The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

I've got a few copies of this record.  I've got the SACD, which has the speed corrected on it.  It's sped up just a hair, which actually changes the key of the songs, and you can really tell the difference side by side with any of the older records or cd's.  So far as I'm concerned, if Exile on Main St. didn't exist, then Beggars Banquet would be the greatest record ever made, but not by the leaps and bounds better than I think Exile is over everything else ever recorded.  You know all those people that always say Keith Richards is a great rhythm guitar player, but can't play solo's?  Have they not listened to the guitar solo's on Sympathy for the Devil?

I mean, really.  Just listen to what Keith is doing there.  His guitar is stinging and biting.  It's mean, and it's nasty.  It also isn't the kind of solo that you can just pull out and stick over any other song in his catalog.  It fits perfectly on Sympathy, and it just belongs there.  Sure, they did a few great solo's on Get Yer Ya Ya's Out! but Keith just plays with so much authority on this version.  It's like he's just squeezing the Rock N' Roll out of his guitar, forcing it to scream and howl.  I think it's one of the greatest things that ever happened.  Not to mention that everything else about the song is pretty much perfect, too (except that Jean Luc Godard movie about it - Godard didn't add anything worthwhile to it, that's for sure).  I don't think 60's Rock gets any better than Sympathy, and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

It almost gets even better with Brian Jones' terrific slide on No Expectations.  What a shame about Brian.  I'm not gonna get into his accidental death/murder controversy here.  I'm just gonna say that if he could have kept it a little more together that I think that even though I love the years they had with Mick Taylor, I'd be more than OK if Brian had never went away and Mick had never become a Rolling Stone.  Because Brian could leave it all right there on the record when he really wanted to.  I'm glad Jimmy Miller got the squeaking of Brian's chair in the song.  It sounds like you're right there, and right there, right then sounds like a great time to be somewhere.

I remember the first time I heard this, I thought things like Dear Doctor and Prodigal Son were just some kind of filler, but as I really sank into Stones fandom, I really started to see the light on these acoustic country/blues songs.  The Stones were turning me on to something I didn't know (and to be truthful probably still don't appreciate as much as I should), and once I started to get my head around these, I really started to see just how terrific Beggars Banquet really is.

I think I read a review somewhere that called things like Parachute Woman Factory Girl and Jigsaw Puzzle filler.  I'm sorry, but I don't get that at all.  Just like I never understood when people told me that Jigsaw Puzzle was The Stones trying to write a Bob Dylan song.  Really?  Which one were they trying to write?  I'm certainly not the one that sees the true genius behind Bob Dylan, but I've listened to a lot of music and I can't see it.  I mean, it's got a lot of words, and it's got some weird, atmospheric guitars, but did Dylan invent every noise The Beatles didn't make first?  Hell, maybe he did, but I'd rather listen to Jigsaw Puzzle all day than two thirds of Dylan's catalog.  But I suppose that's just me.

If any album ever screamed out to be played on a vinyl record, it's got to be Beggars Banquet.  I mean, the side one opener of Sympathy for the Devil is just stunning, but side two's ultra distorted cassette recorded acoustic guitar of Street Fighting Man is every bit the equal of Sympathy, and there are days when I think it's even better.  Really, when push comes to shove, what can a poor boy really do?  Hey, you can stand up and try, but most of us aren't quite up to changing the world on our own.  If we were, you wouldn't know the names of people like Martin Luther King, because we'd all be doing it.

The song that I have always felt was one I'd really never get to see is Stray Cat Blues, because they had played it in 1969, but really hadn't dusted it off ever after.  But I wound up in the sixth row in Cleveland in 2002, and lo and behold, they played Stray Cat Blues.  And they played the hell out of it!  That's always one of the coolest things - when a band you love decides to play a song you just weren't thinking they'd play.

So like I said, I've got a few vinyl copies of Beggars Banquet.  A London issue and the DMM version Decca put out awhile back, which I've seen some horrid reviews of, but I think those people are picking nits and couldn't tell blindfolded what they were listening to over half the time.  Both records sound good.  I've got a 1986 pressing of the CD, a mono bootleg version (made from a reel to reel source, I'm underwhelmed) and the SACD version from a few years back.  If it's sound quality you want, I don't think you'll beat the SACD (I compared it to an original Decca and I thought SACD won that round).  But the thing is, this is a good sounding record anyway. It's not gonna just blow you away for the sound, it's the songs that are king here, but if it didn't sound pretty damned good in the first place, these songs wouldn't sound so fresh and killer almost fifty years after it was released.  If you don't have it, go get a copy and don't worry about which one it is, because they're all good enough.