<<posts like this only serve to strengthen the points I made earlier.>>

So I'm here to serve you, am I? Dream on, baby.

<<this is an outtake for a reason-its just not very good.>>

But I still like it, regardless of your opinion. So, sorry, no sale.

------

All these self-righteous posters putting their opinions ahead of others like they're spouting the gospel. Just hilarious.

the next one

Quote
71Tele

Quote
swiss

Quote
lem motlow
tele is exactly right- if you think some of the songs on exile should'nt be on there you are clueless.plain and simple.

its not a matter of opinion-the record is a perfect rock and roll masterpiece without a flaw.if you think some of the songs shouldnt be there you dont understand the record and its a fair assumption that you are a fan of the stones yet they're not your favorite band.
you probably dont completely understand their music or its not your main focus of interest as far as rock and roll is concerned.

if they are your favorite band and you think exile contains"filler" you still have a lot of learning to do.

I would recommend that those who consider Exile to have filler take a cross-country drive or lock
themseves in a cabin somewhere and listen to it back to back to back to back more or less for a few
days...and then revisit the notion of "filler."

Exactly Swiss! It seems I touched a nerve here...why? All I did was respond to some comments that Exile contained "filler" with the opinion that some people are missing things about the mood and the intent of the album. They make statements about containing filler, being better as a single album, being overrated, etc., which says to me they don't "get" the record as a piece of music or an artistic statement. I certainly didn't personally attack anyone for their preferences. I stated an opinion which was in direct response to their opinions. And yes, I am passionate about this great work, so I am passionately arguing the point, as one would in a bar with a good friend.

So: If someone thinks Exile is too long or contains too many "filler" songs I again gently suggest that they might be missing something. It's an album that reveals more treasure with each listen. The minor songs are an essential part of the whole. The major songs like Tumbling Dice or Happy provide high points, but it's the grit and murk of Just Wanna See His Face, Venntilator Blues, et. al., that take you deeper. The 18 songs, played in the particular order Mick and Keith carefully thought through, make an artistic statement, create a mood, That's what art is supposed to do.

I am not going to apologize for offending anyone because A. It wasn't my intent, and B. I wasn't singling out anyone for personal criticism. I WAS, however responding to comments I feel are just...wrong. That's kind of what I thought people do when discussing or debating art or music.

The album is quite simply the Stones' celebration of the American music (mostly black) that inspired them. It has boogie-woogie, soul, blues, gospel, and country. It's the quintessential Rolling Stones album for that reason (and many others). I think a certain percentage of Stones fans (and people on this board) approach the Rolling Stones as if they are a mere "rock" band like AC/DC or Guns & Roses. While the group has certainly done their fair share of rock, they are not really a rock band in my opinion. Those more versed in rock may not enjoy Exile as much or understand why others do. It's not putting anyone down to say it, I just think it's a fact.

Tele,
You know the line (of course you do) "But for me it seems it means my life/While for you it
could just be a living"? I don't even have to finish the thought, because I'd guess you probably know
what I'm about to get at. But, without overarticulating something that is pretty hard to articulate,
there are different ways that people relate to music, art...whatever...the Stones....Exile. For some
people Exile is maybe not quite "just another album," but also not a work of art that breathes.
I broke up with a guy who constantly made statements like Exile is full of filler. Part of me can
accept statements like that from people generally ambling around in the world - everyone's entitled to
their own "opinion" yadda yadda (of course), but to me (and to you, and others), at any kind of
other level (like someone you'd actually be close to) it's an unfathomable statement to make, or
something unfathomable to believe. Music being something in the background rather than the soul's lifeblood.

But all the above is what I mean about overarticulating something that's nigh on impossible to articulate.
How do you describe the color of a sunflower to someone who asks what it is? Maybe some people live more
"lightly"....or experience life, art, or music more lightly? maybe they don't ever experience something
like Exile in all its turgid multidimensional glory? Or maybe they do, but don't happen to know Exile
intimately...? [yet] Like, I have a relationship with, say, Black & Blue, that's more like a person I met
at a party and didn't mind hanging with for a while, in fact had some moments of enjoyment, but who I won't
walk around thinking about (or still feeling their presence) days afterward, and who I'm perfectly happy
to run into again. But Exile...? That's something altogether different. Maybe not for everyone tho...

I like what Lem says about the football game - and all you're saying about it.

