Let It Bleed is the eighth album by English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in late-November 1969 by Decca Records/ABKCO Records in the United Kingdom and London Records/ABKCO in the United States. The follow up to 1968's Beggars Banquet and the last album by the band to feature Brian Jones, it appeared shortly after the band's 1969 American Tour.
History
Although they had begun the recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in May 1968, before Beggars Banquet had been released, recording for Let It Bleed began in earnest in February 1969 and would continue sporadically until November. Brian Jones performs on only two tracks, playing the autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on "Midnight Rambler" (although the latter is not audible on normal playback equipment). His replacement, Mick Taylor, plays guitar on two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live With Me". Keith Richards, who had already shared vocal duties with Mick Jagger on "Connection", "Something Happened to Me Yesterday", and "Salt of the Earth", sang his first solo lead vocal on a Rolling Stones recording with "You Got the Silver".
The album has been called a great summing up of the dark underbelly of the 1960s.[citation needed] Let It Bleed is the second of the Stones' run of four studio LPs that are generally regarded as among their greatest achievements artistically, equalled only by the best of their great 45s from that decade. The other three albums are Beggars Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971), and Exile on Main Street (1972).[6]
The album is often thought to be a response to Let It Be by The Beatles; though the Beatles would not release either the song or the album of that name until 1970, the major recording sessions had taken place in January 1969, prior to the majority of the Let It Bleed sessions, and it was generally known that the project existed. Theories vary as to whether the title was making fun of the Beatles' misplaced optimism and inability to complete their own album, or was an expression of solidarity with a recording process that had been just as taxing as the Stones'.
Released in December, Let It Bleed reached #1 in the UK (temporarily knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road out of the top slot) and number 3 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in the US, where it eventually went double platinum. The album was also critically well-received.
In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Let It Bleed the 69th greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 28 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001, the TV network VH1 placed Let It Bleed at number 24 on their best album survey. In 2003, it was listed as number 32 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In August 2002, this album was reissued in a new remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records.
Cover
The cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn.[7] The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph, and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a tape canister labelled Stones - Let It Bleed, a clock face, a pizza, a tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The cake parts of the construction were prepared by then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith.[8] The reverse of the LP sleeve[9] shows the same "record-stack" melange in a state of disarray. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was Automatic Changer.[10]
The inside of the album sleeve features the message "This record should be played loud".
The track listing on the record sleeve did not follow the tracklisting on the record. According to Brownjohn, he altered the track listing purely for visual reasons; the correct order was shown on the record's label. When ABKCO first issued the album on CD in 1986, the CD track listing followed that of the LP sleeve, not the actual track order of the original album. This was corrected on the 2002 re-issue.
Track listing
All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.
- Side one
- "Gimmie Shelter" – 4:30
- "Love in Vain" (Robert Johnson) – 4:19
- "Country Honk" – 3:07
- "Live with Me" – 3:33
- "Let It Bleed" – 5:27
- Side two
- "Midnight Rambler" – 6:52
- "You Got the Silver" – 2:50
- "Monkey Man" – 4:11
- "You Can't Always Get What You Want" – 7:30
Personnel
- The Rolling Stones
- Additional personnel
Sales chart performance
- Album
- Singles
| Year |
Single |
Chart |
Position |
| 1973 |
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" |
The Billboard Hot 100 |
42[14] |
References
