The Rolling Stones Album: “Sticky Fingers”

I have to agree with the other comments about the re-mastering here. I was quite surprised how hot it sounded. "Wild Horses" in particular, sounded like it was distorting at times. I checked my levels, and it wasn't my gear, so just out of curiousity, I opened the file in Logic to see what the waveform looked like. I knew without checking that it must have been a recent digital re-master, because it's hot as all hell, and clipping significantly on the choruses. Made me realise that for old 60s/70s music, I should really be looking for the 80s/90s cd versions I guess, or analogue. Really kind of sad, given that the 70s were so obsessed with recording quality, that all that love and care is being lost just for loudness, which you can get by turning up your amp or iPod anyway. Really don't get it... I thought the "loudness war" was limited to recent releases, quite saddened to see it's even being applied to re-masters of old music.

Great music, possibly The Stones' best album, but this is not the version to buy.

Why the Stones felt the need to compress these new remasters to make them so much louder is beyond me. This CD has a dynamic range of about 8db. Everything has been compressed to make the average volume louder. Try the new Rod Stewart remasters of A Night on the Town and Atlantic Crossing, which were not compressed to increase the volume, to see what might have been with these new Stones remasterings. I actually like the EQ choices Stephen Marcussen made in the remastering of this and the other Stones remasters, but the lack of dynamic range and compression ruin it. No bonus tracks and a loudness war remastering make this one a loser for me. Stick with the Ludwig remasters from '94 or the original CBS/Columbia CDs (the latter of which are unfairly maligned IMHO). Let's not reward this type of remastering.

It rocks hard, no mistake, and though the Stones retained thier title "World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band" with songs like Brown Sugar and Bitch, the murky, slow songs are the ones that reveal Sticky Fingers true heart. Since the release of their last studio album, Let It Bleed, the Stones world had been turned upside down in a number of ways. Founding member and former leader Brian Jones had left the band and within weeks was dead. Virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor had joined the band. The triumph of their '69 tour as well as the tragedy of Altamont. Marianne Faithful had left Mick. Keith had a baby with Brian Jones former love Anita Pallenberg. Heck, even the Beatles had broken up. And in the midst of all this chaos, the Stones released yet another of rocks' indisputably greatest albums of all time.

The Stones found the purpose to carry-on thanks to four vital factors on Sticky Fingers. Mick Taylor's presence brings a new sense of purpose to the music: before his arrival, the extended coda on Can't You Hear Me Knockin' was not a consideration. His guitar parts on Sway, Wild Horses, and Moonlight Mile employ a sophistication and a technique that bring these songs to new heights. Mick Jagger can also be heard contributing significant anount of guitar throughout the album. And though on Let it Bleed, the Stones flirted with adding horn parts, here they finally fully integrate horns into songs like Can't You Hear Me Knockin', I Got the Blues, and Bitch. The final factor was Keith's friedship with Gram Parsons: Parsons, a former member of the Byrds and credited as being the pioneer of country-rock, taught Keith about country music, and thanks to the influence, Keith was able to create songs like Wild Horses and Dead Flowers.

...

Nearly every song contains a drug reference; some overt (Can't You Hear Me Knockin', I Got the Blues, Dead Flowers, Sister Morphine), some hidden (Brown Sugar is slang for a particular form of heroin, Wild Horses verse "No offstage exits or offstage lines"...just what kind of "offstage lines" are we talking about?). And the lyrics to songs like the incredible Sway, Wild Horses, Sister Morphine, and the gorgeous Moonlight Mile depict the struggle to retain one's sense of identity and self in the face of insurmountable struggles.

Moonlight Mile - a track that Keith isn't present on - sums it all up: the rock life is one of great glory and creative fulfillment, but ultimately the one thing that can really give one's life a sense of purpose is being true to yourself and finding someone to help make it all worthwhile. "Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes/Gonna warm my bones", Mick sings, turning his back on the decadence of his life and declaring with intent "I'm coming home". The song concludes in a lovely but chilly atmosphere. Does the protagonist make it? Can he accomplish his dream of putting his past life behind him? That's left ambiguous. All that is certain is that as the enitre album makes clear, it can be a hard, cruel, uncaring world: all you can do is keep going, hoping the distance you put between you and your failures is and can be kept greater than the distance between you and your accomplishments.

I agree with the previous posts that correctly note that the new mastering on this CD is much too loud, often bringing the music to near distortion levels. One need to simply compare the waveforms (with any wave editor program) of the 94 Virgin releases with the new remasters. The 94 remasters still leave room for the music to "breath." The new remasters don't breath at all...they are in your face the whole time.

Yes, you can hear sounds in these remasters you haven't heard before. And while that is sort of neat (especially in the quieter passages), it's simply because the volume level of the quieter sounds has been significantly increased...while the louder parts have been limited to allow to bring everything to the brickwall without distorting. The end result is something the Stones never originally intended. In essence, it's like some strange sort of remix of volume levels.

And quite honestly, these remasters are painful on the ears. The lack of the dynamics of earlier issues means your ears are getting assaulted non-stop by artificially loud music. The problem is that when you remove the "quiet" from the music, you also essentially remove the "loud." The new remasters ultimately lack the punch of the 94 Virgin issues and sound shrill in comparison (even if the bass is indeed louder).

The good news is that the 94 Virgin CDs should now start showing up used more frequently as fans dump them in the mistaken notion that they are getting better sound with the newest remasters. One should be able to build up a collection of 94 Virgin CDs rather cheaply as a result.

Does it get any better than this? Here we've got the Stones at the apotheosis of their raunchiness, decadence and political incorrectness (the lyrics are priceless). Perhaps the most surprising thing about STICKY FINGERS is its eclecticism. There are the expected rockers with the requisite killer riffs ("Brown Sugar," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," and "Bitch"), classic and original blues ("You Gotta Move" and "I Got the Blues"), ballads ("Wild Horses") and a hilarious country parody ("Dead Flowers"). All of which makes this an interesting counterpoint to EXILE ON MAIN STREET, which was a more monolithic-sounding album.

From a strictly musical standpoint, this could be the most exhilirating album in the Stones' catalog, and that says a lot. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" is just staggering. It starts out as a snarling rocker, then morphs into a hypnotic Santana-like electric guitar interlude punctuated by Bobby Keyes's masterful saxophone. How this was left off of FORTY LICKS is beyond me. Billy Preston delivers a bravura organ solo in the middle of "I Got the Blues." Yup, that really is Ry Cooder playing guitar on the majestically creepy overdose song "Sister Morphine." You haven't heard that one until you listen to it alone in the dark, especially with a slight buzz. "Wild Horses" is one of their great love songs. Actually, the GIMME SHELTER documentary film has an even prettier version of that tune, with Jagger singing it with only an acoustic guitar accompaniment. "Moonlight Mile" ranks up there with "Salt of the Earth" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as one of the most cathartic closing songs on any Stones album. In my humble opinion, this rivals or perhaps even exceeds LET IT BLEED as the greatest Rolling Stones CD.

Note: In 1994 Virgin Records released a "limited edition remaster" of Sticky Fingers which replicated the original album art by Andy Warhol, including the infamous fly on the front cover that zips up and down. It sounds about as good as the Abkco remasters that came out in 2002, but is no longer in print. Virgin also released a limited edition remaster of Exile On Main Street the same year.