Sticky Fingers – The Rolling Stones
Presenting
to you, my friend, The Rolling Stones. One of the greatest rock bands ever. THE
greatest ‘rock band’ because The Beatles were basically pop. So I don’t know what’s with people, they all
seem to prefer Led Zep to The Stones. Well here we have one of Stones’ best
albums and hopefully we shall have some converts!
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| The Rolling Stones Sign |
This Stones are basically a two man show: Mick
Jagger (vocals; harmonica; occasional rhythm guitar; womanizing; attitude),
Keith Richards (Lead and rhythm guitar; crazy drugs; he even snorted his own
dad; heart and soul). Of course like all bands of the era their sound needs a
bit getting used to, but what a sound it is. They will have you laughing and
crying and completely at their mercy soon enough, just give them a chance.
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| Left to Right : Mick Jagger, Keith Richards |
Now on to Sticky Fingers. So the band finally got
their own record label and here they were free ‘explore’ their ideas with quite
some freedom. Well freedom to the band that brought the dirtiness to mainstream
rock is a dangerous thing. It resulted in a celebration of sex, drugs and rock
n roll. It’s gorgeous and it’s dirty and its heartfelt (mostly). But consider
yourself warned, the album IS called Sticky Fingers after all. I’d be wary of
an album with that name.
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| Album Cover |
We start with an awesome, gritty riff in Brown Sugar
and lyrics that are best left unmentioned. Then the slightly weird and
mishy-mashy Sway comes in and puts us in a trance until the opening acoustic
guitar lines of Wild Horses takes us into most heartfelt, heart-wrenching
territory. I believe this is some of Jagger’s most honest vocal delivery and it
works wonders tugging at you as he promises that wild horses couldn’t drag him
away.
Suddenly we are jerked out of the sadness by the
crisp guitar riffs of Can’t you hear me knocking which goes hard and Mick
Taylor shows off his guitar chops at the end with a Santana like jam which is
riffs and solos and extreme rock jamming.
The next major highlight (according to me ) is three
songs later at Sister Morphine, sad and eerie with an acoustic guitar humming,
a dying man pleading for morphine and the guitar tone, Keith I love the guitar
tone on this one! They borrowed all the sadness and chill from their previous
album for this one.
And then comes Dead Flowers. A cynical-tragic country
rock song about (I think) Keith’s affair with some royalty.
Finally this brings us to Moonlight Mile which works
as a perfect album closing ballad.
So many moods this album guides us through, it feels
like a long, long time since the first opening bursts of Brown Sugar brought us in. It left me
changed; you’ll definitely get something from it. Go on, hear this one today!
Full album Single Track
