My final featured artist in the musical genome is the trickiest of the bunch.
The Rolling Stones don’t fit neatly into any of my categories. While they have tried their hand at the country genre a few times (with both good and bad results), I can’t see placing them in ‘Country Plus.’ They aren’t really a pop or folk band, tracing their origins more to the blues tradition. Neither do they fit in the ‘Piano’ or ‘Melancholy’ groups.
I’ve bought nine new albums so far this year and they’re split pretty evenly between mild disappointment and happy surprise.
Over the next nine days, I’ll feature a song from each of those albums and write a mini review of each. To satisfy my pathological urge to make lists, I’ll feature them in order from worst to best.
Let It Bleed is the third Rolling Stones album on this list and the last record listed that isn’t by either (spoiler alert!) Bob Dylan or The Beatles.
The title song was a play on The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be,’ which had been recorded but not officially released when this album came out. I love how artists during the 60s were constantly tweaking and drawing inspiration from each other. The Stones and The Beatles wrote their share of Dylan-esque tunes, inspired by his example, while Dylan returned the favor (his ‘4th Time Around’ was a direct response to ‘Norwegian Wood‘).
John Lennon once said that everything innovative The Beatles ever did would show up six months later on a Rolling Stones record.
Back in high school and my first years of college, I made a point to discover the important music recorded before I was born. I had sufficiently mined the catalogs of Bob Dylan and The Beatles before finally turning my attention to The Rolling Stones.
Given my limited resources, I settled on two albums considered essential by the powers that be. One is still to come on this list, and the other was Beggars Banquet.
This marks the first appearance by The Rolling Stones on this list, but not the last. This band has released close to 40 albums over their careers and I own five of them — all excellent. I can’t think of another band that’s so clearly begging for further exploration.
Granted, the Stones went through period where their releases were met with indifference by critics and audiences alike. They are not a model of consistency. But they have released a good dozen or so albums considered classics.
