All Down The Line

Batten the hatches, boys and girls. It's about as silly as can be, but I haven't been this excited about a new release since...well, since Some Girls in 1978. And this is just a reissue. I say "just", but as noted in a previous posting, it is this humble blogger's opinion that Exile On Main Street is the greatest start to finish rock and roll record ever made. It's big, it's sloppy, it's murky, it's dirty (very), it's mumbled, it's awash in a drug induced haze, it is everything I love about rock and roll.

Take your Abbey Road/Pink Floyd/technical perfection and tell it to Mozart. Rock and roll is a euphemism for sex folks, and as Woody Allen famously pointed out, sex is only dirty if it's done right. And let's face it, nobody is gonna think about sex with Comfortably Numb playing, now are they? ("Oh dear, I'm all numb..dead from the waist down, as it were")

So, onto the reissue. Thankfully, they didn't clean it up too much. And this is why I'm excited. Had an incredible fear that you'd actually be able to tell what Jagger was singing on Let It Loose, or for that matter any of the damned songs. He once said Fats Domino told him the only parts you should be able to figure out are the choruses (a la Blueberry Hill) and he stuck to it on Tumbling Dice. Hell he could be singing verses of the bible for most of the record, and you wouldn't know it.

So, yeah, the drum sound is a bit clearer, the bottom end a bit more forceful, but the mass of horns, the gospel choirs, Nicky Hopkins and that wonderful piano (just pounding on Soul Survivor) Mick Taylor and the slide, are all still just hitting you in the head, in all their massed (and massive glory). I don't even give a damn about the "bonus" tracks. As long as they didn't screw up the real deal, I am happy...and they didn't. Oh joy.

On a side note, it would be a mistake not to point out the one serious foul up. What's with the packaging? No postcards, the inner sleeves aren't reproduced. Might have to see what the Japanese do-they always do these things right!