With Keith's and Micks albums put together I think the answer is a definitely yes and you?

I mean micks vocals on Talk and Offender and She's the boss, wandering spirit put together with keith and charlie on those  albums they would be classics instead of what they are.

Can you feel and understand me here?

They should of never gone solo.

Gazza and Voodoo I'd like yer opion on this.

Edith too.

Dont sit in the fence its creasing yer butt...

No fence on this one...NO!

But the question is "another Exile"? NO...it was the place, the people, the attitude and the times that made it what that album became. Besides, during the solo years they hated each other...that alone sealed the fate of ANYTHING close to Exile to ever be more than a pipedream

Yeah but if they didn't hate each other and wrote those 7/8 albums together they could had 2 or 3 great Stones albums....

Of course they could have.

The choice whether to work together or apart was theirs' to make.

There is no question that when those fellows made music together, magic things happened.

The whole greater than the sum of the parts type of thing.

If they had only done it once, different calculation.
But they did it several times.
Repeatedly.
Over and over and over again.

I have no doubt, even today, that they could put something out that would blow all of us away.

They just continue to choose not to.

Exile is the pinnacle of human achievement and as such cannot be replicated.

So, no.

steel driving hammer wrote on Jan 29^th, 2015 at 6:00pm:

I mean micks vocals on Talk and Offender and She's the boss, wandering spirit put together with keith and charlie on those  albums they would be classics instead of what they are. Can you feel and understand me here?

Wandering Spirit, Talk is Cheap and Main Offender are very good records in their own right

But they were made in the late 80s/early 90's. And as the only genuine classic record the Stones have made post-Exile is Some Girls (and, at a push, Tattoo You - an album of leftovers which was moulded into a minor classic by Chris Kimsey and Mick), then its a bit optimistic IMO to think that they could have produced something on a similar level had they concentrated on a band album instead of solo ventures.  The two albums they did record with the Stones around that time frame provide more accurate analysis of what they were and weren't capable of - uneven but with a few very good songs and a couple of gems.

Most creative artists have a muse which peaks for a limited time and then never really comes back.  Mick and Keith's was that period from about 1965-72 - with Mick having a bit of an Indian summer as a writer around 1977-78.

Very few get it back on a level where it was at their peak. Dylan in the mid 70s is one of the very few I can think of. Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen are two that come close (and probably Lucinda Williams, based on her recent album, which is IMO the best thing shes ever done, despite the fact that she was about 61 when she wrote it). When it does happen its usually just flickering and sporadic.

The Stones havent really been artistically driven since the early 80s when Mick started looking for an alternative career to prolong his musical longevity. Throw in Ian Stewart dying in 1985 and you can really divide the Stones' career into two parts. The first 20-22 years or so when they were a creative band trying to develop and then (after they took about three years off trying to figure out if they had a future or not) the period to date when theyve really been riding on the coat tails of what they'd achieved in their first two decades.

They havent really been a full time band in the creative sense since Undercover. In the 31 years since there have been five Rolling Stones studio albums - but significantly there have been five Mick Jagger solo albums. even more significantly, they dont have a contractual commitment to release any new material and havent had one for almost a decade - yet Keith has one as a solo act and I presume Mick still has as well.

Recording wise, the Stones have been a side project of Mick and Keith for some time. The band primarily exists first and foremost as a touring behemoth and a merchandise machine.

I always felt that if Talk is cheap was recorded by the Stones it would have been a spectacular album!

" Can you feel and understand me here ? "


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Weeding ?!

Hashishin' ............ ?!


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I love Mick's and Keith's solo stuff, but that's not Exile.  Some Girls is the closest they ever came again to that Exile feel.

andrews27 wrote on Jan 31^st, 2015 at 9:22am:

I love Mick's and Keith's solo stuff, but that's not Exile.  Some Girls is the closest they ever came again to that Exile feel.

