The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones – It’s Only Rock ‘N ‘Roll (1974) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011 # UIGY-9069]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 49:12 minutes | Scans included | 1,98 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,02 GB

Uses the 2011 DSD master based on UK original analog tape. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). DSD Transferred by Mick McKenna & Richard Whittaker.

It’s uneven, but at times It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll catches fire. The songs and performances are stronger than those on Goats Head Soup; the tossed-off numbers sound effortless, not careless. Throughout, the Stones wear their title as the “World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band” with a defiant smirk, which makes the bitter cynicism of “If You Can’t Rock Me” and the title track all the more striking, and the reggae experimentation of “Luxury,” the aching beauty of “Time Waits for No One,” and the agreeable filler of “Dance Little Sister” and “Short and Curlies” all the more enjoyable.

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The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup (1973) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011 # UIGY-9076]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 46:59 minutes | Scans included | 1,89 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 946 MB

Features the 2011 DSD mastering based on the UK master. Originally released in 1973. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). DSD Transferred by Mick McKenna & Richard Whittaker.

Sliding out of perhaps the greatest winning streak in rock history, the Stones slipped into decadence and rock star excess with Goats Head Soup, their sequel to Exile on Main St. This is where the Stones’ image began to eclipse their accomplishments, as Mick ascended to jet-setting celebrity and Keith slowly sunk deeper into addiction, and it’s possible hearing them moving in both directions on Goats Head Soup, at times in the same song. As Jagger plays the devil (or, dances with Mr. D, as he likes to say), the sex and sleaze quotient is increased, all of it underpinned by some genuinely affecting heartbreak, highlighted by “Angie.” This may not be as downright funky, freaky, and fantastic as Exile, yet the extra layer of gloss brings out the enunciated lyrics, added strings, wah-wah guitars, explicit sex, and violence, making it all seem trippily decadent. If it doesn’t seem like there’s a surplus of classics here, all the songs work well, illustrating just how far they’ve traveled in their songcraft, as well as their exceptional talent as a band — they make this all sound really easy and darkly alluring, even when the sex’n’satanism seems a little silly. To top it all of, they cap off this utterly excessive album with “Star Star,” a nasty Chuck Berry rip that grooves on its own mean vulgarity — its real title is “Starf*cker,” if you need any clarification, and even though they got nastier (the entirety of Undercover, for instance), they never again made something this dirty or nasty. And, it never feels more at home than it does at the end of this excessive record.

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The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St. (1972) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011 # UIGY-9081]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 67:15 minutes | Scans included | 2,73 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,39 GB

Uses the 2011 DSD master based on UK original analog tape. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). DSD Transferred by Mick McKenna & Richard Whittaker.

Greeted with decidedly mixed reviews upon its original release, Exile on Main St. has become generally regarded as the Rolling Stones’ finest album. Part of the reason why the record was initially greeted with hesitant reviews is that it takes a while to assimilate. A sprawling, weary double album encompassing rock & roll, blues, soul, and country, Exile doesn’t try anything new on the surface, but the substance is new. Taking the bleakness that underpinned Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers to an extreme, Exile is a weary record, and not just lyrically. Jagger’s vocals are buried in the mix, and the music is a series of dark, dense jams, with Keith Richards and Mick Taylor spinning off incredible riffs and solos. And the songs continue the breakthroughs of their three previous albums. No longer does their country sound forced or kitschy — it’s lived-in and complex, just like the group’s forays into soul and gospel. While the songs, including the masterpieces “Rocks Off,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Torn and Frayed,” “Happy,” “Let It Loose,” and “Shine a Light,” are all terrific, they blend together, with only certain lyrics and guitar lines emerging from the murk. It’s the kind of record that’s gripping on the very first listen, but each subsequent listen reveals something new. Few other albums, let alone double albums, have been so rich and masterful as Exile on Main St., and it stands not only as one of the Stones’ best records, but sets a remarkably high standard for all of hard rock.

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The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (1971) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2011 # UIGY-9066]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 40:15 minutes | Scans included | 1,87 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 960 MB

Pieced together from outtakes and much-labored-over songs, Sticky Fingers manages to have a loose, ramshackle ambience that belies both its origins and the dark undercurrents of the songs. It’s a weary, drug-laden album — well over half the songs explicitly mention drug use, while the others merely allude to it — that never fades away, but it barely keeps afloat. Apart from the classic opener, “Brown Sugar” (a gleeful tune about slavery, interracial sex, and lost virginity, not necessarily in that order), the long workout “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and the mean-spirited “Bitch,” Sticky Fingers is a slow, bluesy affair, with a few country touches thrown in for good measure. The laid-back tone of the album gives ample room for new lead guitarist Mick Taylor to stretch out, particularly on the extended coda of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” But the key to the album isn’t the instrumental interplay — although that is terrific — it’s the utter weariness of the songs. “Wild Horses” is their first non-ironic stab at a country song, and it is a beautiful, heart-tugging masterpiece. Similarly, “I Got the Blues” is a ravished, late-night classic that ranks among their very best blues. “Sister Morphine” is a horrifying overdose tale, and “Moonlight Mile,” with Paul Buckmaster’s grandiose strings, is a perfect closure: sad, yearning, drug-addled, and beautiful. With its offhand mixture of decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones.

