A Unique Masterpiece
Duncan Youngerman | Royan, France | 11/03/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"In 1967, EVERYBODY went psychedelic: Cream, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Traffic, the Doors, and all the rest of them, including, yes, the Beatles and the Stones.
So this is not the Stones "copying the Beatles".
The Stones (led by Brian Jones) wore extravagant multi-colored trans-gender clothes when the Beatles were still in their trite Brian Epstein-imposed uniforms. They were into the ritual music of Jajouka, in the mountains of Morocco, a good 20 years before "World music" happened.
This album is just an expression of what the Stones were about, and too bad if it does'nt fit the narrow clichéd commercially accepted limits of what's to be thought of as "Rolling Stones music".
Every song here is beautiful: great lyrics, great melodies, great arrangements, great playing and singing.
And the overall atmosphere is unique and extremely poetic, a kind of ominous futuristic World Music.
This is one of the Stones' 4 album masterpieces, right along "Aftermath", "Begger's Banquet" and "Let it Bleed".
(I know I'll get crucified for leaving out "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street", but I'll stick to my guns.)"
Not Their Best Effort
Ophella Paige | Reno, Nevada | 06/11/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I think you have to be stoned to listen to this record In fact in the opening of "Sing this All Together (See What happens)" you can hear Mick say "Where's that joint?" and that really freaked me out the first time I heard it, because what I was doing. None of the songs here, in my opinion, measure up to anything on any of their other records and I am happy that this sort of psychobabbley experiment stopped here. To be fair, because I knew I was going to be reviewing several of the Stones records with my friends, I gave this record several listens, because it had been years since I'd last heard it and I have to say, if you're not stoned, then none of this makes much sense. However, if you're passing a joint around and this record is playing in the back ground, they you're probably really going to like it. And if you're doing a stronger psychedelic, you're probably really going to love it."