The 1972 album Keith Richards never gets tired of hearing: “I still love that”
The entire DNA of the Rolling Stones rests entirely on the shoulders of Keith Richards.
Mick Jagger is certainly responsible for some of the best vocals that ever turned up on their records, but when you’re talking about the general vibe of what the band was all about, it always comes back to the way that Keef played every one of his riffs whenever they came out with a new record. And while there are more than a few duds that can get scattered around their catalogue now and again, Richards knew it was all worth it to have some musical diamonds out there in the wild.
But when looking through every single one of their eras, there’s at least a little bit of magic to pick out of every one of their records. It might get a little bit dicey when looking at a record like Dirty Work or when they decided to make some of their more forgettable songs on their compilation records, but Richards was usually ready for anything as long as Charlie Watts counted something in back in the day.
A lot of the time they spent in the early days was all about him trying to figure out how to write a song, and while that did result in some of the greatest riffs of all time on tunes like ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Paint It Black’, Richards wasn’t looking to make rock and roll for the rest of his life. There were a lot of facets to them, and their legendary period has a little bit of everything that made them great.
Sticky Fingers is one of the defining albums of their career, and Let It Bleed is where they brought the real menace of their sound, but Exile on Main St was its own unique animal. The album didn’t really have that many singles compared to their other records, but across its runtime, every single strength that they have is flexed in some capacity. There are heartbreaking ballads and even the odd song where Richards sings like ‘Happy’, but it’s not like everyone was happy about it.
Jagger always felt that there were many stronger albums than what they made in 1972, but that wasn’t really the point of the album. Richards wanted to create a definitive album statement just like everyone else did, and compared to some of their more celebrated records, Richards felt that there was no other album that summed up the band better whenever they performed those tunes live.
Every lyric and lick was rock solid, and Richards felt the same jolt playing those songs as he did back in 1972, saying, “I don’t often play Stones stuff, but if I see a copy of Exile hanging about, I nick it and play it. I still love that record very much. I would say there is the best of The Stones in there – up till now… I’ve no doubt that one day we’ll put out an Exile outtakes album.” And that kind of love still holds true later on in their career as well.
The band didn’t really need to have the same chart hits that they did once they reached the 1980s, but the reason why an album like Voodoo Lounge succeeded as it did was about more than just sheer luck. Based on the double album runtime and the more jagged edges to the record, this felt like the band getting back in tune with what made Exile great and giving everyone a modern update for the 1990s.
There might have been a little bit of fat for Richards’ taste every single time he listened to it, but sometimes you need a little bit of excess to see the real genius behind an album. The Stones didn’t sign up to be one of the greatest artists of their time, but by the time that Exile came up, they had taken every single lesson that the blues legends had taught them and applied them to whatever song they were working on.
