Exile On Main Street: What is your story?
 

Well, I was never a huge fan of this (awesome) album. I tried to listen to it maybe once or twice, but i always preferred Their Satanic Majesties Request, Let It Bleed, Beggar's Banquet, and Flowers. So, i'm having a couple of drinks with my friend 2 months ago and im flipping through his iPod. I was trying to find a song off of Flowers, but the only album he had was Exile. I was a bit lazy and did not feel like finding something else, so i played the first song... the second song... third song... and it was rocking. I wondered why I never really paid much attention to the album.

Now, I think this is definitely my favorite Rolling, Stones album and it has also jumped quickly into my top 10 albums of all time. Every single song is magic. You know that feeling you get when you fall in love someone for the first time? That's how I feel when i listen to this album.

i got it from the library and it sucked so i took it back the next day cuz i didnt want a late fee

nice

Apart for the odd decent single, I've never been interested in The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger is just too big of a douche.

niiiice

I love Exile. It's one of my favourite albums by any band. I don't recall any great conversion to it other than that on first listen it took me by surprise at how raw it was, and how all the songs seemed more sketched than complete.

I think it's one of those albums you either 'get' or not. For me, along with Elvis' Sun Sessions, The Cramps' Songs the Lord Taught Us, PG's Right Now and Guns n Roses' Appetite for Destruction, it's one of the quintessention R&R album.

definitely appreciate this album (gotta love the Robert Frank photos)
nothing like blasting "Rocks Off" at the highest volume.
so many great songs. i remember reading about how it was recorded at Nellcote and all
when i was reading up on Stones history at the time when i was getting into them and then i heard the album and it blew me away.

have you seen Cocksucker Blues? some dude actually sent it to be via mail. R Frank directed it as well.
its wild. haha.

I love the Stones. Never really did growing up. But over the last year I've fell in love with them. Haven't got this album though.

I'm so glad you've seen the light.

prob my favorite from them.

I could marry this album, I love it so much.

I've purchased it three times. First, the week it came out in 1972: what a fantastic summer soundtrack that was! Second, about two years later after my original copy was literally worn to nothing (I gave it away), and the record store manager sold me his own personal copy of the U.K. version, which was heavier vinyl and a huge improvement in sound quality (U.K. vinyl back then was true audiophile stuff, much of it). Third, about a year ago when I saw a lovely U.S. LP copy in the store window.

So today I own the U.S. and U.K. versions on LP (there are slight differences in the packaging as well), both with the complete postcard sets.

If I ever see a used CD copy for cheap, I'll probably grab that, too.

It's in my top 5 favorite of all time. It's amazing.

At low times in my life, this record has pulled me back.

Oh, and I have a poster copy of the album cover on my office wall at work, along with a poster copy of the Sticky Fingers cover and an old Rolling Stone magazine pic of Keef in a black turbin-like thing around his head.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Stones?

ahhh thats so cute, gmku :P !!!!!!!!!

but yeah, this album is just what i needed at this point in my life

Seriously, you know... It's a cliche to say, but there are those pieces of art that save you. This is one for me. It shook me out of two low points in my life (the summer it came out, a bad transition year in high school), and two years later bored and depressed in college. There's joy in this rough rockandroll LP. Real joy at making music, real joy at giving the whole world the finger.

Plus, it's just pure magic from start to finish. Amazing rock and roll that incorporates everything that makes rock and roll great--gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, country, soul. It's all there.

who cares if its cliche?

i just got out of a very long relationship, i was down for a short bit. however, when i listened to this album, it just put me in a great mood and inspired me to create. i've been doing a whole lot of drawing and i've also been making a ton of tshirts (which a friend might be selling at a boutique he owns here in houston, so thats exciting!). i honestly think this album (along with 2 other albums) have kept me sane... or at least not depressed.

i must say, i was quite surprised... didnt think the brits could pull off country... SO well!

Ha! Well, it's Keith's doing. He was actually more international at that point, not really a Brit anymore. In fact, living in "exile" in the south of France and other temporary places. Maybe that helped. That and ripping off Gram Parsons, but we won't talk about that.

By the way, a technical point that most people get wrong: It's "St." and not "Street," if you look at the actual album title. But I'll forgive you, since you're a Stones noobie.

interesting

Apparently it sounds even better if you use viagra.

I wouldn't know.

I would, and he's right. it does.

Cool. I have something to look forward to in another 20 years.

i lawled

i want to hear more of y'alls stories

My bet is I'm the only old-timer who was around when this first came out, so you might not get much in the way of fond memories.

A good book related to Exile... STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones by Robert Greenfield. A trashy, fun chronicle of the 1972 tour in support of the album.

i'll be sure to check it out

it is such a fantastic album. my mom is a huge fan of the stones which is how i got into them and she'd play all their albums up to tattoo you so it's only natural that i like the stones so much because i grew up with them.
and because they are the best rocknroll band in the world.

i read that awhile ago and i don't know how much of it i believe but it's a fairly entertaining read.

Ya know, I looked into this album way back when I first fell in love with Liz Phair and her Exile in Guyville as she used Exile on Mainstreet as her main inspiration for Guyville. So yeah I gave Mainstreet an honest shot, but, meh.

that was my avatar a million years ago.

Oh I get it, it's not cool to like Liz Phair and diss the Stones. It's been noted. ;)