphine. this thing is haunted. ry cooder, who plays his best guitar on other people’s records (beefheart, taj mahal), plays slide. his playing is ghoulish and note perfect. i think that’s a third guitar they use to make those haunted house sounds. by the time the drums really kick in at about 2:40, the engine is warm. a dark and very dirty song. murky stones at their best.

dead flowers. sunshine after sister morphine. country stones singalong. homies could write a song. hanging w gram parsons. dude was kinda in every band about this time.

moonlight mile. that's how to use strings in rock and roll.

filthy great record. love the black and white stones records. only thing missing is a keith-sung tune. but that doesn't keep it from a 5.

My new favourite Rolling Stones album.

Well, bearing in mind they were already regarded as past it even in my teenage years why would I have ever bothered to listen a Rolling Stones album before now? This is therefore (at time of writing) my only favourite Rolling Stones album.

It seems unbelievable that I'm in my 60s they're STILL going? At 90 odd. Or dead. Who knows. They only come out when the sun goes down.

I love this album though. Aside from the superb Brown Sugar and even better Wild Horses the stuff-I-didn't-know is brilliant. Keef's solo on Can't You Hear Me Knocking. I had no idea! Outstanding. What? It's not Keef? It's Mick Taylor? Well fuck me - why did they let him leave?

5 any day of the week

pra que continuar a banda depois que um mano morreu tá ligado. muda de nome pelo menos po, acho paia demais.

enfim, não guento mais rolling stones não. mas esse é até melhor que os outros pelo menos!
me pareceu mais maduro, sei lá. achei bacana, apesar de tudo.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

Really, it’s only because the lyricism of “Brown Sugar” just gives me a bit of an ick, even though the energy on that track is fabulous instrumentally. That, and I think “Sway” was a little early in the album, and felt like a sort of artificial attempt to be bombastic so early on, and it just didn’t click for me. Should’ve been later in the album. Past that though, once this album really gets going on Wild Horses, it never stops – those last 8 tracks are a fantastic showcase of the Rolling Stones at what could arguably be their peak. This is only the second time we’ve gotten them on this list, and the first time in almost a year, so my experience with their repertoire is remarkably limited, but this is really good stuff.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & the rest of the band have never sounded better to me, and perhaps it’s because so much of this album is secretly deeply rooted in country, even more so than Beggars Banquet was. Look no further than Dead Flowers, which might be my song of the album, though there’s genuinely really not a bad choice; Can’t You Hear Me Knocking has that super cool 4 minute samba-inspired instrumental with the sax rolling, Bitch is just pure classic rock, I Got The Blues has a really nice spiritual vibe only accentuated by the organ solo, Sister Morphine is a great example of how to make drug addiction sound reprehensible (with great imagery to boot), and Moonlight Mile is just a stellar closing track.

Ultimately, the highs of this album are really, really high, and that’s why I feel good about bumping this up to a 5, even if the first 2 tracks didn’t vibe for me super well. It’s a breezy 46 minutes (well, OK, more like 38 for me), and it just makes me want to get even more of the Stones – call me Thanos, perhaps. I enjoyed the hell out of that.

I always thought of Exile on Main Street as their classic, undeniable album but I think I’ve been underrating this one. Loved it.

Some great sounds, but some country jank. Still my favorite Stones album

Cool album. Liked it.

Really good blues/rock mix on this album. A couple songs I could do without keep it from a 5 but overall a great one.

Among the very best rock records of all time.

If I'm going to listen to The Rolling Stones, this is the album I'd listen to. That said, I don't particularly ever want to listen to it.

I try my best to respect the Rolling Stones, but with each album I fail to see more and more what exactly this band did that was so amazing. At this point multiple other bands had done the "British band likes American rock" schtick better, and that leaves this apparently "iconic album" to be one of the Stones' weakest so far, only because it lacks that absolutely iconic hit each album had for the sake of a few okay ones. It just doesn't spark intrigue. I'm sure this makes it clear I prefer the Beatles in that debate, but frankly the two aren't even comparable.

They’re one of the most famous bands of all time for a reason. Wild Horses is arguably a top 25 song of all time.

No frills, straight forward rock and blues. Exactly what I expected from this era of the Stones.

This album was ok. Some of the songs were fairly good, and some were forgettable and uninteresting. All together below average. 2.4/5 -> 2/5

A well-known Stones album. However, in my opinion it is not particularly successful. It seems kind of irrelevant to me. The story behind the cover is the most interesting thing about it.
3/5

After the past week and getting back from Mexico, I needed a 5/5 album to kick off my first day back at work, and Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones delivered exactly that.

What a way to open with Brown Sugar. That riff is unforgettable. Wild Horses is one of my all-time favourite songs, and Sister Morphine is seriously underrated. The album is full of standout moments and that classic Stones swagger, making it a top-tier record from start to finish.

Favourite track: Wild Horses, emotional, timeless, and beautifully written
Least favourite tracks: None, every track earns its place
Album artwork: An iconic cover that’s as bold as the music

A true classic and exactly what I needed

classic, but not quite as good as its reputation might suggest. Wild horses is an all time great, Brown sugar is probably problematic nowadays (but good if you ignore that), can't you hear me knocking is pretty good (if too long), rest of it could be considered filler. Blues influence is clear (at least compared with what the Stone became)

In the late 60's early 70's the Rolling Stones released in quick sucession Beggars Banquet (1968), Let it Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Mainstreet (1972) which forms the highlight of their repertoire.
Of this complete tour de force Sticky Fingers is in my opinion the top. Not only because, unlike on some of the other albums, there is not a skippable song to be found here, but also with the masterful flow this album has.
Starting off uptempo with 'Brown Sugar' it then slowly settles to the ballad 'Wild Horses' via the slow rocker of 'Sway', then to pick up again with 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking.'

And a highlight of this album is the heartbreaking and terrifying 'Sister Morphine', with the electric slide of Ry Cooder. Possibly the Stone's best song.

This is the Stones at their best

The more I know this band the more I respect them and learn to love it ;-)

The truth is, I don't really listen to a lot of classic rock anymore. It just doesn't blow my hair back like it used to, but god damn, the Stones were just the best pure rock band ever and no amount of time seems to change that.