From the swaggering frustration in the first song
("I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping," Mick Jagger sings
in the hyper "Rocks Off"), the Stones speed through familiar
neighborhoods of country, blues, and R&B on Exile.
They never even bother to stop when they've crashed into something.
They don't leap into new worlds so much as master the old ones,
turning Slim Harpo's blues obscurity "Hip Shake" into a
harp-and-piano steamroller and setting spines
a-cracking in "Ventilator Blues." Both "Tumbling Dice" and
Keith Richards's "Happy" have become hits, but the 1972 album
is most notable for its overall murky adrenaline.
Steve Knopper