Recorded:

November 16-17, 1968: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
February 10-March 31, 1969: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
April 17-July 2, 1969: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
Early-mid-September 1969: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
October 1-15, 1969: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England

Overdubbed & mixed:

October 17-November 2, 1969: Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA;
Elektra Studios, Los Angeles, USA

Producer: Jimmy Miller
Chief engineer: Glyn Johns
Released: November 1969
Original label: London Records (Polygram)

Contributing musicians:

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, Nicky Hopkins, Ry Cooder, Jimmy Miller, Ian Stewart, Al Kooper, Bobby Keys, Byron Berline, Leon Russell, Rocky Dijon, Jack Nitzsche (arranger), Merry Clayton, Nanette Newman, Madeline Bell, Doris Troy, the London Bach Choir.

Gimmie Shelter
Love in Vain
Country Honk
Live with Me
Let It Bleed
Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man
You Can't Always Get What You Want

What are your thoughts on this album?

best of the best

Their best album. One of the best albums ever. When Ry Cooder becomes a major influence and change in Keith. Fantastic songwriting. When Mick really becomes Jagger.

Midnight Rambler is relatively weak here.
Live With Me has an unrepeated groove.
Gimme Sheleter is not my cup of tea on this album.
YCAGWYW would be better without the choir.

I never listen to this album but I often listen to the songs recorded live.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 11:19 by EasterMan.

Creativity all around on this album: nine songs, all very different, all shining pearls.
Mick and Keith definitely worked themselves up to be the best songwriting duo around.
There's not one weak song around, and there's not one song that overshadows the others
either.
Though other musicians like Nicky Hopkins, Ry Cooder and Jimmy Miller might have had
influence on the results, I have the impression they were mainly inspirational. It took
the hands of the Glimmer Twins to lead all this input to some of the greatest rock songs
ever heard on this planet.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

I love every sound on this album

Quote
EasterMan
Midnight Rambler is relatively weak here.
Live With Me has an unrepeated groove.
Gimme Sheleter on this is not my cup of tea on this album.
YCAGWYW would be better without the choir.

I never listen to this album but I often listen to the songs recorded live.

I agree 100%.

Staggering how far they'd come from Aftermath and Between the Buttons to Beggars and Bleed.

Let it Bleed opens with, to this day, the greatest ever opening track to an album. Shelter. Foreboding, dark, primal, piercing. The greatest EVER Charlie Watts drum captured on tape, just pure magnificence.

A hugely diverse album that should not be, but totally IS, unimaginably cohesive.

My favorite track though, completely unexpected when I first heard it, is Monkey Man. I just find the sound of it, from the opening beautifully melodic notes, to the end, an amazing and quantum shifting of the ground for The Stones. Beautiful AND punchy. A colossal song. The piano opening was once used by Channel 9 in Perth to open up their 6.00pm News broadcasts....

Jimmy Miller captures both the sound of The Stones and the sound of the era with such purity. He deserves huge kudos for the overall feel of this record. On vinyl, just amazingly GREAT.

No weak link, no real standouts, apart from Shelter and Monkey. Overall, a stunning, staggering swagger of a record.

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Good to see you post DPM, this place ain't as good when you are on sabbatical


Let is Bleed is a great album, it is parked in my travel pack and is the CD I always put in the rental car as I pull out of the their lot, which has pair associated it with many good good times. I love that Country HONK HONK!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 11:54 by relms.

As I've said before, pound for pound this is the Stones greatest album. There is not a wasted moment on it - every song is a killer and the recording is spot on.

There are not many Stones albums where every song has been played live - only Some Girls, recently Sticky Fingers I believe. However, songs from Let It Bleed have generously been used on every Stones tour since the album was released.

Gimmer Shleter, Midnight Rambler, You Got The Silver, Monkey Man and You Can't Always Get What You Want grace many fans top 10 songs - more than half the album. You can't get much more of a higher acclaim than that.

10/10 and then some.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 12:43 by Silver Dagger.

the summit. it was all downhill after taylor joined the band.

Quote
Turner68
the summit. it was all downhill after taylor joined the band.

I'm afraid this is not your day, my dear Turner.

Quote
EasterMan
Midnight Rambler is relatively weak here.
Live With Me has an unrepeated groove.
Gimme Sheleter is not my cup of tea on this album.
YCAGWYW would be better without the choir.

I never listen to this album but I often listen to the songs recorded live.

Interesting to see your comments here. I've always considered the studio Midnight Rambler to be the definitive version.

Which live versions are better in your opinion?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 15:25 by Silver Dagger.

Quote
LuxuryStones

Quote
Turner68
the summit. it was all downhill after taylor joined the band.

I'm afraid this is not your day, my dear Turner.

oh c'mon, isn't it ok to just lob one in every once in a while? :-)
glad you took my comment in the spirit it was intended.

Quote
Turner68

Quote
LuxuryStones

Quote
Turner68
the summit. it was all downhill after taylor joined the band.

I'm afraid this is not your day, my dear Turner.

oh c'mon, isn't it ok to just lob one in every once in a while? :-)
glad you took my comment in the spirit it was intended.

Absolutely

An incredibly brilliant album, and probably Keith's claim to be the greatest studio musician ever.

