The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.

Rolling Stones Records

May 12th, 1972.

The Stones' 10th/12th studio album Exile on Main St. turns 50. Topping off one of the finest runs in rock history, Exile on Main St. feels like a not so joyous celebration of past victories. A somewhat rundown, fatigued affair. Lifting your arms in high spirits, but lacking the vigor to actually feel it. Burnt out on the road to success - do the ends ever justify the means?

Layered in hotboxed haze, Exile on Main St. is a dingy affair - unwashed clothes smell of unwanted company eventually. Reluctantly peeling yourself off of the leather couch after days of surrendering to it can become a familiar act while on the path to frayed ends. Justifying this existence is surprisingly easy to do once firmly within its grip. Psychedelic to a degree, albeit more psychedelically infused rather than outwardly psychedelic, Exile on Main St. packs a warm unpredictability. Variety is the spice of life as the saying goes and Exile on Main St. lives by this saying. The waves of sunbaked stupor crash incessantly on the swamps shore - wide-eyed and woken for the first time in an eternity. The sunlight does indeed hurt my eyes.

On a more musical note, Keith Richards pulls off one of the most inspiring performances ever put to tape. His range of efficacy is seemingly limitless; things within his reach are sought with relative ease - if he can think it, he can perform it. From honky tonk to hard rock Richards finds ways to pull their respected qualities off in Stones' semi-slacker style. Jagger's coffee stained vocals reverberate early morning rawness - the mind still afloat in another dimension. Akin to a junky coming out of his comfort zone to spill a few ideas on tape, the slow mental machine takes it's time to get going, if it ever will again. The damage may well be done, but spirit exists outside of physical facets.

The sunshine bores the daylights out of meeee...