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The Rolling Stones – Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! (1970) [ABKCO Remaster 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 47:42 minutes | Scans included | 1,94GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 987 MB

Recorded during their American tour in late 1969, and centered around live versions of material from the Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed era. Often acclaimed as one of the top live rock albums of all time, its appeal has dimmed a little today. The live versions are reasonably different from the studio ones, but ultimately not as good, a notable exception being the long workout of “Midnight Rambler,” with extended harmonica solos and the unforgettable section where the pace slows to a bump-and-grind crawl. Some Stones aficionados, in fact, prefer a bootleg from the same tour (Liver Than You’ll Ever Be, to which this album was unleashed in response), or their amazing the-show-must-go-on performance in the jaws of hell at Altamont (preserved in the Gimme Shelter film). Fans that are unconcerned with picky comparisons such as these will still find Ya-Ya’s an outstanding album, and it’s certainly the Stones’ best official live recording.

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The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed (1969) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2010 # UIGY-9021]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:24 minutes | Scans included | 1,71 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 856 MB

Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players) and the 2002 DSD remastering. Mastered for SACD by Bob Ludwig.

Mostly recorded without Brian Jones — who died several months before its release (although he does play on two tracks) and was replaced by Mick Taylor (who also plays on just two songs) — this extends the rock and blues feel of Beggars Banquet into slightly harder-rocking, more demonically sexual territory. The Stones were never as consistent on album as their main rivals, the Beatles, and Let It Bleed suffers from some rather perfunctory tracks, like “Monkey Man” and a countrified remake of the classic “Honky Tonk Woman” (here titled “Country Honk”). Yet some of the songs are among their very best, especially “Gimme Shelter,” with its shimmering guitar lines and apocalyptic lyrics; the harmonica-driven “Midnight Rambler”; the druggy party ambience of the title track; and the stunning “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which was The Stones’ “Hey Jude” of sorts, with its epic structure, horns, philosophical lyrics, and swelling choral vocals. “You Got the Silver” (Keith Richards’ first lead vocal) and Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain,” by contrast, were as close to the roots of acoustic down-home blues as The Stones ever got.

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The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet (1968) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2010 # UIGY-9038]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 39:37 minutes | Scans included | 1,6 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 794 MB

Features the 2002 DSD mastering. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). Mastered for SACD by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering.

The Stones forsook psychedelic experimentation to return to their blues roots on this celebrated album, which was immediately acclaimed as one of their landmark achievements. A strong acoustic Delta blues flavor colors much of the material, particularly “Salt of the Earth” and “No Expectations,” which features some beautiful slide guitar work. Basic rock & roll was not forgotten, however: “Street Fighting Man,” a reflection of the political turbulence of 1968, was one of their most innovative singles, and “Sympathy for the Devil,” with its fire-dancing guitar licks, leering Jagger vocals, African rhythms, and explicitly satanic lyrics, was an image-defining epic. On “Stray Cat Blues,” Jagger and crew began to explore the kind of decadent sexual sleaze that they would take to the point of self-parody by the mid-’70s. At the time, though, the approach was still fresh, and the lyrical bite of most of the material ensured Beggars Banquet’s place as one of the top blues-based rock records of all time.

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The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) [ABKCO Remaster 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 44:04 minutes | Scans included | 1,89 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,02 GB

Without a doubt, no Rolling Stones album — and, indeed, very few rock albums from any era — split critical opinion as much as the Rolling Stones’ psychedelic outing. Many dismiss the record as sub-Sgt. Pepper posturing; others confess, if only in private, to a fascination with the album’s inventive arrangements, which incorporated some African rhythms, Mellotrons, and full orchestration. Never before or since did the Stones take so many chances in the studio. This writer, at least, feels that the record has been unfairly undervalued, partly because purists expect the Stones to constantly champion a blues ‘n’ raunch world view. About half the material is very strong, particularly the glorious “She’s a Rainbow,” with its beautiful harmonies, piano, and strings; the riff-driven “Citadel”; the hazy, dream-like “In Another Land,” Bill Wyman’s debut writing (and singing) credit on a Stones release; and the majestically dark and doomy cosmic rocker “2000 Light Years From Home,” with some of the creepiest synthesizer effects (devised by Brian Jones) ever to grace a rock record. The downfall of the album was caused by some weak songwriting on the lesser tracks, particularly the interminable psychedelic jam “Sing This All Together (See What Happens).” It’s a much better record than most people give it credit for being, though, with a strong current of creeping uneasiness that undercuts the gaudy psychedelic flourishes. In 1968, the Stones would go back to the basics, and never wander down these paths again, making this all the more of a fascinating anomaly in the group’s discography.

