Their Satanic Majesties Request
Their Satanic Majesties Request is a studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones, released in December 1967 by Decca Records in the UK and by London Records in the United States. It was the first Stones album to be released in identical versions in both countries. The title is a play on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires" text that appeared inside a British passport.
Their Satanic Majesties Request
The band experimented with a psychedelic sound on Satanic Majesties, incorporating unconventional elements such as Mellotron, sound effects, string arrangements, and African rhythms. The band members produced the album themselves as their manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham had departed. The prolonged recording process was marked by drug use, court appearances, and jail terms by members of the band. The original LP cover features a lenticular image by photographer Michael Cooper.
Satanic Majesties initially received mixed reactions from critics and members of the group itself.[6] The album was criticised as being derivative of the contemporaneous work of the Beatles, particularly their June 1967 release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with the similarities extending to the LP's cover.[7][8][9] In subsequent decades, however, it has gradually risen in critical reputation. Following the album's release, the Rolling Stones abandoned their psychedelic style for a stripped-down return to their roots in blues music.
Release and reception[edit]
Released in December 1967, Their Satanic Majesties Request reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 2 in the US (easily going gold), but its commercial performance declined rapidly. It was soon viewed as a pretentious, poorly conceived attempt to outdo the Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (released in May 1967), often explained by drug trials and excesses in contemporary musical fashion, although John Lennon and Paul McCartney did provide backing vocals (uncredited) on "We Love You" (recorded during the Satanic Majesties Request sessions, but released as a single a few months before the album).[21] The Wyman-composed "In Another Land" was released as a single, with the artist credit listed as Bill Wyman, rather than the Rolling Stones (the B-Side, "The Lantern", was credited to the Rolling Stones).[22]
The production, in particular, came in for harsh criticism from Jon Landau in the fifth issue of Rolling Stone,[23] and Jimmy Miller (recommended by the album's engineer, Glyn Johns) was asked to produce the Stones' subsequent albums, on which they would return to the hard-driving blues that earned them fame early in their career. In an April 1968 album review, Richard Corliss of the New York Times was also critical of the production value stating "... their imagination seems to have dried up when it comes to some of the arrangements. While still better than their previous ones, the arrangements are often ragged, fashionably monotonous and off-key." Despite this he gave the album an overall positive review, going as far as calling it a better concept album than Of Cabbages and Kings (1967, by Chad & Jeremy), The Beat Goes On (1968, by Vanilla Fudge) and even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967, by the Beatles).[24] In a 1970 Rolling Stone interview, Lennon commented on the album: "Satanic Majesties is Pepper. 'We Love You' ... that's 'All You Need Is Love'."[25]
Source:[13]
The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel