The Greatest Double Album Ever?

‍This is an excerpt from John Nogowski’s Substack. You can read the full version here.

‍ ‍ It may well be that the Rolling Stones double album, “Exile On Main Street,” is the greatest rock and roll double album ever made.

Of course, you can’t forget Bob Dylan’s “Blonde On Blonde” and the Who’s “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia” and The Clash’s magnificent “London Calling,” which shared some similarities with the Stones here, Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” The Beatles “White Album” and Led Zeppelin’s “Physical Graffifi” — all albums I bought when they first came out, albums I’ve listened to over and over. Wonderful work by all of them, albums to cherish.

But if ever a particular double album evoked a moment in time, a particular location and an album that summoned the sort of triumphant defiance that has fueled rock and roll since it started, well, it’s hard to beat the Stones’ “Exile On Main Street.”

The year was 1971 and the bad boy Stones were feeling persona non grata in their own country. Their ninth album, “Sticky Fingers” — an album cover of Mick Jagger’s crotch that included a working zipper (that must have been fun in production) — was riding high on the charts here and in the U.K., but proper ol’ England didn’t seem as charmed by their randy musical exports.

As Keith Richards said some years ago, the oppressive tax system wasn’t the only reason they headed for another country. "There was a feeling you were being edged out of your own country by the British government," he remembers in “Stones In Exile,” an hour-long documentary about the record. "They were scared by the number of fans we had, I suppose. They couldn't ignore that we were a force to be reckoned with."

At the time, England’s Labour government had a 93% tax on high earners … so the Stones headed for the south of France as tax exiles. Hence the album title was literal. And there were other reasons, namely drug busts, Brian Jones’ mysterious drowning death, the murder at a Rolling Stones’ free concert at Altamont and assorted and various arrests, catty comments in the press, the sorts of things rebellious, rich rock and rollers tend to do.

So the band and their assorted friends, hangers-on, drug dealers and onlookers took up residence at a place called Villa Nellcôte, a house Richards had rented. They felt like exiles from society, from their homeland and that isolation — and plenty of drugs — seemed to fuel their creativity with 18 songs that ran the gamut from rock to country to country blues to soul songs, rich, fresh, exciting sounds from a band that, despite all the hassles — maybe even because of all the hassles — seemed to hit a creative peak. It’s a wonderful album with a bit of everything for everyone.