Let It Bleed

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This article is about the 1969 album by The Rolling Stones. For other uses, see Let It Bleed (disambiguation).
Let It Bleed
Studio album by The Rolling Stones
Released 5 December 1969
Recorded November 1968, February – November 1969 at Olympic Studios, London, England
Genre Blues rock, rock and roll, hard rock[1]
Length 42:13[2]
Language English
Label London (US)
Decca (UK)
Producer Jimmy Miller
The Rolling Stones chronology
Beggars Banquet
(1968)		 Let It Bleed
(1969)		 Sticky Fingers
(1971)

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 UK and London Records in the US. 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.

Contents

History [edit]

Although the Stones had begun the recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in November 1968, before Beggars Banquet had been released, recording for Let It Bleed began in earnest in February 1969 and would continue sporadically until early November.[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", and sung separate lead vocals on parts of "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".[3]

Release and reception [edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 5/5 stars[2]
BBC (favourable)[4]
Entertainment Weekly (A)[5]
The Daily Vault (A)[6]
PopMatters (favourable)[7]
Rolling Stone (not rated)[8]

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 the Stones' last to be released in an official mono version, which is rare and highly sought-after today.

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.[9]

In his 2001 Stones biography, 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."[10] 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 45's from that decade. The other three albums are Beggars Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main St. (1972).[11]

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 #28 in its list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2001, the TV network VH1 placed Let It Bleed at #24 on their best album survey. In 1997 it was voted 27th greatest album by The Guardian. In 2003, it was listed at #32 on the "List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[12]

Cover [edit]
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 listening to this file? See media help.

The cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn.[13] 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.[14] The reverse of the LP sleeve[15] 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.[16]

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.[17][18]

Track listing [edit]

The track listing on the back of the album jacket did not follow the one on the album itself. According to Brownjohn, he altered it 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. Title Length
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. Title Length
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 [edit]

The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel

Sales chart performance [edit]

Album
Year Chart Position
1969 UK Albums Chart 1[20]
1969 Billboard Pop Albums 3[21]
Preceded by
Abbey Road by The Beatles		 UK Albums Chart number-one album
20 – 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[22]

Certifications [edit]

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

References [edit]

  1. ^ Unterberger, Richie (28 November 1969). "Let It Bleed – The Rolling Stones". AllMusic. Retrieved 9 December 2011. 
  2. ^ a b "Let It Bleed". AllMusic. Retrieved 31 October 2009. 
  3. ^ Decca [[{{subst:DATE}}|{{subst:DATE}}]] [disambiguation needed]. "Inner sleeve credits". Retrieved 13 July 2012. 
  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". Dailyvault.com. 17 August 1999. Retrieved 9 December 2011. 
  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. ^ Walsh, Christopher (24 August 2002). "Super audio CDs: The Rolling Stones Remastered". Billboard. p. 27.  More than one of |work= and |newspaper= specified (help)
  10. ^ Stephen Davis (2001). Old gods almost dead: the 40-year odyssey of the Rolling Stones. Random House, Inc. 
  11. ^ Steven Van Zandt. "The Immortals – The Greatest Artists of All Time: 4) The Rolling Stones". The RollingStone. Retrieved 31 October 2009. 
  12. ^ "Let It Bleed". Rolling Stone. January 2003. Retrieved 21 August 2011. 
  13. ^ Robert Brownjohn from the Design Museum website
  14. ^ Delia Smith from loog2stoned.com
  15. ^ Back cover image from the Design Museum website
  16. ^ Wyman, Bill. 2002. Rolling With the Stones
  17. ^ "Classic Album Covers: Issue Date – 7 January 2010". Royal Mail. Retrieved 8 January 2010. 
  18. ^ Michaels, Sean (8 January 2010). "Coldplay album gets stamp of approval from Royal Mail". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 8 January 2010. 
  19. ^ The choir asked to have its name removed from the album's credits.[citation needed]
  20. ^ Record Retailer
  21. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Albums List (1964–2008)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 24 July 2009. 
  22. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Singles List (1963–2006)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 24 July 2009. 
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