Their Satanic Majesties Request - The Rolling Stones

Every family has secrets. Some are just small embarrassments gently hidden from public view until the flush fades. Others meanwhile are of the dark variety and few come darker than the one held by that venerable first family of rock, the Rolling Stones. That secret is now out. For forty years a monster child has been locked deep in a cellar, neglected and forgotten. Not any more. We went down to that cellar and we heaved the iron door wide to let in the light. And what we saw there was shocking. We found the missing link in the evolution of that first family; we found our very own rock and roll sasquatch. For the Rolling Stones there was a period ...

This was a poor attempt to equal the greatness of Sgt. Pepper, by contradicting its happy mood with dark, solemn, druggy songs. It still gets unfairly put down. And rightly so. But come on, it wasn't as bad as it could've been considering they were close to disbanding. "Sing This Song All Together" is okay, but weird with the wild, chaotic horns weaving in and out. "Citadel" is pretty good. "In Another Land" Bill' song, has weird, phased and cut up vocals. The psychedelic feeling works well here. "2000 Man" is sort of like "Space Oddity" in its touching, spacey way. The acoustic feeling is rewarding. ...

This is the Rolling Stones record you'd do best to avoid. Probably the only one from the 60s or the 70s. It's not that it's bad, really - but it's very uncharacteristic. Be ready for an aimless mish-mash of psychedelia, rather than the gutsy Rhythm and Blues that the Stones perform so well. Straight away, the opening song gives us a clue as to what went wrong. It sounds like the Beatles. The Stones were obviously very influenced by what the Beatles were doing (like everyone else at that time, following the release of "Sgt.Pepper"). Overall, "Their satanic majesties", like "Sgt.Pepper" also sounds like a concept ...