Exile on Main St.
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Exile on Main St. is a studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was first released as the band's first double album on 12 May 1972 by Rolling Stones Records and was the band's tenth studio album released in the United Kingdom, as well as their twelfth American album. Recording for the album began in 1969 in England during sessions for Sticky Fingers and continued in the summer of 1971 at a rented villa in the South of France named Nellcôte while the band lived abroad as tax exiles. A collage of various images, the album's artwork, according to frontman Mick Jagger, reflects the Rolling Stones as "runaway outlaws using the blues as its weapon against the world", showcasing "feeling of joyful isolation, grinning in the face of a scary and unknown future".
Working with a mobile recording studio, the loose and unorganised Nellcôte sessions went on for hours into the night, with personnel varying greatly from day to day. The recording was completed with overdub sessions at Los Angeles's Sunset Sound and included additional musicians such as pianist Nicky Hopkins, saxophonist Bobby Keys, drummer Jimmy Miller and horn player Jim Price. The resulting music was rooted in blues, rock and roll, swing, country and gospel, while the lyrics explored themes related to hedonism, sex and time. These newly recorded tracks were combined with some tracks recorded at earlier sessions from 1969–1971, resulting in the Stones' first double album.
Exile on Main St. contains frequently performed concert staples and was a number one charting album in six countries, including the UK, US, and Canada. It spawned the hit songs "Happy", a rare song that featured Keith Richards on lead vocals, country music ballad "Sweet Virginia", and world-wide top-ten hit "Tumbling Dice". A remastered and expanded version of the album was released in 2010 featuring a bonus disc with 10 new tracks. Unusual for a re-release, it also charted highly at the time of its release, reaching number one in the UK and number two in the US on the album charts.
The album was originally met with mixed reviews before a positive critical reassessment during the 1970s. It has since been viewed by many critics as the Rolling Stones' best work and a culmination of a string of the band's highly critically successful albums, following the releases of Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971). Rolling Stone has ranked Exile on Main St. number 7 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003 and 2012, and dropping to number 14 in the 2020 edition, the highest Rolling Stones album ranked on the list. In 2012, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the band's fourth album to be inducted.
