The original Exile, for me, is the zenith of rock and roll. Well over an hour, double-vinyl, four years in the making. Spectacular. Deliberately ramshackle and rough-sounding, akin to The White Album, it has pride of place as my favourite LP of all time. Every track is dynamite, from the pure rock and roll of Rocks Off, Happy and All Down The Line, to the gospel and white soul of Shine a Light and Let It Loose. A music fan with tastes ranging from Miles Davis to the Smiths via Echo and the Bunnymen, the Stooges and LCD Soundsystem, it is Exile on Main St. which for me stands out of the pinnacle of the album format in the last sixty years of popular music.Disc one remains untouched, naturally, bar a bit of polishing and tidying up, giving it a twenty-first century gloss but at the same time maintaining the early 70s groove. All in all, all any remaster reviews are reviews of the new bits. Disc 2 is 41 minutes, 10 tracks. Some of it is really good: Plundered My Soul and Dancing In the Light are up to the standard of the stuff on the main album, if a little bit of a departure. The rest, naturally, is not up to that ridiculously high standard, but still enjoyable enough for non-die hard Stones fans.
Overall, this is worth a purchase if you don't already have a copy of the album. If you do, perhaps just download the second disc. It's good, of course, but there is no mystery to why these tracks didn't make the cut: the better tracks are top notch but there's no seeing where they'd fit in amongst the likes of Sweet Virginia and the sublime Tumbling Dice, whereas the rest aren't up to the standard.
Exile on Main St.: 10/10 (indispensable, unsurpassed)
Additional extras: 6.7/10 (ok, a little half-baked)
Enjoy.
D.
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