Sometimes people talk about, like, Oasis, with the "depth" or whatever we're discussing Exile right now. I
can't go there, for whatever reason. I can't access what they're saying. And with Oasis I believe there's
probably something real enough there, but for some bands (or films or whatever), I not only can't
access what they're saying, it sounds pretentious and fussy and sort of eccentric or weirdly invented,
like people on some kind of god-trip.I don't think we're "religious" about Exile (at all), but maybe it
seems like that to people who speak rather cavalierly about "filler." Like, jaysus, get over yourselves - it's
just a fricking record. Meanwhile, to the likes of us, it's like blithely disregarding, truly, a masterpiece.

And you're simply stating that your opinion is they're objectively missing something. And they're stating
it's arrogant for you to hold that view because perception/appreciation of music and art is totally subjective.

added later after reading the posts that came after the one I quoted above - and not all that related to overrated/underrated.

Witness, particularly...in some ways what you say about "stories" - I work at UC Berkeley right now, and am very
familiar with this post-modern [not to disparage it] interpretation of...pretty much everything from history to art
to moments in life -- i.e., all of reality. A brilliant 20-year-old history major was telling me a few weeks
ago it's not even about "stories" or experiences, but these infinite, little paradigms, completely subjective,
connected or not connect by way of chaos theory, or even more complex than all that.

In approaching my film documentary about Altamont--and in dialogue with a publisher about an Altamont
book--I have thought it would be enough to present the multiple perceptions and realities, and "stories"
of Altamont. But now I'm beginning to revisit that. Maybe it is too facile to say everything is up to
interpretation, everything is radically subjective. Because, yes, it is--and in this era of atheism
[and I use that term here, broadly and generically, to mean no beliefs, not just conventional notions
of god]--there's a rejection of any notion of objectivity or Truth. Claims of objectivity and Truth often
having been the bastions of the despots of various stripes - from dictators to advertising agencies - so we
free ourselves from ideological despotism by discarding the possibility that there are objective "truths."
So...not any big point here, except--due to this discussion and exploration--I may be rethinking my take on
the Altamont story/stories...or maybe I will be digging even farther into my initial conviction that the
only way to approach it is in representing all the congruent realities as best as possible---I've always
thought that being able to evoke and represent the nature of simultaneous infinite realities/stories
through this film would be a boon. But given this conversation we're all having here am beginning to
wonder whether that's a cop-out. To say everything is all as valid and real as everything else...everything
is more or less equal...is that not saying, too, that nothing means anything? perception is everything...everything
is relative, there can be no morality, ethics are subjective...if everything means nothing and everything
all at once? Is it not a sort of nihilism?

- swiss



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-07 01:43 by swiss.

Swiss: With regard to Exile, you put it beautifully and perhaps I am guilty of some "over articulation" (nice choice of words). On the other hand the idea that all opinions are necessarily equal in all circumstances and that everything is subjective is something I struggle with. Is the Mona Lisa (to use an extreme example) equal to a painting of dogs playing poker? Most art critics, as well as humans, would say no. Now, can someone "enjoy" a bottle of Boone's Farm more than a nice aged Rhone? Sure they can! Does that mean these beverages are equal? No! I can enjoy a fast food cheeseburger, but does that mean it's as good and nutritious a meal as one served up by a fine chef with excellent fresh ingredients? I would say not. One can take this subjectivity too far, in my view.

My opera analogy was mocked, however I think it is apt. I am not versed in the traditions, history, rituals of opera. I don't know the composers, their histories and backgrounds, etc. If I see an opera I may see a bunch of people in silly costumes behaving in a melodramatic fashion and bursting into song in an incomprehensible language. But that's my subjective personal experience.It's not "wrong" per se, but it's certainly limited. It's on me to go deeper if I want to and not have such a one-dimensional experience (let alone form a strong opinion based on my limited knowledge). Now, if I get some records, read a little, learn a little, and THEN take in an opera, I might still find it's not to my taste, but my opinion comes from a different place. Likewise, if one had never heard a Slim Harpo record, driven through the American South, or been in a black church, the territory of Exile would be unfamiliar and strange to you. At this point you can either turn away from it or you can have your curiosity stimulated and hunt down those influences (as I did) and gain a greater appreciation. This depends of course on what effect the music has on you. It draws us in or it doesn't.

I think Exile is the Stones' most brilliant, but also most inaccessible record for the novice or casual fan (or rock music fan), and even for some Stones fans. My objective here is not to force anyone to love it as much as I do - a silly proposition - but to explain why I believe comments like it contains filler or is too long miss the point entirely. Now, the people who made those statements do not like the fact that I have challenged them, or maybe the way I have. I really can't help that. They said it and if they really believe it, fine, but they should be able to accept that many of us believe those statements to be groundless and for us to say so.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-07 02:58 by 71Tele.

