The Rolling Stones
Their Satanic Majesties Request
1967, London Records
I guess that I can understand why the longtime members of the Rolling Stones look back on this album with all the fondness that one might remember a case of food-poisoning. Despite their history of drugs and decadence and how the mere mention of their name conjures up fleshy images of the over-the-top rock star lifestyle, they ARE professionals. At least today, when they’ve cleaned up, fart through silk, blow their noses with $100 bills and play for huge crowds at the Palmolive Dish Soap Arena and the Speed Stick Deodorant Ampitheatre, where people pay three-figure sums (or more) for tickets to NOT hear shambling, lysergic drug-bombs such as “Sing This All Together” or “Gomper”.
With the exception of hit “She’s a Rainbow”, Mick ‘n’ Keith no doubt don’t want to bother with these songs today, either. Beyond a few moments, this album isn’t really them. It was a product of 1967 and if you were an English rock band then maybe you HAD to react to psychedelia in some way. Like the smell of strong pot from a fat joint, it was in the air.
You could ignore it and instead change with the times by indulging in concept albums like The Kinks and The Who did (and ignoring something is a reaction in its own way).
Or you could follow the purple flashing lights and trail of flower petals and embrace the acid and that’s what The Stones did. For one lost, crazy half a year or so, at least.
The result was out of character, strange and controversial. Decades later, Mick Jagger called it “nonsense”. Keith Richards called it “a load of crap”. It’s one of the few Stones albums of the time from which Martin Scorsese hasn’t licensed songs for his movies.
But, fuck me, it’s my favorite. I love it. As far as I’m concerned, any happy home needs a copy of Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Continue reading “Things I Will Keep #18: THE ROLLING STONES, Their Satanic Majesties Request”