Let It Bleed
| Let It Bleed | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by The Rolling Stones | ||||
| Released | 5 December 1969 | |||
| Recorded | November 1968 and February–November 1969, Olympic Studios, London, England | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 42:13[1] | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label | Decca | |||
| Producer | Jimmy Miller | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
|
||||
| The Rolling Stones chronology | ||||
|
||||
Let It Bleed is the eighth album by English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in December 1969 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. Released shortly after the band's 1969 American Tour, it is the follow up to 1968's Beggars Banquet and the last album by the band to feature Brian Jones.
Contents |
History
Although they had begun the recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in May 1968, before Beggars Banquet had been released, recording for Let It Bleed began in earnest in February 1969 and would continue sporadically until November. Brian Jones performs on only two tracks, playing the autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on "Midnight Rambler". His replacement, Mick Taylor, plays guitar on two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live With Me". Keith Richards, who had already shared vocal duties with Mick Jagger on "Connection", "Something Happened to Me Yesterday", and "Salt of the Earth", sang his first solo lead vocal on a Rolling Stones recording with "You Got the Silver".
The album has been called a great summing up of the dark underbelly of the 1960s. Let It Bleed is the second of the Stones' run of four studio LPs that are generally regarded as among their greatest achievements artistically, equalled only by the best of their great 45s from that decade. The other three albums are Beggars Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971), and Exile on Main Street (1972).[6]
Released in December, Let It Bleed reached #1 in the UK (temporarily knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road out of the top slot) and number 3 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in the US, where it eventually went double platinum.
The album was also critically well-received. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Let It Bleed the 69th greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 28 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2001, the TV network VH1 placed Let It Bleed at number 24 on their best album survey. In 2003, it was listed as number 32 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In August 2002, it was reissued in a remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records.
Cover
The cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn.[7] The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph, and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a tape canister labelled Stones - Let It Bleed, a clock face, a pizza, a tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The cake parts of the construction were prepared by then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith.[8] The reverse of the LP sleeve[9] shows the same "record-stack" melange in a state of disarray. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was Automatic Changer.[10]
The album cover for Let It Bleed was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.[11][12]
Track listing
The track listing on the record sleeve did not follow the one on the record. According to Brownjohn, he altered the track listing purely for visual reasons; the correct order was shown on the record's label.
All songs written and composed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.
| Side one | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Gimme Shelter" | 4:30 | |||||||
| 2. | "Love in Vain" (Robert Johnson) | 4:19 | |||||||
| 3. | "Country Honk" | 3:07 | |||||||
| 4. | "Live with Me" | 3:33 | |||||||
| 5. | "Let It Bleed" | 5:27 | |||||||
| Side two | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 6. | "Midnight Rambler" | 6:52 | |||||||
| 7. | "You Got the Silver" | 2:50 | |||||||
| 8. | "Monkey Man" | 4:11 | |||||||
| 9. | "You Can't Always Get What You Want" | 7:30 | |||||||
Personnel
- The Rolling Stones
- Mick Jagger – lead vocals, backing vocals, harmonica on "Gimme Shelter" and "Midnight Rambler"
- Brian Jones – autoharp on "You Got the Silver", percussion on "Midnight Rambler"
- Keith Richards – acoustic, electric, and slide guitar, bass guitar on "Live with Me", backing vocals, lead vocals on "You Got the Silver"
- Mick Taylor – electric guitar on "Live with Me", slide guitar on "Country Honk"
- Charlie Watts – drums (except "You Can't Always Get What You Want")
- Bill Wyman – bass guitar (except "Country Honk" and "Live with Me"), autoharp on "Let It Bleed", vibes on "Monkey Man"
- Additional personnel
- Ian Stewart – piano on "Let It Bleed"
- Nicky Hopkins – piano on "Gimme Shelter", "Live with Me", "You Got the Silver" and "Monkey Man"; organ on "You Got the Silver"
- Byron Berline – fiddle on "Country Honk"
- Merry Clayton – vocals, backing vocals on "Gimme Shelter" (credited as "Mary Clayton" on the LP and 2002 CD remaster)
- Ry Cooder – mandolin on "Love in Vain"
- Bobby Keys – Tenor saxophone on "Live with Me"
- Jimmy Miller – percussion on "Gimme Shelter", drums on "You Can't Always Get What You Want", tambourine on "Monkey Man"
- Leon Russell – piano and horn arrangement on "Live with Me"
- Jack Nitzsche – choral arrangements on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
- Al Kooper – piano, French horn and organ on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
- Nanette Workman – backing vocals on "Country Honk" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (not actress Nanette Newman as credited on the LP)
- Doris Troy – backing vocals on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
- Madelaine Bell – backing vocals on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
- Rocky Dijon – percussion on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
- The London Bach Choir – vocals on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"[13]
Sales chart performance
- Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1969 | UK Albums Chart | 1[14] |
| 1969 | Billboard Pop Albums | 3[15] |
- Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | "You Can't Always Get What You Want" | The Billboard Hot 100 | 42[16] |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Let It Bleed". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:d9fexqt5ldfe. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ "The Rolling Stone Let it Bleed". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/6hmq/. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ "Let It Bleed CD". Muze Inc.. http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/4940211/a/Let+It+Bleed.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ↑ Jason MacNeil. "The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". PopMatters. http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/r/rollingstones-letitbleedmft.shtml. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ "Album Reviews: The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/therollingstones/albums/album/158769/review/6067534/let_it_bleed. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ Steven Van Zandt. "The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time: 4) The Rolling Stones". The RollingStone. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939207/4_the_rolling_stones. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ Robert Brownjohn from the Design Museum website
- ↑ Delia Smith from loog2stoned.com
- ↑ Back cover image from the Design Museum website
- ↑ Wyman, Bill. 2002. Rolling With the Stones
- ↑ "Classic Album Covers: Issue Date – 7 January 2010". Royal Mail. http://www.royalmail.com/portal/stamps/content1?catId=32300674&mediaId=112400790. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
- ↑ Michaels, Sean (8 January 2010). "Coldplay album gets stamp of approval from Royal Mail". London: The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/08/coldplay-album-stamp-approval. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
- ↑ The choir asked to have its name removed from the album's credits.
- ↑ Record Retailer
- ↑ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Albums List (1964-2008)". BeatZenith. http://www.beatzenith.com/the_rolling_stones/rsalbumslist.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
- ↑ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Singles List (1963-2006)". BeatZenith. http://www.beatzenith.com/the_rolling_stones/rsingleslist.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book
Category
Portal 
WikiProject
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||