Yeah Tele, I think it's the inaccessibility of Exile that had critics initially confused but it's also the 'War and Peace' of novels that gives one the ultimate reward if you're willing to invest the time.

So, I understand you're saying 'you feel sorry for people that don't get it' (paraphrasing) and I also understand why those same people might be annoyed with your pity as they haven't necessarily made the same investment.

I can honestly say Exile is the record that I most listen to, and for some reason don't tire of.

I'm not even saying it's their best record (Sticky or LIB on any given day), but it's my favourite.

Edited beginning: This post is meant as a response to Swiss' post.

However, I do not deny that there is or may be a truth about a subjectmatter. My question was and is, whether I know for sure that what I tell about that subjectmatter, is the truth about it? Or am I limited to tell stories about it?

This should be sufficient to show that I don't hold that to say everything is all as valid as to say everything else. So my outlook is not a post-modernist one.

I started my earlier post as I did, as a short way of addressing Tele71's view on EXILE. Written on my mobile Apparently, too short formulated. Or maybe it was my use of the term "stories" that gave rise to the interpretation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-07 03:14 by Witness.

Quote
treaclefingers
Yeah Tele, I think it's the inaccessibility of Exile that had critics initially confused but it's also the 'War and Peace' of novels that gives one the ultimate reward if you're willing to invest the time.

So, I understand you're saying 'you feel sorry for people that don't get it' (paraphrasing) and I also understand why those same people might be annoyed with your pity as they haven't necessarily made the same investment.

I can honestly say Exile is the record that I most listen to, and for some reason don't tire of.

I'm not even saying it's their best record (Sticky or LIB on any given day), but it's my favourite.

Well, I seem to be good at annoying people ...I have been on the other end of the argument with Grateful Dead fans, so I understand how frustrating it can be to be told "you don't get it", but there are some things that each of us truly doesn't get. Could be Exile, the Grateful Dead, or (in my case) the novel "A Confederacy Of Dunces". But I'm ok with not getting it.

Exile is the one record I can listen to any time, any place, in any mood (almost).

That an album/band can illicit such strong, passionate views is amazing. If art can do that it's doing something right.

<<Exile is the one record I can listen to any time, any place, in any mood (almost).>>

Good for you. I'd never begrudge you the joy or the passion you derive from what is most certainly your favorite Stones album. Perhaps for you Exile brings you to that ecstatic level like no other.

However, different people find those heights through different sources. I myself feel that, in terms of albums of songs played from start to finish, Let It Bleed is their finest hour, their moment of perfection, never to be surpassed.

Others may disagree, but this is what makes life interesting. If everyone agreed on the same thing all the time, then what would be the point to living? Without someone else to bring to the table a varying viewpoint, there would never be an opportunity to look at something in a new way, no new stimulating spark to arise from a fresh insight. Other people would be like a mirror image, where you would see only yourself, and what would be the point of even leaving the house and meeting new people when you could be quite content to sit at home and admire your own reflection in the mirror?

This is all just to say that since joining this forum a couple years ago I have enjoyed your posts.

On the lighter side, I haven't had a fast food cheeseburger in nearly 3 years. I think that stuff is a parody of food and ought to be displayed in the front windows of joke shops, because you are playing a practical joke on yourself every time you allow one of those microwaved whoopee cushions to wash through your system--but don't let my opinion which I regard as fact spoil your enjoyment the next time you prank yourself with a fake food meal. If you enjoy Turd On The Bun, then that's your business.

Cheers, or should I say, Cheese!

Stonehearted - Pound for pound I too think Let It Bleed is their greatest album. Exile, though, I think is their most inspired and inspiring. We're fortunate that they made both those albums and a good few others beside.

Myself I thought for some years that BEGGARS BANQUET was their greatest album. However, always strongly challenged by either or both of LET IT BLEED or STICKY FINGERS. Very seldom foremost by EXILE ON MAIN STREET, although always right behind. Then I always have had my roots as listener in the first of not only one, but two preceding periods. I have often noticed that I many times enjoyed seemingly not quite as great music from then higher than the '68-'72 studio period. Then I also had some rather great preference for music from three out of four albums, starting with SOME GIRLS.