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The Rolling Stones – Flowers (1967) [ABKCO Remaster 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:06 minutes | Scans included | 1,59 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 838 MB

Flowers is an American compilation album by The Rolling Stones, released in the summer of 1967. The songs either appeared as singles, had been omitted from the American versions of Aftermath and Between the Buttons, were collected from studio sessions dating back to 1965, or are reissues of songs recently released on other albums. Three tracks had never been released. “My Girl”, “Ride On, Baby” and “Sittin’ on a Fence” are from the Aftermath sessions from December 1965.

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The Rolling Stones – Between The Buttons (1967) [US Versions – ABKCO Remasters 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Scans included | 1,66 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 38:35/38:34 minutes | Scans | 916 MB

The Rolling Stones’ 1967 recordings are a matter of some controversy; many critics felt that they were compromising their raw, rootsy power with trendy emulations of the Beatles, Kinks, Dylan, and psychedelic music. Approach this album with an open mind, though, and you’ll find it to be one of their strongest, most eclectic LPs, with many fine songs that remain unknown to all but Stones devotees. The lyrics are getting better (if more savage), and the arrangements more creative, on brooding near-classics like “All Sold Out,” “My Obsession,” and “Yesterday’s Papers.” “She Smiled Sweetly” shows their hidden romantic side at its best, while “Connection” is one of the record’s few slabs of conventionally driving rock. But the best tracks were the two songs that gave the group a double-sided number one in early 1967: the lustful “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and the beautiful, melancholy “Ruby Tuesday,” which is as melodic as anything Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would ever write.

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The Rolling Stones – Got Live If You Want It! (1966) [ABKCO Remaster 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:09 minutes | Scans included | 1,37 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 745 MB

A live document of the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones sounds enticing, but the actual product is a letdown, owing to a mixture of factors, some beyond the producers’ control and other very much their doing. The sound on the original LP was lousy — which was par for the course on most mid-’60s live rock albums — and the remasterings have only improved it marginally, and for that matter not all of it’s live; a couple of old studio R&B covers were augmented by screaming fans that had obviously been overdubbed. Still, the album has its virtues as a historical document, with some extremely important caveats for anyone not old enough to recognize the inherent limitations in a live album of this vintage. The first concerns the history of this release — the Got Live if You Want It! album (not to be confused with the superior sounding but much shorter, U.K.-only extended-play single, issued in England in mid-1965) was a U.S.-only release late 1966, intended to feed a seemingly insatiable American market. As a best-of album had been issued in March 1966 and Aftermath in June of the same year, and the Stones had just come off of a major U.S. tour (which proved to be their last for over three years), another album was needed, to bridge the gap in America between the those earlier LPs, the two most recent singles — “Paint It, Black” and “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” — and the Between the Buttons album, which was not going to make it out in time for the Christmas season.

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The Rolling Stones – Aftermath (1966) [US Versions – ABKCO Remasters 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Scans included | 1,78 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 53:23/42:54 minutes | Scans | 958 MB

The Rolling Stones finally delivered a set of all-original material with this LP, which also did much to define the group as the bad boys of rock & roll with their sneering attitude toward the world in general and the female sex in particular. The borderline misogyny could get a bit juvenile in tunes like “Stupid Girl.” But on the other hand the group began incorporating the influences of psychedelia and Dylan into their material with classics like “Paint It Black,” an eerily insistent number one hit graced by some of the best use of sitar (played by Brian Jones) on a rock record. Other classics included the jazzy “Under My Thumb,” where Jones added exotic accents with his vibes, and the delicate Elizabethan ballad “Lady Jane,” where dulcimer can be heard. Some of the material is fairly ho-hum, to be honest, as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still prone to inconsistent songwriting; “Goin’ Home,” an 11-minute blues jam, was remarkable more for its barrier-crashing length than its content. Look out for an obscure gem, however, in the brooding, meditative “I Am Waiting”.

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The Rolling Stones – Aftermath (1966) [UK Versions – ABKCO Remasters 2002]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Scans included | 2,14 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 53:23/42:54 minutes | Scans | 1,08 GB

The Rolling Stones finally delivered a set of all-original material with this LP, which also did much to define the group as the bad boys of rock & roll with their sneering attitude toward the world in general and the female sex in particular. The borderline misogyny could get a bit juvenile in tunes like “Stupid Girl.” But on the other hand the group began incorporating the influences of psychedelia and Dylan into their material with classics like “Paint It Black,” an eerily insistent number one hit graced by some of the best use of sitar (played by Brian Jones) on a rock record. Other classics included the jazzy “Under My Thumb,” where Jones added exotic accents with his vibes, and the delicate Elizabethan ballad “Lady Jane,” where dulcimer can be heard. Some of the material is fairly ho-hum, to be honest, as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still prone to inconsistent songwriting; “Goin’ Home,” an 11-minute blues jam, was remarkable more for its barrier-crashing length than its content. Look out for an obscure gem, however, in the brooding, meditative “I Am Waiting”.

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