In a past life, Fresh and the Qualifier used to get paid to write about music. For years they toiled through a tag-team article called Counterbalance, going head to head, hashing out the relative merits of new releases for the local Chicken Dinner Newspaper. But that was a long time ago - before the economy crashed, sending their frivolous Arts & Entertainment section down in flames.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
In 1972, the world's biggest rock band was holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to the American music they loved. The result is now hailed as their masterwork. But can any album live up to the accolades that the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. has received? Fresh and the Qualifier separate the fever from the funk house - now!
Qualifier: Ah... that opening riff... the salacious "Oh yeaahhhh..." that sweet, sweet groove... Truly, my friend, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better side one/track one tune than "Rocks Off" from the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. And from there the rock just keeps coming, for 67 glorious minutes. I'm not gonna lie to you Freshy - Exile is quite possibly my favorite album of all time.
Fresh: You forgot the mention the horns, man, the horns! I'm going to get this out of the way as quick as I can - my first run in with the Rolling Stones was Mick Jagger's appearance in Freejack, which came at a precarious time in my musical development and pretty much turned me off of the band until many years later. Conversely, it was David Bowie's performance in Labyrinth that turned me on to his music. Go figure. Regardless, I climbed on the Rolling Stones bus just a couple years ago, but I love what they've done to and for the American blues.
After wandering in the wilderness, lost and directionless, Fresh and the Qualifier have returned to take on their most challenging assignment: the Greatest Albums of All-Time. Do these critics' darlings hold up, or are they just hyped up?
In 1972, the world's biggest rock band was holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to the American music they loved. The result is now hailed as their masterwork. But can any album live up to the accolades that the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. has received? Fresh and the Qualifier separate the fever from the funk house - now!
Qualifier: Ah... that opening riff... the salacious "Oh yeaahhhh..." that sweet, sweet groove... Truly, my friend, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better side one/track one tune than "Rocks Off" from the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. And from there the rock just keeps coming, for 67 glorious minutes. I'm not gonna lie to you Freshy - Exile is quite possibly my favorite album of all time.Fresh: You forgot the mention the horns, man, the horns! I'm going to get this out of the way as quick as I can - my first run in with the Rolling Stones was Mick Jagger's appearance in Freejack, which came at a precarious time in my musical development and pretty much turned me off of the band until many years later. Conversely, it was David Bowie's performance in Labyrinth that turned me on to his music. Go figure. Regardless, I climbed on the Rolling Stones bus just a couple years ago, but I love what they've done to and for the American blues.
Q: I'm glad to hear that the damaging effects of Freejack were only temporary. From the synopsis on Wikipedia (which, by the way, is nearly 750 words long), it sounds like it could have been quite scarring. I, of course, didn't see it, because I have the sense God gave a billy goat.
No matter, though, Exile on Main St. is unassailable, and anyone who says different probably listened to the record incorrectly. Perhaps they were vacuuming while they were listening to it, or they were on the phone with their mother. Perhaps the CD was in the player upside-down. I don't know, but I do find it interesting that one person who refuses to give Exile its due is none other than Mick Jagger. I find that quite telling indeed.
F: Mick doesn't like it? Really? Did they have his microphone turned down too low or something? Not enough grooves for him to do his chicken dance? Wait, what am I saying? This is the guy who accepted a starring role in Freejack. His judgment appears to be questionable, at best.
What I find interesting about this album is it's lack of that one monster hit. The Rolling Stones have a stable of number one songs to rival any band but a cursory look through the song titles on Exile doesn't reveal anything the Regular-Joe Radio Listener would be able to belt out in a karaoke bar.
Q: No, there's no "Brown Sugar" or even a "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on this one, to cite Exile's two preceding albums. "Tumbling Dice" was apparently a top ten single when it was released, but it certainly doesn't get the Oldies radio treatment these days. And I've gone so far as to say it's the Stones' single greatest song. Just ask Mrs. Qualifier. She'll tell you I never shut up about that song.
