So why is The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I enjoyed Richie Unterberger at All Music describing Let It Bleed as extending “the rock and blues feel of Beggars Banquet into slightly harder-rocking, more demonically sexual territory.” I like this mostly perhaps because “more demonically sexual territory” is quite a turn of phrase.
I’m not sure if I entirely agree with Unterberger’s assessment, but I do know that “Gimme Shelter” is my single favorite Rolling Stones song of all time.
It’s a fantastic song to be sure, but part of the reason is that “Gimme Shelter” has been featured in several of the most iconic movies of all time. None more iconic in my view than its deployment during a particularly chaotic and drug-fueled sequence in Goodfellas.*
* Director Martin Scorsese is sometimes accused of overreliance on The Rolling Stones’ music in his films, and indeed “Gimme Shelter” alone has been featured in Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed! Then again, those movies are incredible, so I’m not going to ding him much on this score.
There’s a cinematic quality to “Gimme Shelter,” and there’s something that’s manic and off-kilter about it at the same time.
The same things can be said of the bluesy and rollicking “Monkey Man,” which (you guessed it!) is also featured in Goodfellas. (I’m now tempted to go into a long dissertation about Goodfellas, but I’m stirring over here on this Let It Bleed piece and trying to stay focused.)
The sweet and epic jam that is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is way up there in terms of my all-time favorite Rolling Stones songs. The use of percussion, background vocals, and piano on this one is all simply exceptional.
“Country Honk” is a blast of an acoustic country blues jam. I can imagine the likes of a young Axl Rose and countless other wannabe/future rock stars listening to this one over and over again.
Some stats & info about The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, British Bands, Blues Rock, Album Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #41
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Let It Bleed released? 1969
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #240 out of 1,000
The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
You can’t always get what you want.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.