Exile on Main Street

There are at the end of the day two kinds of music people. (by this I mean popular music of the rock and roll variety) You either prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

This really plays to a way you might answer a hundred other questions – but for the next couple of paragraphs were are going to stay with the Beatles and the Stones. You might know that the Rolling Stones best record “Exile on Main Street” has been re-released on it’s 30th birthday and points to a number of things – but to me, most importantly it shows me how much Keith Richards is overlooked as the true genius behind the stones after the death of Brian Jones.

I’ve been listening to the 72 pressing of “Exile” off and on for the last few weeks and the thing that I constantly come back to is the dangerous nature of the underlying themes and sounds that come from this record. It’s big and sprawling, it’s intimate and sensuous. It’s a big fucking mess of a record that feels like America in that “Beat” sense. Robert Frank having done the photography for the release doesn’t hurt too much either.

At the end of the day, it really does feel like a record that your parents would rather you not listen to. I’m not overly concerned about the scene that the music was made in or the whole tax exile thing – since the immediate scene is lost on me all I have is the music. Really that seems to be enough for me. “Exile…” has become a record for me that – only recently – gave me any reason to listen to reconsider the Stones in any other context than a historical one.

The party is obvious, the casualties are inevitable

– Lester Bangs in his initial review of the Rolling Stones “Exile on Main Street”

Extended Play:

Probably the main reason to write this post was to do this list – I find some of these questions to be really interesting ways to understand someone’s thought process when it comes to certain cultural awareness and peccadilloes.

Beatles Vs. The Rolling Stones
Matisse Vs. Picasso
The Clash Vs. the Sex Pistols
Early Frank Stella Vs. Later Frank Stella
Thin Elvis Vs. Fat Elvis
Manchester Vs. London (as far as music goes)
Batman Vs. Superman (comics not movies)
Gretch Vs. Gibson
Eno Vs. Bryan Ferry
Bakersfield sound Vs. Nashville sound (in country music)
Julie Newmar as Catwoman Vs. Eartha Kitt as Catwoman

Any thoughts – I’d love to hear some of yours…