Exile on Main St. Review

Recorded in the basement of a rented villa in the south of France by a band in tax exile and worse condition, and it sounds exactly like that. The mix is famously murky. Vocals sit under the band, guitars bleed into each other, and the low end is soft in a way no engineer would sign off on now, which is why the production grade sits a tier below everything else on the card.

Reviews at the time were guarded for that reason and a few were dismissive. The reappraisal came fast and it has never reversed. What the murk protects is a band playing loose and hot across country, gospel, blues and straight rock, with Keith Richards effectively running the sessions and a rotating cast of horn and piano players filling the room until it sounds crowded.

Tumbling Dice, Rocks Off, Torn and Frayed and Shine a Light are the anchors, but the album works as weather rather than as a tracklist, and it is the rare double where sprawl is the argument instead of the flaw. Critics who rank it above Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers do so precisely because it is the least tidy record the band made and the one that sounds most like people in a room.