Blogcritics: Comments on "Ventilator Blues" by the Rolling Stones

Comment by Rodney Welch

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 11:44:07 EDT

Some records are more Jagger (high production values) and some are more Richards (sloppy, funky), and Exile is definitely the latter. Jagger himself said in an interview he never understood why people like it. It's not the very best Stones disc (that would be Beggar's Banquet) but it's among the best -- a kind of raw, drunken, excessive masterpiece, and it surely has one of the most perfect titles of any rock album in history, and one that suited the band perfectly.

Comment by Ed Driscoll

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 02:26:29 EDT

Al, No question Exile just exudes atmosphere. As I recall (second hand--I was about seven when the album was first released!) people just didn't know what to make of it--it was so dark, dank and murky sounding, especially compared to the slicker and more accessible Stones albums that bookended it, that it took a while for it to coalesce in its listeners' brains. There were reviews at that the time that hated it, but I remember a late-1980s "Rolling Stone" issue that rated it the number one or two most influential record of the 1970s. Ed

Comment by Al Barger

Sun, 27 Jul 2003 23:53:02 EDT

Oh, yeah. It's all good. "I don't want to walk and talk about Jesus, I just want to see his fa-aace" As to releasing such a track today, they should come up with a song as good as either of these. The production sound of Exile on Main Street is a little murky or rough, recorded in exile in a damp, musty basement, or so it sounds. However, it has an immediacy and a life of its own. I don't know if their basement was literally damp and musty, but the record sure feels like it.

Comment by Ed Driscoll

Sun, 27 Jul 2003 21:21:11 EDT

Al, Wow, you really know your obscure Stones tunes! Ironically enough, it flows into an equally obscure song that I've always liked a lot, "Just Want To See His Face". It has an incredible groove from the Fender Rhodes and upright bass. It's hard to see the Stones releasing either of those tracks today, which were both probably 4:00-in-the-morning jams recorded in Keith Richards' French villa during the "Exile" sessions. Ed