Out of all this followed rather long ago another outlook: I resign as to ranking albums and music within a large quantity of albums. Instead I operate with as many as 12 great studio albums (with German Decca's compilation of the most of two EPs and a couple of very early singles AROUND AND AROUND included). I even appreciate their latest two studio albums quite much. Not great, maybe not semi-great, but verging on the semi-great. And I acknowledge what you said recently, stonehearted, about how the band in later decades has released much material on each occasion, somewhat unedited, by virtue of their releases being far between. Then we as listeners ought to value what we find great, without so much to denigrate wholes that are given us in such a manner. Because it is remarkable that we do not at all agree as to what is not fully as great in those releases, where is also included material we might find quite good or even outright good.

However, where at least a couple of albums more or less are completely without weaker tracks, I find the preceding discussion on EXILE ON MAIN STREET very interesting on one point. That is, where the greatness of EXILE consists in experiencing on first sight and hearing not so fully and thoroughly great material, all the same during the protracted listening process, becoming much greater by the way it is performed. For many listeners assuming a greatness that has an excellence at least on par or even greater than with the albums that in a more uncomplicating way are without weaknesses. On that score, I read Tele71 as one witness that claims this conclusion by referring to his personal approach by his journey into the depths of this part of Rolling Stones music. We others will mean that we have made our own journeys, by other approaches, more or less deep, maybe. However, I find in Doxa's posts an exposition of causes and effects that make me agree to the claim that as to EXILE especially, seemingly socalled "fillers" end up in having their own delight as genuine non-"fillers".

The later edit: Correction of a printing error.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-07 20:05 by Witness.

There are many blues and rock fans who are not enjoying Exile, Tele.

It's not because they're not getting the universal truth of its greatness. What they're not getting is YOUR experience of its greatness.

There are many on this board who don't like the Stones's experimental sides, nor their flirtation with country, for instance.

They get what they like and don't like, without being inferior in any kind of way.

IMO, it isn't so strange that fans who enjoy their early 60s output the most find filler material on Exile.

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There are many blues and rock fans who are not enjoying Exile, Tele.

It's not because they're not getting the universal truth of its greatness. What they're not getting is YOUR experience of its greatness.

There are many on this board who don't like the Stones's experimental sides, nor their flirtation with country, for instance.

They get what they like and don't like, without being inferior in any kind of way.

IMO, it isn't so strange that fans who enjoy their early 60s output the most find filler material on Exile.

Of course that is true. But what you may be forgetting is that my comments were a response to specific opinions about Exile containing "filler" and being better off as a single LP, etc; to which my response was that if that was their opinion they must be missing something. Nothing anyone has said has changed my mind about that. Somehow the objections to my comments seem to follow the reasoning of "you like it, other people don't". So it's not really an argument about any point I was actually making.

To say "I don't enjoy Exile as much as xyz album" is one thing. To claim it contains "filler" really does suggest that that individual may not truly understand the record, or have experienced it as the artists intended. That's just true, in my opinion. I don't know how many times I can say it. If someone makes statement like that they should be able to defend it and not get personally upset that someone takes issue with it. If you posted in an art forum that you think "Picasso is overrated and we would be better of without his cubist period" you should be prepared to defend the point, or at least not be surprised when people knowledgeable about Picasso disagree.

Oh, and I never said (and do not believe) that anyone is "inferior", just that we respond and comprehend different things (I used my maligned opera analogy).

I really think a few people have interpreted my comments inacurrately and taken what I humbly think was a pretty well-reasoned (if a little strongly expressed) argument as personal criticism.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-09-07 20:26 by 71Tele.

So, after seven pages of argufying: Do we have a verdict? Is Exile on Main Street the most overrated Stones album throughout history?
Or will this thread go on forever like the Beatles versus Stones one? One of mankind's unsolved mysteries?

Quote
Stoneage
So, after seven pages of argufying: Do we have a verdict? Is it Exile on Main Street that is the most overrated Stones album throughout history?
Or will this thread go on forever like the Beatles versus Stones thread. One of mankind's unsolved mysteries?

No. It isn't.

The whole notion of overrated vs. underrated is rather distorted and meaningless on a site like this when presumably everyone is a fan of the same artists. But to answer the question, given the record's influence on other artists and through the decades it is pretty difficult to call it overrated. What people really seem to mean when they say that is that it isn't their favorite or they don't like it. I don't like the Grateful Dead. But are they "overrated"? I don't know and don't really care.

Quote
71Tele

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There are many blues and rock fans who are not enjoying Exile, Tele.

It's not because they're not getting the universal truth of its greatness. What they're not getting is YOUR experience of its greatness.

