Doing chronological deep dives really allows me to appreciate how new material from great artists was received in context. Listening to 1973’s Goats Head Soup on its own is one thing, but hearing it as a follow-up to the four classic albums preceding it puts it in a different light.

For fans and critics expecting The Stones to build on the legacy they’d constructed over those four masterpieces, Goats Head Soup must have been a major disappointment. This isn’t a towering achievement. It’s… fine.

Apart from the song selection, which is decent but largely uninspiring, the principal issue with this album is its sound. There’s a slickness to the production that stands in contrast to the grit of the earlier work. That’s surprising given that Goats Head Soup, like the four albums preceding it, was produced by Jimmy Miller. It was the last record he helmed for the band.

The album was recorded largely in Jamaica, and the title is slang for Mannish water, a Jamaican soup. I won’t be trying that one anytime soon.

Despite lukewarm reviews, Goats Head Soup made it to #1 in both the U.S. and the UK and spawned and was the band’s best-selling album up to that point in the States. Though the band might have peaked creatively, the period from this album through the early 80s would prove to be their most commercially successful.

I don’t want to be too hard on this album. It’s a fun listen, and it does boast a great topical rocker in today’s SOTD as well as one of the band’s all-time best songs in breakup ballad ‘Angie.’ That’s enough to make it a worthy addition in any rock band’s discography, even if it’s lower tier on this one.