1. Sticky Fingers: The Greatest Rock and Roll album ever made. Period.
2. Exile on Main St.
3. Let it Bleed (should they have gone with HTW instead of Country Honk?)
4. BB

The core selection here is (probably) the cream of the crop regarding Stones music. Out of the four, my fave is BB which just has a certain vibe to me. I have listened to Exile more times than what is probably healthy, generally very loud or through headphones during a certain period of life, which probably is a big factor in my need to use hearing aids today. Sticky has particular songs I like but I never got into it as an album. LIB was a fave for awhile after it was released, but then became a certain songs only album for me.

Thinking about what was a golden Stones album for me, outside of Exile, the Stones album I have listened to the most is the American market version of The Rolling Stones Now. There was a long stretch of time when this was my go to album for happy times, sad times, just listen to times, stoned times and so forth. It got played a lot. I played it for a lot of people who only knew the Stones through their hits or the popular albums. They were amazed at how great the Stones sounded in their early days and asked me to record a tape (y'all remember those, right?) of the album for them. So, this is one of my golden ones.

After Exile, though I bought almost every Stones studio album that came out, they all became a certain songs only thing. The cream of all of these releases for me is the second side of Tattoo You.

For obvious reasons these four albums are considered peak Stones by the fans, but in my experience it's almost always the 60s singles that turn people into fans in the first place

Let's judge them on the number of absolute classic songs on each album. OK, I know it's subjective but my criteria is generally accepted all time classics as chosen by the Stones to be played live over the years.

1. Beggars Banquet - Sympathy For The Devil, Street Fighting Man, Stray Cat Blues

2. Let It Bleed - Gimme Shelter, Love In Vain, Midnight Rambler, You Got The Silver, You Can't Always Get What You Want

3. Sticky Fingers - Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Bitch, Dead Flowers

4. Exile On Main Street - Rocks Off, Tumbling Dice, Happy, All Down The Line


And the winners is - tie between Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers

My own favourite - Let It Bleed as it's their greatest guitar album.

my criteria for judging albums is based on 2 points, which i have done for comparing other albums.

both systems can produce different results and end up confusing rather than clarifying the result.

for the big 4 albums, list each album in order of best to worse songs, discard any excess songs on a particular album, it only works if comparing the same amount of songs, so that rules out half of exile.

compare each albums top song and award it 1 to 4 points, then do the same with the next best song, and so on till all songs have been compared with each other albums song of a similar placing, then add up results of each song and compare the totals.

option 2 is to list songs and mark out of 10 then average the album out of 10, the fact exile is twice as long as let it bleed, can dilute the result as it might not have more quality but certainly has more quantity.

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Scooby
I can’t. It’s like asking a parent to pick their favourite child!

Eggzactly! Each time I think of it, I change the order, so it doesn't really make sense to list them.

1.Sticky Fingers
2.Exile On Main Street
3.Let It Bleed
4.Beggar's Banquet

*Ya Yas wedged between Exile and LIB.

The only way to judge is by enjoyment; nothing else matters :-

Let It Bleed
Beggars Banquet
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main Street

They all sound so different that you can't compare them...and tomorrow the list can change.........
Today
1.001 Let It Bleed
1.002 Beggars Banquet
1.003 Exile on Main Street
1.004 Sticky Fingers
Tomorrow
1.001 Beggars Banquet
1.002 Let It Bleed
1.003 Sticky Fingers
1.004 Exile on Main Street

__________________________




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-09-25 01:32 by NICOS.

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Palace Revolution 2000
EXILE - IMO it is the greatest rock'n roll album ever done. The supposed "weaker" cuts are what makes it special. Lyrics are stellar.

STICKY - It is lean and mean. Not one bad wasted note on the album. It is hard to put this at #2 because it is perfect and also has that monster single
Brown Sugar/Bitch. Plus two of the greatest Stones ballads. The insane jam of CYHMK; soul and Blues and Country. I think I just slightly prefer the sheer decadence of "Exile".

BANQUET - The acoustic album. What I love about the album among other things, is how they created massive sound using imagination. Or "Thinking outside the box" as they say. The engineering of SFM. And "Sympathy" - the power of that song is fueled only by Piano, Bass and congas, shaker and drums. Plus a scorcher of a guitar solo.

BLEED - It opens with Gimme Shelter" and ends with YCAGWYW. Incredible bookends. The slight drawback IMO is the studio versions of Rambler.

You’re dead on Palace Revolution 2000!

Exile, Let It bleed, SF and BB

Let it bleed has the best songs overall but here’s my new list.

Exile: perfect album
Beggars: almost perfect album
Let it bleed: every song is great, production great but maybe it is indeed a collection of songs.
Sticky: overrated - not bad but overrated.

Exile always on top, but then....it's getting difficult.

Today :
Let It Bleed
Beggars Banquet
Sticky Fingers

There are not only these four, but in all approximately twelve albums, between which I make no internal ranking.

Impossible to rank. They’re all great and it depends on your mood

Ok, we have a result!

1) Let It Bleed ( 9 first places).
2) Exile on Main St. (7)
2) Sticky Fingers (7)
4) Beggars Banquet (4)

If you ranked the opening cut from each of those four albums...
Would you get similar results? Would people choose the song on the favorite album?

Sympathy For The Devil
Gimme Shelter
Brown Sugar
Rocks Off

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Stoneage
Ok, we have a result!

