Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album: Beggars Banquet
Year: 1968
And finally we hit 1968. 1967 had about 30 albums on the list here...quite a variety...quite the endurance test. We'll see if 1968 offers the same.
Time for another Rolling Stones album. To this point, I have not really cared much for the Stones' material. The two albums I've already heard for this collection were not particularly good in my opinion. I thought their self-titled debut was a qualified success, worth a mention more as a curiosity than based on its merits. Aftermath just annoyed the piss out of me. It had a couple good songs but was mostly a big pile of filler. I believe I ended my thoughts on that album by stating that The Rolling Stones made music for people not intellectual enough to appreciate better. Harsh words, but based on what I've heard so far, I truly believe that contemporaries like The Beatles, The Who, and The Kinks have had much more to offer.
Beggars Banquet is, thankfully, a much better effort. You can tell that the band really focused on songwriting this time out. This album is a stripped-down, country rock affair with an emphasis on more thoughtful lyrical content. The murky, failed attempt at psychedelia that I disliked about the last album is gone. And I can finally start to see why the Stones became as popular as they did.
"Sympathy for the Devil" starts things off with a little Latin flair, a catchy song with good lyrics before things devolve into an annoying chorus of "whoo whoo's" at the end. "Street Fighting Man" is a driving rocker in the vein of Bob Dylan. Both of those songs are pretty good ones, and among the group's most popular. I think the best song in this set, however, is the populist anthem closer "Salt of the Earth," a strangely affecting tune replete with a totally-over-the-top gospel choir backing and a killer melody.
I'm still not on board with the Stones completely. But I am glad to see that Beggars Banquet represents a huge step forward in their songwriting. Songs like "Salt of the Earth" show that this is a band capable of more maturity than they exhibited on their first couple albums. I'm hoping the upward trend continues here, as I still have at least a couple more Stones albums to visit before the 1001 albums finish up.
Rating: Worth a listen
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