With all the talk about “Generation X” and “Generation Y,” it’s
\na wonder why I don’t have some sort of gender identity crisis going
\non.<\/p>\n
People were all ready to place the blame card on the “Generation
\nY” crowd for the debacle known as “Woodstock ’99.” And true to a
\n25-year-old, I muttered, “All we ever did was throw some mud at
\nGreen Day at OUR Woodstock.” But some baby boomers are pointing the
\nblame like a pre-retirement Grampa Simpson saying “For shaaaaame,
\nfor shaaame.”<\/p>\n
Before any baby boomer can bitch about Woodstock ’99, they
\nshould first get that one nugget from their memory banks, filed
\nunder: Altamont. For those unfamiliar (please say there isn’t that
\nmany) with Altamont, it was a free concert thrown by The Rolling
\nStones. Proof that ignorance is not bliss, the Stones hired the
\nHell’s Angels as security for the concerts. In that heated
\nenvironment, four people lost their lives.<\/p>\n
Altamont transpired on the cusp of the release of
\nLet It Bleed<\/i>, which was considered by Mick Jagger in an
\ninterview with
\nRolling Stone<\/i> to be a superior album to
\nExile On Main St<\/i>. By listening to the opening chords of
\n“Gimmie Shelter,” you can almost smell the smoke and see the napalm
\nlike clouds rolling in. It remains one of the darkest songs
\nrecorded by the Stones, particularly enhanced by Keith Richards’
\ndistorted guitar.<\/p>\n
Aside from the usual tension between Richards and Jagger, much
\nof
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> was plauged by the departure of Brian Jones,
\none of the original members of the Stones. Though his role in
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> was reduced to playing percussion on a couple
\nof tracks, he was formally kicked out during its recording. Jones
\ndied on July 3, 1969.<\/p>\n
“Gimmie Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” were
\nby far the most ambitious songs on the album. It’s probably not a
\ncoincidence that they provide the bookends of
\nLet It Bleed<\/i>. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” boasts a
\nbeautiful, soaring choir, provided by the London Bach. To fully
\nappreciate the epic nature of both songs, there’s even an
\ninstruction printed at the bottom of the liner notes: This Record
\nShould Be Played Loud. You damn right.<\/p>\n
The rest of the album dabbles between sinister rockers and a
\nhumbled effort to get more in touch with blues. When I first heard
\nthe
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> version of “Country Honk,” I was totally taken
\naback. I was expecting the glossy version I heard on the radio,
\nwith the bar crowd chant of “She’s a hoooonky tonk woman.” Instead
\nI got a Memphis delta like sound, complete with fiddle and slide
\nguitar. It took some time to get used to, but it’s my favorite of
\nthe two now.<\/p>\n
You could tell that the irons in the Stones’ fire were about
\nready to melt down throughout much of
\nLet It Bleed.<\/i> While the entire album is one of their most
\npassionate efforts to date, you could tell by the weary sound of
\nJagger’s voice that all was not well. Tracks like the lonesome “You
\nGot The Silver” gave Richards some of his best moments on vocals
\nand the abrasive “Monkey Man” made the listener feel like they were
\nas strung out as Ray Liotta’s character was at the end of
\nGoodfellas<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most sinister track on
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> was the Charles Manson era track, “Midnight
\nRambler.” The track, almost seven minutes long, follows the trail
\nof a killer as they prowl into their victim’s household – once
\nagain proving
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> is an album etched in black.<\/p>\n
For all the talk about how violent the music is in today’s
\nworld, it’s a wonder that an album like
\nLet It Bleed<\/i> could top the charts some thirty odd years ago.
\nIt was a perfect album to end the sixties as youthful ideology and
\nactivism gradually eroded into cynicism and in cases like Altamont,
\nviolence. It may have been a snapshot of the fringe elements of
\nsociety at that time, but it was an unforgettable shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5665],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-39277","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-rolling-stones","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39277"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39277"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}