1) Let It Bleed ( 9 first places).
2) Exile on Main St. (7)
2) Sticky Fingers (7)
4) Beggars Banquet (4)

If I see this list Beggars looks like a discarder

__________________________

ive always preferred beggars to the other 3, i bought exile and sticky on the same day back in november 1988, bought beggars may 1989 and let it bleed june 1989, i already knew most songs on exile and sticky before i bought beggars, and i was really surprised, i just felt it was more mature than exile and sticky and let it bleed was great too but beggars songs which elevated it to first place where no expectations, stray cat blues, dear doctor and jigsaw puzzle, the top 4 albums top everything but 1968 for me is hard to compete with regarding the stones.

imagine if jj flash and child of the moon had been inserted to.

what a list of songs that would be

jj flash
sympathy for the devil
no expectations
parachute woman
dear doctor

street fighting man
salt of the earth
child of the moon
stray cat blues
jigsaw puzzle

Quote
buttons67
ive always preferred beggars to the other 3, i bought exile and sticky on the same day back in november 1988, bought beggars may 1989 and let it bleed june 1989, i already knew most songs on exile and sticky before i bought beggars, and i was really surprised, i just felt it was more mature than exile and sticky and let it bleed was great too but beggars songs which elevated it to first place where no expectations, stray cat blues, dear doctor and jigsaw puzzle, the top 4 albums top everything but 1968 for me is hard to compete with regarding the stones.

imagine if jj flash and child of the moon had been inserted to.

what a list of songs that would be

jj flash
sympathy for the devil
no expectations
parachute woman
dear doctor

street fighting man
salt of the earth
child of the moon
stray cat blues
jigsaw puzzle

Nice review.............. I'm ok with JJF but Child of the Moon is great but doesn't fit on BB

__________________________

The winner! Which, by the way, will turn 50 in December.

Exile
Sticker Fingers
Let it Bleed
Beggars Banquet

I've changed the order of my rankings three time since I originally posted, but tomorrow it should all realign with my original post!

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Quote
NICOS

Quote
buttons67
ive always preferred beggars to the other 3, i bought exile and sticky on the same day back in november 1988, bought beggars may 1989 and let it bleed june 1989, i already knew most songs on exile and sticky before i bought beggars, and i was really surprised, i just felt it was more mature than exile and sticky and let it bleed was great too but beggars songs which elevated it to first place where no expectations, stray cat blues, dear doctor and jigsaw puzzle, the top 4 albums top everything but 1968 for me is hard to compete with regarding the stones.

imagine if jj flash and child of the moon had been inserted to.

what a list of songs that would be

jj flash
sympathy for the devil
no expectations
parachute woman
dear doctor

street fighting man
salt of the earth
child of the moon
stray cat blues
jigsaw puzzle

Nice review.............. I'm ok with JJF but Child of the Moon is great but doesn't fit on BB

If I remember correct, child of the moon is from 1967. It has the sound of that year. Could have been the b-side of Lets spend the night together.

1. EXILE (THE BEST RECORD EVER RELEASED IN UNIVERSE)

2. BEGGARS (WHAT THE STONES IS ALL ABOUT)

3. STICKY FINGERS (BEAUTIFUL RECORD)

4. LET IT BLEED (MONKEY MAN AND GIMME SHELTER AND RAMBLER YEAH, BUT COUNTRY HONK IS their WORST EVER AMERICANA ATTEMPT, JUST PUT HTW ON THERE AND YA GOT A 10 OUTTA 10 ALBUM).

Exile
BB
Sticky fingers
Let it bleed

Four great albums from which I like Sticky Fingers best. Hence, I'd go like this:
1) Sticky Fingers
2) Exile On Main Street, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed

1. Beggars: best of Stones w Brian, and Stones w Brian are my fav version of the band.

2. Exile: best of Stones w/o Brian. Could even be my fav rock LP ever.

3. Fingers: the Back in Black of the Stones. Side 1 is perfect. Side 2 almost.

4. Bleed: like a woman that everybody considers stunning, and IS stunning, a woman that I should feel ashamed to confess I don't like, yet ...

C

Quote
liddas
1. Beggars: best of Stones w Brian, and Stones w Brian are my fav version of the band.

2. Exile: best of Stones w/o Brian. Could even be my fav rock LP ever.

3. Fingers: the Back in Black of the Stones. Side 1 is perfect. Side 2 almost.

4. Bleed: like a woman that everybody considers stunning, and IS stunning, a woman that I should feel ashamed to confess I don't like, yet ...

C

Brian's contribution to Beggars Banquet was that little (slide on NE, harmonica on DD, some percussions and background singing), you could easily count BB as the first album w/o him ...

Quote
NICOS

Quote
buttons67
ive always preferred beggars to the other 3, i bought exile and sticky on the same day back in november 1988, bought beggars may 1989 and let it bleed june 1989, i already knew most songs on exile and sticky before i bought beggars, and i was really surprised, i just felt it was more mature than exile and sticky and let it bleed was great too but beggars songs which elevated it to first place where no expectations, stray cat blues, dear doctor and jigsaw puzzle, the top 4 albums top everything but 1968 for me is hard to compete with regarding the stones.

imagine if jj flash and child of the moon had been inserted to.

what a list of songs that would be

jj flash
sympathy for the devil
no expectations
parachute woman
dear doctor

street fighting man
salt of the earth
child of the moon
stray cat blues
jigsaw puzzle

Nice review.............. I'm ok with JJF but Child of the Moon is great but doesn't fit on BB

I never quite understand these alternate album lists. The album is what it is. anything else is someone's playlist or doodling at a later date. And just stringing one's favorite tracks together can easily take all the bite out of an album. It's these obscure songs like "Prodigal Son", "Factory Girl", "Casino Boogie", "Hide your Love" that are the glue that holds all the big hitters together; as a unified piece of work. Not just a Big Hit collage.