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Let It Bleed | 
 enlarge | Artist: The Rolling Stones
Label: Abkco
Category: Music
This item is no longer available
Rating:  136 reviews
Sales Rank: 712774
Media: LP Record
Discs: 1
Tracks: 9
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 12.6 x 12.6 x 0.2
UPC: 018771800415
EAN: 0018771800415
ASIN: B000003BF0
Release Date: May 22, 1990
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| Tracks:
| • | Gimme Shelter | | • | Love in Vain | | • | Country Honk | | • | Live With Me | | • | Let It Bleed | | • | Midnight Rambler | | • | You Got the Silver | | • | Monkey Man | | • | You Can't Always Get What You Want - Madeline Bell, London Bach Choir, Nanette Newman, The Rolling Stones, Doris Troy |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential recording
One of the Stones' most beloved albums, 1969's Let It Bleed was a benchmark for several reasons. First, founding guitarist Brian Jones died during the recording process. Second, the Stones take their last significant look at pure blues (Robert Johnson's spooky "Love in Vain") and country ("Country Honk," the two-stepping alter ego of "Honky-Tonk Women") before folding both styles into a cohesive rock & roll vision. Third, it contains some of the band's most eerie hits, such as the flame-enveloped "Gimme Shelter," the drug-reality anthem "Monkey Man," the epic "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and Mick Jagger's menacing "Midnight Rambler." --Steve Knopper
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| Customer Reviews: Read 131 more reviews...
 Let It Bleed -- The Stones Come Into Their Own June 3, 2008
29 out of 29 found this review helpful
Throughout the 1960's the Rolling Stones were basically a singles band who either felt compelled to or were urged by their manager to serve as the antithesis to the Beatles while simultaneously parodying their rivals' releases. Consider the sheer blatancy of "Their Satanic Majesties Request," the cover art of "Beggars Banquet" and, now, the title "Let It Bleed" juxtaposed with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "The Beatles (aka the White Album)" and "Let It Be." Thankfully, with the Beatles' demise and Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham's departure, the group would begin to be more original until the late 1970's when they began to once again hop on the bandwagons of the day, be they punk, disco, etc. with the notable exception of the fantastic "Some Girls."
Long before that album, though, and shortly before the almost equally amazing "Sticky Fingers" comes "Let It Bleed," where the Stones enter the world of AOR as well as provide themselves with sure crowd pleasures along the lines of "Gimme Shelter," "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want." This being more than an ample enough amount of "hits" for the traditional album of the period, the group would continue to provide meaningful listening with "Love In Vain," "Live With Me" and "Let It Bleed." Gram Parsons influenced take on "Country Honk" would round out a fantastic A-side to the original album, while Keith Richards' "You Got The Silver" keeps up with the high quality material on this, the group's farewell to their first golden era, brought about by the untimely passing of founding member Brian Jones, who is only present on two cuts from this album, but is clearly represented by the fallen blonde figure on top of the cake. Jones had, in fact, been fired from the group by this point, but was not expected to die so soon afterwards.
The Stones would continue to make music into the 1970's, through personnel changes of Jones' replacement Mick Taylor for Small Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood, eventually disbanding in the mid 1980's before coming back with a vengeance at the close of the decade and bassist Bill Wyman's ultimate resignation from the group.
Along with greatest hits package "Hot Rocks" and the aforementioned "Sticky Fingers" and "Some Girls," this is a definite Stones album to have in your rock and roll collection.
Plainly said, one of the best rock and roll albums ever February 16, 2008
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
Wow!
There are a lot of terrific rock and roll albums; this ranks among the best. There is great poignancy with this work. For one thing, some of the songs are poignant--"Love in Vain," "You Can't Always Get What You Want." For another, we see Brian Jones on only two cuts, and playing a minor role (autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on "Midnight Rambler"), with Mick Taylor (his successor) playing guitar ("Live with Me").
As a salad dressing apothegm has it, though: "'Tis the taste that tells the tale." And what a work!
It starts off with a great little rocker, "Gimme Shelter." There is a foreboding note at the outset (ironic given that this song, if memory serves, was being played when the Hell's Angels began their havoc at Altamont). Nice choral singing in the background. Key lines:
"A storm is threatening'
. . . .
If I don't get some shelter
I'm gonna fade away."
The rhythm section (Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman) plays well, and Keith Richards spews forth chunky guitar notes. Mick Jagger does a nice job on harmonica.
"Love in Vain": I risk the wrath of blues fans. . . . I like this version better than either of the multiple ones on Robert Johnson's 2 CD work. Keith's spare guitar work and Mick's vocals simply work extremely well. The Stones have done an estimable job over time covering blues classics--and even recording some of their own original blues-y works. Here, they show that they can do a credible job as compared with the originals.
"Country Honk": Interesting in its country sound, but listen to "Honky Tonk Women" for the real deal. This is a nice experiment, but. . . .
"Midnight Rambler": The album version is terrific, but after you listen to the live version on "Get Your Ya-Yas Out," this recedes into the background. And that's a compliment to the live version, since this is a great, haunting, disturbing rock and roll song. A song about Albert DiSalvo can only be described as "creepy." Still, the recorded version works well and is compelling rock theater. Mick's harmonica work is quite well done here. The presto close out is fabulous.
"You Can't always Get What You Want": Some of the most poignant lines in rock and roll:
"You can't always get what you want,
But if you try, sometime you just might find
You get what you need."
