The Rolling Stones’ groundbreaking album, Exile on Main Street had every reason to be a disaster. When production started, the band was still recovering from the 1969 Altamont Speedway Free Festival that led to four deaths. They had also just fled their home country, trying to escape punitive tax rates. And now, in France, the group was fractured both geographically and emotionally, with much of the band living in a chateau of extreme excess and drug abuse. The upper floor of the mansion was a revolving door of musicians, junkies and drug-dealers. The lower, a cramped and boiling hot studio, was filled with whichever band members felt like showing up.
But despite all of this, the album works. Exile on Main Street embodies all of the elements of American music that the Stones worship: blues, rock, country, folk and even gospel, such as on the track “I Just Want To See His Face.” The song is easily overlooked, but it is an excellent example of the Stones’ ability to interpret American music. When listening to the song, one can easily imagine oneself sitting in the pews of a Deep South church. The band built the record at Keith Richards’ pace, which was slow. Recording took about a month to start, and was continually hampered by Richards’ heavy drug use and lack of consciousness. But this erratic schedule was perhaps key to Exile on Main Street’s success, as its unpolished and improvisational style is what sets it apart from other rock albums. The muddy production and low-mixed vocals contribute to the feeling that the album was whittled down from countless jam sessions instead of carefully assembled, for example on the nasty blues cover “Shake Your Hips.” Mick Jagger was less of an influence on Exile on Main Street than on past albums, and this can actually be heard on songs such as “Shake Your Hips,” where Jagger’s vocals sit much farther back in the mix than on previous Rolling Stones songs.
Exile on Main Street often feels chaotic, with many tonal and genre shifts, but this is not an album that can be played on shuffle; the order is important. At the start of the album the listener is smacked right in the face with the hard-hitting “Rocks Off.” The track commences Exile on Main Street with a bang, the only way such chaos could conceivably begin. It’s easy to imagine how this song came into being, as nearly every member had a way to get their “rocks off,” be it drinking, shooting smack or sex. “Sweet Virginia” pivots the album away from rock into a slower, more intimate direction that continues on for the rest of disc one. “Sweet Black Angel,” a harmonica-laden homage to political activist Angela Davis, continues this thread, and is the furthest foray into folk on Exile on Main Street. Another tribute, this time to deceased band member Brian Jones, arrives on “Shine a Light” towards the end of the album, and adds emotional depth to its ending. The record finally rounds out with the passionate but playful “Soul Survivor,” where Jagger sings: “You’re gonna be the death of me,” presumably to bandmate Richards. Jagger never really loved Exile on Main Street, his reasoning being that it didn’t have enough hit singles, but it can be presumed that he also disliked Richard’s bigger role on the album.
By the fall of 1971 the Stones were back on the run, this time fleeing French drug charges instead of British taxes. Production continued in Los Angeles, where Jagger tried to make sense of the murky recordings from France. Fortunately, Jagger managed to bring some order to Richards’ chaos without sanitizing the record. Despite some early skepticism from critics, the album was a commercial success, and eventual fan favorite, to the bewilderment of Jagger. It may not have spawned any number-one hits, but Exile on Main Street is an incredible jam of an album that feels like it starts before the first song begins and carries on long after the last song ends.
