Sticky Fingers
Sticky Fingers is a studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released on 23 April 1971 on the Rolling Stones' new label, Rolling Stones Records. The Rolling Stones had been contracted by Decca Records and London Records in the UK and the US since 1963. On this album, Mick Taylor made his second full-length appearance on a Rolling Stones album (after the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!). It was the first studio album without Brian Jones, who died two years earlier. The original cover artwork, conceived by Andy Warhol and photographed and designed by members of his art collective, the Factory, showed a picture of a man in tight jeans, and had a working zip that opened to reveal underwear fabric. The cover was expensive to produce and damaged the vinyl record, so the size of the zipper adjustment was made by John Kosh at ABKCO records. Later re-issues featured just the outer photograph of the jeans.
This article is about the Rolling Stones album. For other uses, see Sticky Fingers (disambiguation).Sticky Fingers
23 April 1971
- 22–31 March 1969
- 2–4 December 1969
- 17 February – 31 October 1970
- Muscle Shoals Sound (Alabama)
- Olympic and Trident (London)
- Stargroves (Newbury)
46:25
The album featured a return to basics for the Rolling Stones. The unusual instrumentation introduced several albums prior was absent, with most songs featuring drums, guitar, bass, and percussion as provided by the key members: Mick Jagger (lead vocals, various percussion and rhythm guitar), Keith Richards (guitar and backing vocals), Mick Taylor (guitar), Bill Wyman (bass guitar), and Charlie Watts (drums). Additional contributions were made by long-time Stones collaborators including saxophonist Bobby Keys and keyboardists Billy Preston, Jack Nitzsche, Ian Stewart, and Nicky Hopkins. As with the other albums of the Rolling Stones late 1960s/early 1970s period, it was produced by Jimmy Miller.
Sticky Fingers is widely considered one of the Rolling Stones' best albums. It was the band's first album to reach number one on both the UK albums and US albums charts, and has since achieved triple platinum certification in the US. "Brown Sugar” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. Sticky Fingers was voted the second best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1971, based on American critics' votes. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and included in Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.
Music and lyrics[edit]
Sticky Fingers originally included 10 tracks. The music has been characterised by commentators as hard rock,[5] roots rock[6] and rock and roll.[7] According to Rolling Stone magazine, it is "the Stones' most downbeat, druggy album, with new guitarist Mick Taylor stretching into jazz and country".[8]
Legacy[edit]
Sticky Fingers was the first album released by the group in the post-Klein era[25] and was listed among the 1999 class of Grammy Hall of Fame inductees.[39]
In 1994, Sticky Fingers was ranked number ten in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. He stated, "Dirty rock like this has still to be bettered, and there is still no rival in sight."[40] In a retrospective review, Q magazine said that the album was "the Stones at their assured, showboating peak ... A magic formula of heavy soul, junkie blues and macho rock."[22] NME wrote that it "captures the Stones bluesy swagger" in a "dark-land where few dare to tread."[20] Record Collector magazine said that it showcases Jagger and Richards as they "delve even further back to the primitive blues that first inspired them and step up their investigations into another great American form, country."[22] In his review for Goldmine magazine, Dave Thompson wrote that the album still is superior to "most of The Rolling Stones' catalog."[41]
Sticky Fingers was listed as No. 63 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,[42] No. 64 in a 2012 revised list,[43] and No. 104 in a 2020 reboot of the list.[44] In a 2018 retrospective review, The Guardian's Alexis Petridis ranked it the best album the band had ever produced, stating "their claim to be The Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the World has no more compelling evidence than the flawless 46 minutes of music here."[45]
David Hepworth wrote in his 2016 book Never a Dull Moment that the contributions of guest performers like Keys, Jim Dickinson, and Preston made the album contain "more musical range than any other Rolling Stones album," such as "Dickinson's honky-tonk piano on 'Wild Horses'" and "Preston's churchy organ solo on 'I Got the Blues'".[46] Hepworth also suggested that Taylor's "Latin-flavored guitar solo" on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" was influenced by Santana's 1970 album Abraxas.[46]
The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel
Technical