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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).
Untitled

Let It Bleed is the eighth 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.

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 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", "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]

The album has been called a great summing up of the dark underbelly of the 1960s.[by whom?] 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).[6]

The album is often thought to be a response to Let It Be by The Beatles;[by whom?] though the Beatles would not release either the song or the album of that name until 1970, the major recording sessions had taken place in January 1969, prior to the majority of the Let It Bleed sessions, and it was generally known[citation needed] that the project existed. Theories vary as to whether the title was making fun of the Beatles' misplaced optimism and inability to complete their own album, or was an expression of solidarity with a recording process that had been just as taxing as the Stones'.[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 number 3 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in the US, where it eventually went double platinum.

The album was also critically well-received. 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 2003, it was listed as number 32 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

In August 2002, it was reissued in a remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records.

Cover

The cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn.[7] 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.[8] The reverse of the LP sleeve[9] 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.[10]

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.[11][12]

Track listing

The track listing on the record sleeve did not follow the one on the record. According to Brownjohn, he altered the track listing purely for visual reasons; the correct order was shown on the record's label. When ABKCO first issued the album on CD in 1986, the CD track listing followed that of the LP sleeve, not the actual track order of the original album. This was corrected on the 2002 re-issue.

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

Personnel

The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel

Sales chart performance

Album
Year Chart Position
1969 UK Albums Chart 1[14]
1969 Billboard Pop Albums 3[15]
Singles
Year Single Chart Position
1973 "You Can't Always Get What You Want" The Billboard Hot 100 42[16]

References

  1. ^ a b "Let It Bleed". AllMusic. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  2. ^ "The Rolling Stone Let it Bleed". BBC. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  3. ^ a b "Let It Bleed CD". Muze Inc. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
  4. ^ Jason MacNeil. "The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". PopMatters. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  5. ^ "Album Reviews: The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  6. ^ "The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time: 4) The Rolling Stones". The RollingStone. Retrieved 2009-10-31. {{cite web}}: Text "author: Steven Van Zandt" ignored (help)
  7. ^ Robert Brownjohn from the Design Museum website
  8. ^ Delia Smith from loog2stoned.com
  9. ^ Back cover image from the Design Museum website
  10. ^ Wyman, Bill. 2002. Rolling With the Stones
  11. ^ "Classic Album Covers: Issue Date – 7 January 2010". Royal Mail. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
  12. ^ "Coldplay album gets stamp of approval from Royal Mail". The Guardian. 8 January 2010. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
  13. ^ The choir asked to have its name removed from the album's credits.[citation needed]
  14. ^ Record Retailer
  15. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Albums List (1964-2008)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
  16. ^ "The Rolling Stones Complete Hit Singles List (1963-2006)". BeatZenith. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
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