There are many on this board who don't like the Stones's experimental sides, nor their flirtation with country, for instance.

They get what they like and don't like, without being inferior in any kind of way.

IMO, it isn't so strange that fans who enjoy their early 60s output the most find filler material on Exile.

Of course that is true. But what you may be forgetting is that my comments were a response to specific opinions about Exile containing "filler" and being better off as a single LP, etc; to which my response was that if that was their opinion they must be missing something. Nothing anyone has said has changed my mind about that. Somehow the objections to my comments seem to follow the reasoning of "you like it, other people don't". So it's not really an argument about any point I was actually making.

To say "I don't enjoy Exile as much as xyz album" is one thing. To claim it contains "filler" really does suggest that that individual may not truly understand the record, or have experienced it as the artists intended. That's just true, in my opinion. I don't know how many times I can say it. If someone makes statement like that they should be able to defend it and not get personally upset that someone takes issue with it. If you posted in an art forum that you think "Picasso is overrated and we would be better of without his cubist period" you should be prepared to defend the point, or at least not be surprised when people knowledgeable about Picasso disagree.

Oh, and I never said (and do not believe) that anyone is "inferior", just that we respond and comprehend different things (I used my maligned opera analogy).

I really think a few people have interpreted my comments inacurrately and taken what I humbly think was a pretty well-reasoned (if a little strongly expressed) argument as personal criticism.

I was referring to your response. Remember that the artists themselves have hinted about Exile being too long as well. The way I see it then is that all that's left is your opinion of what they are not getting.

As I agree with you (about the quality of the album) it's obvious that I'm not taking this personally, merely objecting to that "people don't get Exile, and the artists' intent with this album". It's more complex than that for me.

I'm sorry if I wasn't accurate enough in my previous posts, and just to make it clear - this is no big deal for me.

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
71Tele

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There are many blues and rock fans who are not enjoying Exile, Tele.

It's not because they're not getting the universal truth of its greatness. What they're not getting is YOUR experience of its greatness.

There are many on this board who don't like the Stones's experimental sides, nor their flirtation with country, for instance.

They get what they like and don't like, without being inferior in any kind of way.

IMO, it isn't so strange that fans who enjoy their early 60s output the most find filler material on Exile.

Of course that is true. But what you may be forgetting is that my comments were a response to specific opinions about Exile containing "filler" and being better off as a single LP, etc; to which my response was that if that was their opinion they must be missing something. Nothing anyone has said has changed my mind about that. Somehow the objections to my comments seem to follow the reasoning of "you like it, other people don't". So it's not really an argument about any point I was actually making.

To say "I don't enjoy Exile as much as xyz album" is one thing. To claim it contains "filler" really does suggest that that individual may not truly understand the record, or have experienced it as the artists intended. That's just true, in my opinion. I don't know how many times I can say it. If someone makes statement like that they should be able to defend it and not get personally upset that someone takes issue with it. If you posted in an art forum that you think "Picasso is overrated and we would be better of without his cubist period" you should be prepared to defend the point, or at least not be surprised when people knowledgeable about Picasso disagree.

Oh, and I never said (and do not believe) that anyone is "inferior", just that we respond and comprehend different things (I used my maligned opera analogy).

I really think a few people have interpreted my comments inacurrately and taken what I humbly think was a pretty well-reasoned (if a little strongly expressed) argument as personal criticism.

I was referring to your response. Remember that the artists themselves have hinted about Exile being too long as well. The way I see it then is that all that's left is your opinion of what they are not getting.

As I agree with you (about the quality of the album) it's obvious that I'm not taking this personally, merely objecting to that "people don't get Exile, and the artists' intent with this album". It's more complex than that for me.

I'm sorry if I wasn't accurate enough in my previous posts, and just to make it clear - this is no big deal for me.

No, your arguments are always fair and reasonable. I never feel like there is animosity. As for the "artists", we know Mick Jagger is notoriously unreliable as an objective opinion about his own past work, as he seems to be uncomfortable with the idea that the band's best days are in the past, and seems to dislike when people are passionate about a particular past record, line-up, etc. Dylan is similar in this respect.

As with any work of art, we all come to our own conclusions. I just reject the notion that all records are equal and it's only people's subjective opinions that differ. Swiss articulated that idea better than I could. Enjoyment is subjective, of course, but other things are measurable or demonstrable, such as influence on musicians and the overall culture, etc.

Again, I think some people (not you) misconstrued my comments to mean I feel that everyone has to like Exile as much as I do. That is not what I was saying.