Let it Be? Let it Bleed.

"If you remember the sixties, you weren't there", etc, etc. I certainly wasn't there, don't remember them either, but I have the art, and the art is fascinating.

As I finally got my hands on a copy of the Rolling Stones grim farewell to the sixties, Let it Bleed (1969), I was reminded of two things: first, that it's extraordinary, and second, that people who only know the Stones from landmark singles like "Satisfaction" or "Paint it Black" don't realize just how diametrically opposed this band was from the other classic English band (and Stones contemporary) everyone's heard of, The Beatles. Case in point, my husband commenting, with a hint of surprise, "wow, this is really blues-y!". No, those two generals of the British Invasion couldn't be more different, musically and ideologically, and Let it Bleed is a stunning confirmation of such. Where the Beatles pursued experimentation, and creating new sounds, the Stones as I hear them were about actual rock and roll, focusing on its genesis from the blues and pursuing the refinement of that style. Where the Beatles, with a few notable (and stand-alone) exceptions, embodied the hippie ideology of peace, love, and naivete, the Stones had no illusions as to the social and moral failings of this fabled decade, and Let it Bleed is an often painful commentary on just how badly the eyes-wide-shut, free-love philosophy didn't work. Nostalgic, this album ain't - it comes off as a bit relieved to be leaving the sixties behind. It was also released the same year as the Fab Four's final studio album, Abbey Road and, significantly, only knocked that out of Billboard's #1 until Christmas week, when Road took precedence again. Abbey Road has one dark note in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", but compared to any track you can shuffle off Let it Bleed, it's a very tame way to acknowledge that sometimes, life sucks, and the promises of the decade didn't quite pan out. Sure, there were dark turns to the Beatles, like some of the White Album, or "I Am The Walrus", or those weird uber-violent, mysoginistic tracks like Rubber Soul's "Run For Your Life", on which Lennon sings about how he'll murder his ex if he catches her with someone else, but they always seemed kind of random to me. These tracks never seemed resolved with the larger overarching, ignorantly cheerful tone of the Beatle's catalogue, almost as if they wanted to be looking more deeply at this stuff, but were determined to maintain their peace 'n love, I'm okay you're okay ideology and the image that went with it.

"Gimme Shelter", opening the album, is a heavy, weary, blistering comment on how horrors like rape, murder, and war hang over our heads and can strike at any time. Title track "Let it Bleed" turns the tame, feel-good refrain of "lean on me" into the more desperate "bleed on me", along with a raft of sexually explicit verses. "Live With Me" is a damning look at unstructured, dysfunctional, carelessly entered domestic life. "Midnight Rambler" uses upbeat, familiar blues conventions to back lyrics about a serial killer. And the album's most recognizable track, "You Can't Always Get What You Want", is one of the greatest album closers I can think of, a brilliant, poignant song of pain and disillusionment warring with hope. I've seen it compared to both "Hey Jude" and "A Day in the Life"; personally, I can't find any substantial connection with either. "Hey Jude" is a beautiful song, but it's pretty tame, and is a loving encouragement to someone, whereas "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is from the POV of someone trying to make sense of things by themselves - it has a weight, and a sense of growth, that is absent from the core of "Hey Jude". As for comparing it to "A Day in the Life"...huh? All I see there is a tenuous connection between using classical musical elements.

To clarify - I don't look down on the Beatles. I just listen to them for what they are, with my eyes open. And I think it's great stuff. At one point in time, I owned all their studio albums, plus a good chunk of the fan stuff like Live at the BBC. I walked down the aisle at my wedding to "In My Life". But, when I'm looking for a little empathy, they don't usually do the trick. As I've tried to convey here, the Beatles and the Stones are different as night and day - I really don't think that they can be compared in terms of, for example, who's the better band. It would be like trying to pit Coldplay against Radiohead, wherein the only common ground is that they're both creative, skilled, and British.

My description of the tracks, and flavour of the album, may leave you wondering why anyone should want to listen to such a thing. I would say, for the same reason anyone would want to watch Unforgiven. Let it Bleed is a very dark album; however, it both explicitly and implicitly says and explores some very important issues. And, oh yeah, it's a musical masterpiece. One of the best rock albums you'll ever hear. It's also not currently available in CD format, but in something that's supposed to have superior sound quality. The audio business hasn't come to the head of its version of the Blu-Ray - Hi-Def war yet. Fortunately, the album didn't give my original Xbox any trouble...though maybe it's just my TV, with its puny built-in speakers, but I didn't note it as sounding any better than a CD format album.

What else can I say? Great album, an interesting slice of musical and social history, though depending on your personality and mental state, it may not be a healthy listen.