The Rolling Stones “Exile on Main Street” released 50 years ago today, May 12th, 1972.* Recorded in France while in “tax exile” from England, Exile was their 10th/12th studio LP (UK vs US releases). It was a worldwide smash, reaching into the Top 10 virtually everywhere and hit #1 in both the UK and the US. Its 2010 reissue repeated that success (though it only got to #2 in the US that time). It is considered one of the best rock albums of all-time by almost all of the publications that rank such things and in 2012 was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

This is most likely heresy but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I have ever played the entire album from start to finish in one sitting. It’s also my least-listened to Stones album of their late 60’s to early 70’s era; I’ve listened the shit out of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers but am really only familiar with a handful of tracks off this ’72 double LP.  I’m actually more acquainted with some of the more modern and relatively underground “response” records: Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville (a “a song-by-song reply” that was “an attempt to match the songlist and pacing of the Rolling Stones album”) and Pussy Galore’s Exile on Main Street (an “intentionally deconstructionist approach to remaking the original album”). Besides the singles from Exile – “Tumbling Dice” (#5 UK, #7 US) and “Happy” (sung by Keith Richards, #22 US), I also particularly like “Shake Your Hips,” “Torn and Frayed” and the only cover song on the record, Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down.” Best song title clearly goes to “Turd on the Run.”

For a contemporary and balanced review of Exile on Main Street, head to the original review by Lenny Kaye in Rolling Stone published exactly 50 years ago today – it’s excellent and not overly gushing. For example, “Exile on Main Street is the Rolling Stones at their most dense and impenetrable. In the tradition of Phil Spector, they’ve constructed a wash of sound in which to frame their songs, yet where Spector always aimed to create an impression of space and airiness, the Stones group everything together in one solid mass, providing a tangled jungle through which you have to move toward the meat of the material.” And “Still, talking about the pieces of Exile on Main Street is somewhat off the mark here, since individually the cuts seem to stand quite well. Only when they’re taken together, as a lump sum of four sides, is their impact blunted. This would be all right if we were talking about any other group but the Stones. Yet when you’ve been given the best, it becomes hard to accept anything less, and if there are few moments that can be faulted on this album, it also must be said that the magic high spots don’t come as rapidly.”

*The internet is, as always, vast and confusing so there are several different release dates by fairly reputable sources for Exile on Main St. But the official Rolling Stones Instagram has it featured today so I’m going with their expertise.