The Rolling Stones album Pete Townshend called a masterpiece: “Back on top”
Pete Townshend has been no stranger to what constitutes great rock and roll music. From the minute that ‘My Generation’ blared out of stereos for the first time, everyone knew this was an artist who had his finger on the pulse of what speaks to the reckless punk in every single rock fan. But Townshend was only playing what he had in his record collection, and in terms of artistic growth, he knew that The Rolling Stones were going far beyond traditional rock on Let It Bleed.
But the first half of The Stones’ career wasn’t always focused on making the music that suited them. Whereas their first few records mostly covered old blues tunes and the occasional knockout single like ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘Get Off My Cloud’, there weren’t many places to go after being considered a blues cover act.
Getting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write their own material was definitely a step in the right direction, but there was also the question of what style suited them the best. They could pull off blues just fine, but hearing them try their hand at everything from psychedelic rock to baroque pop to dance-hall-style ballads felt like fans were getting treated to every sampling of what was trendy at the time.
Once The Stones started writing songs for themselves, though, that’s when the magic happened. While Beggars Banquet stands as one of the quintessential blues albums that the group had ever released, Let It Bleed took it one step further, embracing the menace in Keith Richards’s guitar riffs on songs like ‘Gimme Shelter’ or ‘Monkey Man’.
Townshend was halfway towards his own masterpieces by the time it came out, but he knew that they had hit a watershed moment with Let It Bleed, saying, “I think The Stones have really, as as far as I’m concerned, they’re really way back on top, and I’m so knocked out! Let It Bleed is a MASTERPIECE – beats Beggars Banquet, which I thought would’ve been very difficult to do.”
While Beggars Banquet is a solid blues record, this is where the group start to show every different facet of their personality. There are still covers on the album of songs like ‘Midnight Rambler’, but tracks like ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ reminded fans that not only were they not Beatles clones, but they could write something that could even manage to equal what the Fab Four had been doing.
Also, it’s no surprise that some of the gravitas of this album rubbed off on what Townshend would be doing just a few years later. Since he had been shedding himself of his Mod era, seeing Townshend embrace the more theatrical side of his sound could have come down to how The Stones were able to make their music sound more energised this time around.
Compared to the bluesy rockers who had come before, Let It Bleed helped establish The Stones’ identity going forward. Half the time, they had blues etched into their instruments, but there was no mistaking this for a rock and roll album, and they would run with that for the rest of their lives.