Quote
marcovandereijk
Creativity all around on this album: nine songs, all very different, all shining pearls.
Mick and Keith definitely worked themselves up to be the best songwriting duo around.
There's not one weak song around, and there's not one song that overshadows the others
either.
Though other musicians like Nicky Hopkins, Ry Cooder and Jimmy Miller might have had
influence on the results, I have the impression they were mainly inspirational. It took
the hands of the Glimmer Twins to lead all this input to some of the greatest rock songs
ever heard on this planet.

Im not gonna argue but regarding Ry Cooder it was more than inspiration. That is a fact. But yes, Keith was on fire as was Mick. Micks vocals are among his best ever. Some of the best vocals of rock music ever.

Quote
Stoneburst
An incredibly brilliant album, and probably Keith's claim to be the greatest studio musician ever.

Indeed.

Quote
with sssoul
I love every sound on this album

Exactly. Every sound, every second from the intro and the touch sigh from the intro of Let it Bleed, Keiths menace slide on Rambler to that almost organic solo guitar on YCAGWYW. And every sec. of Mick's vocals. On Let it bleed he is a young man who sings like an older man. The opposite of today really.

A classic, excellent. Keith had to do it on his own as a guitarist here, and he showed it..

Another landmark in the Stones career containing only tracks which contribute to the essence of the band. The greatest are GS and LIB. MR doesn't work so fine with Keith alone, it's actually a two or even a three guitarist track. In general I hold the live versions of the songs the better ones. But one has to bear in mind that Let It Bleed was recorded in the period between BJ and MT. Both aren't very prominent on this album, it is almost a Keith alone effort as guitarist.

Love it. Every song is gold and also have this recordcover framed on the wall.

Quote
LuxuryStones
A classic, excellent. Keith had to do it on his own as a guitarist here, and he showed it..

He's not spitting out riffs in some random 80s fashion. He is consuming what he hears and what he already had but he doesn't stop there. No, he cooks an even better and new unique and outstanding meal. A new blueprint for rock music. He and Mick and Miller.

It's argubly an outstanding album, but I would like to hear it remixed. I used to play around with the isolated Gimme Sheleter tracks and remix it with Jagger louder in the mix. It sounded awesome.
Listening to this album is like bathing in excrement, not fresh.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 16:01 by RaiseTheKnife.

Great follow up to Beggar's Banquet. It is a more polished production, with Miller, Jagger and Richards in their second album together as a team.

'Gimme Shelter' really sets the tone...like SFTD does for Beggar's Banquet. The two albums are closely connected to each other, almost like Rubber Soul and Revolver were for the Beatles. I mean, the Stones reach their high point here, for the 1960s era. Love how the closing track perfectly reflects the close of the decade.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-10 16:50 by nightskyman.

LET IT BLEED is absolutely an incredible album and is always a problem when it comes to which album is their best album, period - LIB or STICKY FINGERS. Both of these albums are perfect - even considering what was not released on SF that went on EOMS.

Perhaps the brilliance of LIB is that it doesn't have Honky Tonk Women on it. Then again, we're just used to it that way. And the finished songs they left off: Jiving Sister Fanny, Sister Morphine, Downtown Suzie, I Don't Know Why and I'm Going Down were considered too weak, possibly, to make the album. Sister Morphine and I Don't Know Why are the greatest of these leftovers and could have worked on the album.

Quote
GasLightStreet
LET IT BLEED is absolutely an incredible album and is always a problem when it comes to which album is their best album, period - LIB or STICKY FINGERS. Both of these albums are perfect - even considering what was not released on SF that went on EOMS.

Perhaps the brilliance of LIB is that it doesn't have Honky Tonk Women on it. Then again, we're just used to it that way. And the finished songs they left off: Jiving Sister Fanny, Sister Morphine, Downtown Suzie, I Don't Know Why and I'm Going Down were considered too weak, possibly, to make the album. Sister Morphine and I Don't Know Why are the greatest of these leftovers and could have worked on the album.

'Sister Morphine' fits better on SF.

Quote
nightskyman

Quote
GasLightStreet
LET IT BLEED is absolutely an incredible album and is always a problem when it comes to which album is their best album, period - LIB or STICKY FINGERS. Both of these albums are perfect - even considering what was not released on SF that went on EOMS.

Perhaps the brilliance of LIB is that it doesn't have Honky Tonk Women on it. Then again, we're just used to it that way. And the finished songs they left off: Jiving Sister Fanny, Sister Morphine, Downtown Suzie, I Don't Know Why and I'm Going Down were considered too weak, possibly, to make the album. Sister Morphine and I Don't Know Why are the greatest of these leftovers and could have worked on the album.

'Sister Morphine' fits better on SF.

Well of course it does, that's how we know it. If it had been on LIB you'd say the same thing, because that would be how we know it. Considering the song subjectry on LIB Sister Morphine would've fit in perfectly on LIB.

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Stoneburst
An incredibly brilliant album, and probably Keith's claim to be the greatest studio musician ever.

What, better than John Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Mingus etc.. I don't think so.
He's clearly shit hot on this album though, i'll give you that.

Very uneven album. These days by far my least favorite and least played of the big 4, actually havn't played it in a decade at least, Love in Vain and Midnight Rambler are great songs but recorded very poorly. Would never listen to the studio version of either one. Country Honk is an awful song.