This song features the London Bach Choir in support! This is an interesting and intelligent (and poignant) song. Noteworthy: Al Kooper joins the Stones with some nice turns on French horn (kind of weird for rock and roll!), piano, and organ.
Simply, one of the classic rock and roll albums. . . .
"...YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED !" (Let It Bleed is one of The Rolling Stones' greatest albums) January 25, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed (1969) is a great rock n' roll classic, easily one of the band's best albums. Rock, blues, and country, you get what you need. It opens with my favorite Rolling Stones' song, the provocative forewarning of war, Gimme Shelter. The song is a total rock classic, full of gutsy electric guitar, bluesy harmonica, and exciting vocal performances from Mick Jagger and female vocalist Merry Clayton. The country blues raunch of the title song is a favorite of mine, too. With Keith Richards laying down some top-notch slide guitar, and Mick Jagger belting out lewd appeals of lasciviousness, the song's a raucous blast of depravity and swagger. The country blues are visited again with Love In Vain and You Got The Silver (Keith sings), and they both sound great, too. The acoustic guitar, mandolin, and fiddle drenched Country Honk is Honky Tonk Women's sloppy drunk country cousin, and the menacing rowdy rocker Midnight Rambler shows off the talents of everybody in the band, as they rock the song for all that it's worth. Monkey Man is a rhythm guitar powered metaphoric and low-rent romp through the ghetto jungle. The album's last song is You Can't Always Get What You Want, a folk-rock symphony that features acoustic and electric guitars along with the London Bach Choir. The lyrics examine both the naivete and the dark side of the 1960s love and peace counterculture. Definitely a Rolling Stones classic. It doesn't get much better than Let It Bleed as far as albums by The Rolling Stones go, and it's one of their three greatest (the other two are Exile On Main Street and Sticky Fingers).
The best Rock N Roll band in the world December 2, 2007
With this album the Stones grabbed that title and effortlessly held the title until sometime after the release of Exile On Main Street. A supreme mix of of blues influenced rock music with a bit of country and the frankly really oddball, but magically catchy "You Can't Alway get What You Want".
The album starts with one of the Stones best ever tracks "Gimme Shelter", which is nearly four and a half minutes long. The influence of Chuck Berry can still be heard on this track but the Stones have moved the goal posts and although Chuck invented some of the greatest Rock N Roll guitar licks, on Gimme Shelter Keith Richards raises the bar.
Following the slow Robert Johnson blues "Love in Vain" (superb) and the country rewrite of "Honky Tonk Woman" that is "Country Honk" (probably the weakest track) we get to "Live With Me". Heres a track that could easily have been on Exile on Main Street. A supreme piece of Rock Music, Jagger snarls the lyrics, a barnstorming Sax solo by Bobby Keys, the twin Pianos of Nicky Hopkins and Leon Russell pounding in the background. Its probably my favourite track on the album.
Having said the title track "Let It Bleed" is quite something as well. Charlie Watts who is frequently forgotten when the Stones are discussed, as always propels the track along with indecent drive, theres some lovely slide guitar from Keith Richards and Ian Stewart (the Stones equivlent to Billy Preston) adds the funky Piano licks.
As a previous reviewer has stated, and as I indicated at the start of my review, if you have this album, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street you have the Stones at the very height of their powers. There are many other worthy albums they made which are worth getting but none touch these three.
One of the Stones' finest! July 3, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A bit of rock, a bit of blues, a bit of soul, a bit of raunch... just what you need to make a classic Rolling Stones album! Some will say this is the group's best, and if it weren't for Country Honk (a fiddle-driven parody of the contemporary #1 Honky Tonk Woman, which is infinitely better), it would be. Now it'll have to settle for being prime Stones. I'm sure it won't mind.
Is Gimme Shelter the best opener the Stones or anyone else ever recorded? Possibly. It's a terrifying song, in a positive way: the best fade-in known to man, wailing harp, one of the best guitar solos known to man, and Mary Clayton's chilling vocal. Cool! And that guitar solo... Keith Richards is better known for his rhythm guitar, but his leads all over the record are excellent. You can hear more of that great playing on the hilarious, sleazy title, country-blues title track (Stu really gets down and boogies!), the creepy classic "blues opera" Midnight Rambler, where Charlie plays the drums of a lifetime; the sneering Live With Me, which is also pretty funny (and Bobby Keys plays a cool sax!), and the underrated blues Monkey Man, which is again quite funny (listen to Mick's monkey impression in the fade! And the guitar/drum tradeoff thing they do in the instrumental break! And Bill's vibes! What a SONG!) While we're talking about Keef Riffhard, alias the King of Cool, we must mention You Got the Silver. This was the first Stones song he sang lead on, and he sings it well - not a bad little country-folk tune either!
The Stones do the soft as well as the loud (an acoustic take on Robert Johnson's classic Love in Vain - love it!) and the philosphical as well as the sleazy (the multipart classic You Can't Always Get What You Want, my favorite Stones song ever - just listen to all the stuff they managed to layer into this one! Their best lyrics, too). What's not to like? Oh yeah, Country Honk. We'll just pretend that it's Honky Tonk Woman, shall we?
Oh, and a little message to anyone who thinks this is a rip-off of the Beatles' Let It Be. That's just proving you know nothing about either group. Let It Bleed was released before either the album or the single Let It Be. Besides, listen to both albums side-by-side. Pretty different, no?
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