Jump to content

Let It Bleed

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 213.162.120.45 (talk) at 16:27, 11 November 2011 (→Personnel). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the 1969 album by The Rolling Stones. For other uses, see Let It Bleed (disambiguation).

Untitled

Let It Bleed is the eighth British and tenth American 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 as well as the first to feature Mick Taylor.

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 October.[citation needed] 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".[citation needed]

Released in December, Let It Bleed reached #1 in the UK (temporarily knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road out of the top slot) and #3 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in the US, where it eventually went 2x platinum.

The album was released in US as an LP record, reel to reel tape and 8-track cartridge in 1969, and as a remastered CD in 1986. In August 2002, it was reissued in a remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records, and once more in 2010 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese only SHM-SACD version.[3]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]
BBC(favourable)[4]
Entertainment Weekly(A)[5]
The Daily Vault(A)[6]
PopMatters(favourable)[7]
Rolling Stone[8]

In his 2001 Stones bio, Stephen Davis said of the album "No rock record, before or since, has ever so completely captured the sense of palpable dread that hung over its era."[9] Indeed, the day after its 5 December release is the date of the infamous Altamont Free Concert. But the album was critically well-received.

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).[10]

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 1997 it was voted 27th greatest album by The Guardian. In 2003, it was listed as number 32 on the "List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[11]

Cover

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
A sample of The Rolling Stones's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" from Let It Bleed
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn.[12] 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.[13] The reverse of the LP sleeve[14] 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.[15]

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.[16][17]

Track listing

The track listing on the back of the album jacket did not follow the one on the album itself. According to Brownjohn, he altered the track listing purely for visual reasons; the correct order was shown on the record's label. Additionally, "Gimme Shelter" is rendered as "Gimmie Shelter" on the jacket.

All songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.

Side one
No.TitleLength
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.TitleLength
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

†Early US editions of the album credit the song using Johnson's pseudonym Woody Payne.

Personnel

The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel

Sales chart performance

Album
Year Chart Position
1969 UK Albums Chart 1[19]
1969 Billboard Pop Albums 3[20]
Preceded by UK Albums Chart number-one album
20 December 1969 -
27 December 1969 		Succeeded by
Abbey Road by
The Beatles
Singles
Year Single Chart Position
1973 "You Can't Always Get What You Want" The Billboard Hot 100 42[21]

Certifications

Country Provider Certification
(sales thresholds)
United States RIAA 2× Platinum
United Kingdom BPI Platinum

References

  1. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/r16831
  2. ^ a b "Let It Bleed". AllMusic. Retrieved 31 October 2009.
  3. ^ Walsh, Christopher (24 August 2002). "Super audio CDs: The Rolling Stones Remastered". Billboard. Billboard. p. 27.
  4. ^ "The Rolling Stone Let it Bleed". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2009.
  5. ^ "Let It Bleed CD". Muze Inc. Retrieved 21 June 2008.
  6. ^ The Daily Vault review
  7. ^ Jason MacNeil. "The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". PopMatters. Retrieved 31 October 2009.
  8. ^ "Album Reviews: The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 31 October 2009.
  9. ^ Stephen Davis (2001). Old gods almost dead: the 40-year odyssey of the Rolling Stones. Random House, Inc.
  10. ^ Steven Van Zandt. "The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time: 4) The Rolling Stones". The RollingStone. Retrieved 31 October 2009.
  11. ^ "Let It Bleed". rollingstone.com. January, 2003. Retrieved August 21, 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Robert Brownjohn from the Design Museum website
  13. ^ Delia Smith from loog2stoned.com
  14. ^ Back cover image from the Design Museum website
  15. ^ Wyman, Bill. 2002. Rolling With the Stones
  16. ^ "Classic Album Covers: Issue Date – 7 January 2010". Royal Mail. Retrieved 8 January 2010.
  17. ^ Michaels, Sean (8 January 2010). "Coldplay album gets stamp of approval from Royal Mail". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 8 January 2010.
  18. ^ The choir asked to have its name removed from the album's credits.[citation needed]
  19. ^ Record Retailer
  20. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Albums List (1964-2008)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 24 July 2009.
  21. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Singles List (1963-2006)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 24 July 2009.

Template:Link GA

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Let_It_Bleed&oldid=460147244"