Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones

Their Satanic Majesties Request was panned at the time and still is today as a sub par vanity trip by the Rolling Stones. Drug addled with no sense of direction the album is considered by many to be an unholy mess. It certainly doesn't appear near the top of Rolling Stone magazines top 500 albums of all time.

With Brian Jones's drug problem spiraling out of control and the Stones now self producing after getting rid of Andrew Loog Oldham it was easy to poke holes at the album. Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards quickly bored of the hippie scene and the album epitomized their involvement in the era.

Personally I think the album is great. The same critics who roundly panned it then and give it fleeting recognition today would lionize it if it was done by a young unknown band. The Stones capture the mindless excess of the year and noodle and jam with the best of them. The arrangements are great and you can tell this was not some quickie tossed off to capitalize on a fad.

The genius of the Rolling Stones over the years has been their ability to quickly reflect what is going on in popular music at any given moment. Disco's big they put their stamp on it with Miss You and other bits and pieces off Some Girls. Dance, hard driving R & B, whatever you want they'll give it to you and do it better than the rest.

Someone must of liked it at the time as it went to # 2 in the United States and # 3 in the United Kingdom. This was the Stone's first album to be released with the same tracks in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

The backing musicians are great and include Paul McCartney, John Lennon and the hardest working man in Rock N Roll at the time Nicky Hopkins ( check his bio on Wikipedia ).

The original pressings of the album always have sold for a premium for their unique lenticular covers. Lenticular is a printing process that lets the viewer see movement in the picture. Later pressings dropped the format as it is expensive.

The album was remastered and released in an updated version in 2002.

It took the Stones a while to weather the criticism but in 1989 2,000 Light Years From Home started to show up in their live shows.