[Rob In Stereo]  Reissue Done Right

The Rolling Stones’ reissue of “Exile on Main Street” provides revealing, never-before-heard outtakes in addition to the original 1972 songs.

by Rob Hamilton
June 2, 2010

In the movie “Men in Black,” Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) introduces Jay (Will Smith) to the newest in alien audio technology. “Guess I’ll have to buy the ‘White Album’ again,” Kay quips. This joke becomes more and more apt with each passing year as audio technology evolves.

Ideally, reissues should give you further insight into the recording process of the album, giving you a deeper understanding or new perspective on the music. In recent years, The Band, The Clash and The Velvet Underground have done just this with some of their classic albums.

The Rolling Stones, on the other hand, have traditionally done the opposite, reissuing albums with no added material and still asking their fans to purchase them. The Stones re-released their entire early catalog a few years ago in a new, clearer, “superaudio” format that never really caught on and has since gone the way of the minidisk.

The new reissue of “Exile on Main Street,” originally released in 1972, thankfully bucks this trend.

“Exile,” like “The White Album” by The Beatles, is an album that demands to be owned on any and all mediums. It is an undeniable classic and contains some of the band’s finest songs, as well as capturing the Stones in their most self-destructive phase.

The range of styles on “Exile on Main Street” is as varied as the drugs and vices passing through the storied recording session itself. The album swings with reckless, delightful disjointedness from a classic Stones guitar sound on “Happy” (with Keith Richards singing), to gospel with “Shine a Light,” to country with “Sweet Virginia,” to R&B with “Tumbling Dice.” The mastery the band shows over every genre is impressive, with “Tumbling Dice” in particular ranking among the best R&B crossover songs ever recorded.

It’s the outtakes, though, that make this version of “Exile” worth purchasing. The reissue includes songs that didn’t make the cut on the original album, and they give you a glimpse at the manic level on which the Stones were recording in these sleepless, drug-infused sessions. The record also give us outtakes of two of the album’s classics, “Loving Cup” and “Soul Survivor,” which show the different directions the songs nearly took. The former is a slowed-down, countrified version of the song, with the guitar as the driving instrument as opposed to the piano. The latter features Keith Richards on vocals, sounding every bit as haggard and beaten as legend says he was during the “Exile” sessions. Neither song can quite match the quality of the album cuts, but they still provide illuminating insight into what “Exile on Main Street” could have been.

With a new Rolling Stones release, it is always best to be wary of a money grab. But re-release of “Exile on Main Street,” is a new perspective on a classic album that I recommend you purchase no matter how many formats you already own.

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