If low vocals are a factor in Mick's dismissal of the album, he does have a point. His voice is buried in the mix; I think it gives the album a lot of its mystery and vibe. It's kept me listening raptly for about 25 years, and I still don't think I've sorted out all the lyrics.
Nice of the band to set side two apart as a sort of country bear jamboree for us, too. When I first picked this record up, I was maybe 13, and parts of this album seemed a little too dark and impenetrable, especially on the super-druggy second LP (never before have gospel grooves sounded so unseemly). Side 2 was perfect, though - just bawdy enough to titillate, but with an overall good-timey feel to it.
F: The vocals could be turned up - way up. It sounds like Mick is singing inside of a box off to one side of the stage. But I've noticed a lot of rock bands, especially some of the emerging groups, are employing this little trick. And I don't know if its because the producers don't know how to produce or if the band is just trying to hide the fact that the lyrics are derivative. But that's not really the case with Exile.
Q: No it's not. The lyrics as I understand them are some of their best - in fact, the entire band is firing on all cylinders here. Exile is reported to be something of a rag bag of songs that they hadn't gotten around to finishing over the previous few years. It's striking, then, how they were able to turn it into a pretty cohesive whole. And it's curious too that they did something similar with 1981's Tattoo You, which to my way of thinking was their last unqualified success as an album.
It seems the Stones, like a lot junkies, tend to leave stuff lying around. It's what they do with the bits and pieces when they tidy up that sets them apart.
F: Junkies who remember to clean up after themselves? Sounds unfathomable, but then Keith Richards is still alive, so stranger things have happened. I'm going to go off on a tangent real quick. I wish the Rolling Stones would stop touring. This is going to sound selfish and evil (because it is), but every time I see those walking skeletons gyrating on stage, I lose a little bit of respect for them.
I don't begrudge them their ability to do what they love and make money hand over fist doing it, but whatever happened to that old rock and roll maxim of "it's better to burn out quickly than fade slowly away?" What's more rock and roll than releasing a string of great albums and then going down in a fiery blaze because you snuck your pet monkey on to the plane, accidentally dosed it with LSD and it ended up biting the co-pilot because his yellow uniform makes him look like a gigantic banana thus causing the plane to crash on a deserted tropical island where the band and their groupies lived for three months trying to "repopulate" the world before they were all devoured by a mysterious smoke monster?
Q: Whoa, what've you been smoking? Co-pilots wearing yellow uniforms - now I've heard everything!
Honestly, though, I think the burn out/fade away dichotomy is such a rock cliché that I wonder if it really even applies anymore. The phrase was, after all, immortalized by a guy who's now in his 60s and still making intermittently quality music. And there are plenty of other examples of aging rock stars who still have the ability to compel. The main reason the Stones are little more than a touring cash grab, I suspect, is due to their own group dynamic.
In the past, Mick and Keith have shifted the power between them as their own personal lives/problems dictate (Exile is a Keith album, Some Girls is Mick's). Now that there's less pressure on them to remain creatively fertile, they can shift the blame for their lack of "relevance" onto one another. And lord knows Ronnie's not going to upset the applecart.
But no matter what level of self-parody they may reach, no matter how much Mick may resemble the Incredible Mr. Limpet, no matter how silly Keith looks in his Flashdance-era t-shirt and bejeweled hair, Exile on Main St. is the reason why pop culture nerds like us award lifetime passes.
F: And so long as Mick doesn't make a Freejack II, that pass will remain in good standing.
No matter, though, Exile on Main St. is unassailable, and anyone who says different probably listened to the record incorrectly. Perhaps they were vacuuming while they were listening to it, or they were on the phone with their mother. Perhaps the CD was in the player upside-down. I don't know, but I do find it interesting that one person who refuses to give Exile its due is none other than Mick Jagger. I find that quite telling indeed.
F: Mick doesn't like it? Really? Did they have his microphone turned down too low or something? Not enough grooves for him to do his chicken dance? Wait, what am I saying? This is the guy who accepted a starring role in Freejack. His judgment appears to be questionable, at best.
