Album Review: The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

5/5

One of rock and roll’s founding texts, Sticky Fingers was the album where the Rolling Stones fully embraced the stereotype of louche Brits playing at being Mississippi bluesman. Were it anyone else, the results might have plumbed the depths of self-parody. However, Sticky Fingers, released in 1971, was endlessly assured and is rightly regarded as an iconic record.

Listened to with modern sensibilities, what’s striking about this buffed-up reissue is the extent to which the Stones have influenced subsequent generations of rockers. You can hear Jack White in the droning riffs of ‘Sway’ while it’s clear U2 have drawing endlessly on ‘Wild Horses’ across the decades (‘Brown Sugar’, for its part, was smartly repurposed as the Dandy Warhols’ ‘Bohemian Like You’).

Dripping ambiance, Sticky Fingers benefitted from the decision to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. There is a palpable sense of the group connecting with their musical roots – of going beyond pastiche and genuinely tapping into the traditions of the American South. The Stones were often irreverent and throwaway — here, their fealty to the blues is unmistakable.

One problem that arises when assessing The Stones is the sabotage they have inflicted upon their legacy through endless comeback tours. Jagger and co are nowadays notorious as rock’s resident grumpy old gits – warhorses who have carried on when retirement was the more dignified option (look at David Bowie’s grateful withdrawal from active duty).

It takes an album like Sticky Fingers to blow away your prejudices and remind you that, before they slipped into caricature, the Stones were rock’s outlaws-in-chief.

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