What I find interesting about this album is it's lack of that one monster hit. The Rolling Stones have a stable of number one songs to rival any band but a cursory look through the song titles on Exile doesn't reveal anything the Regular-Joe Radio Listener would be able to belt out in a karaoke bar.
Q: No, there's no "Brown Sugar" or even a "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on this one, to cite Exile's two preceding albums. "Tumbling Dice" was apparently a top ten single when it was released, but it certainly doesn't get the Oldies radio treatment these days. And I've gone so far as to say it's the Stones' single greatest song. Just ask Mrs. Qualifier. She'll tell you I never shut up about that song.
If low vocals are a factor in Mick's dismissal of the album, he does have a point. His voice is buried in the mix; I think it gives the album a lot of its mystery and vibe. It's kept me listening raptly for about 25 years, and I still don't think I've sorted out all the lyrics.
Nice of the band to set side two apart as a sort of country bear jamboree for us, too. When I first picked this record up, I was maybe 13, and parts of this album seemed a little too dark and impenetrable, especially on the super-druggy second LP (never before have gospel grooves sounded so unseemly). Side 2 was perfect, though - just bawdy enough to titillate, but with an overall good-timey feel to it.
F: The vocals could be turned up - way up. It sounds like Mick is singing inside of a box off to one side of the stage. But I've noticed a lot of rock bands, especially some of the emerging groups, are employing this little trick. And I don't know if its because the producers don't know how to produce or if the band is just trying to hide the fact that the lyrics are derivative. But that's not really the case with Exile.
Q: No it's not. The lyrics as I understand them are some of their best - in fact, the entire band is firing on all cylinders here. Exile is reported to be something of a rag bag of songs that they hadn't gotten around to finishing over the previous few years. It's striking, then, how they were able to turn it into a pretty cohesive whole. And it's curious too that they did something similar with 1981's Tattoo You, which to my way of thinking was their last unqualified success as an album.
It seems the Stones, like a lot junkies, tend to leave stuff lying around. It's what they do with the bits and pieces when they tidy up that sets them apart.
F: Junkies who remember to clean up after themselves? Sounds unfathomable, but then Keith Richards is still alive, so stranger things have happened. I'm going to go off on a tangent real quick. I wish the Rolling Stones would stop touring. This is going to sound selfish and evil (because it is), but every time I see those walking skeletons gyrating on stage, I lose a little bit of respect for them.
I don't begrudge them their ability to do what they love and make money hand over fist doing it, but whatever happened to that old rock and roll maxim of "it's better to burn out quickly than fade slowly away?" What's more rock and roll than releasing a string of great albums and then going down in a fiery blaze because you snuck your pet monkey on to the plane, accidentally dosed it with LSD and it ended up biting the co-pilot because his yellow uniform makes him look like a gigantic banana thus causing the plane to crash on a deserted tropical island where the band and their groupies lived for three months trying to "repopulate" the world before they were all devoured by a mysterious smoke monster?
Q: Whoa, what've you been smoking? Co-pilots wearing yellow uniforms - now I've heard everything!
Honestly, though, I think the burn out/fade away dichotomy is such a rock cliché that I wonder if it really even applies anymore. The phrase was, after all, immortalized by a guy who's now in his 60s and still making intermittently quality music. And there are plenty of other examples of aging rock stars who still have the ability to compel. The main reason the Stones are little more than a touring cash grab, I suspect, is due to their own group dynamic.
In the past, Mick and Keith have shifted the power between them as their own personal lives/problems dictate (Exile is a Keith album, Some Girls is Mick's). Now that there's less pressure on them to remain creatively fertile, they can shift the blame for their lack of "relevance" onto one another. And lord knows Ronnie's not going to upset the applecart.
But no matter what level of self-parody they may reach, no matter how much Mick may resemble the Incredible Mr. Limpet, no matter how silly Keith looks in his Flashdance-era t-shirt and bejeweled hair, Exile on Main St. is the reason why pop culture nerds like us award lifetime passes.
F: And so long as Mick doesn't make a Freejack II, that pass will remain in good standing.
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