It has been a long time since Some Girls


The real question is...where is EVEN HEAVIER, the next SUPERHEAVY release??

I agree with Atlanta's Some Guy.  Keef pumping in Talk Is Cheap to Stones' recording sessions could have resulted in a stunner of an LP.  I remember getting the LP on Day 1 in London and trecking home.  It was VERY VERY late before I could get it off the deck!  Fantastic stuff.

Talk is Cheap is a classic in my opinion.  Exile, no, but Exile was a product of the times and circumstances as well.  The bands' lives are completely different than they were in those days.  There is no way they are going to write something like that again.

What they could do, and I wish they would do, is write an introspective record from the perspective of life they have now.  That would be a great record.  Getting Mick and Keith to work together long enough and be that open with each other is another story entirely.   

Yes, they sure would have made more great albums IF they would have lived their lives like they did the first 10 years. I mean, living together, touring together, working for months in studios together, party together, writing songs together, doing drugs together, just being friends. They made the most fantastic serie of albums under those conditions. So yes, if they would have stayed a band, instead of a company, but we all know that's just  impossible for all kinds of reasons.

No. SheRat said it nicely.

http://littlemissqaddafi.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/exilemafia.jpg

Tumbling Dijs wrote on Feb 1^st, 2015 at 3:11pm:

Yes, they sure would have made more great albums IF they would have lived their lives like they did the first 10 years. I mean, living together, touring together, working for months in studios together, party together, writing songs together, doing drugs together, just being friends. They made the most fantastic serie of albums under those conditions. So yes, if they would have stayed a band, instead of a company, but we all know that's just  impossible for all kinds of reasons.

This is so interesting, really, just in terms of band lifecycles generally. And certainly, this is applicable with, say, Guns n' Roses. That first record hit it so huge that they then stopped *having* to live/work/party together and then, well, we know what happened next. Maybe that's what bands should do is just *know* that it's time to break up when they no longer, out of necessity, have to live/work/party together. Maybe that's why, as Gazza said, in another thread, people who are solo artists are better able to keep "the muse" around (Dylan, Springsteen, and apparently Lucinda). It's just too hard to keep the juju going with so many people.

I like Angie's idea (hi angie!), about Keith and Mick being open with each other, that counts for something too, I suppose, but then, do we think Exile or any of the Big 4's songs are the result of emotional vulnerability between Keith and Mick? It's an interesting idea....I cannot abide Mick's lyrics anymore. They're painful. And maybe the process of songwriting is also to blame....does it happen anymore that Keith comes up with the riff/chorus/song structure and Mick fleshes it out? I think even if that's happening, Mick phones it in lyric-wise. He seriously should be hit over the head with a frying pan for subjecting people, much less us, his fans, to the crap he's writing lately. Sweet Neo-Con? WTF was that?

OMG, I was working at GoPro cameras when that last song came out and the "music/entertainment" guy was in the cube next to mine and he was always muttering about being backstage at Coachella or whatever the fuck and then I guess he went to London for those November '12 shows so he was always saying "The Stones" really loudly, and when that horrible "Doom and Gloom" was released, I literally had to ask him to stop playing it so much because it was painful for me.   

There are two other major stumbling blocks to writing another truly great album:

1) Mick and Keith essentially don't like each other. There are flickers of love and appreciation and deep down, they obviously care about each other, but just are not friends any more and I would bet that apart from 2-3 communications a year regarding Stones issues, they don't have any contact when they are not touring.

2) It's not easy to come up with great songs if you live so far away. It's no coincidence that their greatest work was done when they all lived close to each other.

The only shot I see for one more great Stones album is to invite Mick Taylor to make a 3 guitarist album and bring Bill back for the same album. The songs may not be as great as they were even with them, but God it will be an unbelievable groove that will make up for the lack of quality.

Taylor (and Wyman) doing work on Sticky Fingers Deluxe, fair enough. But why fanny around with the central guitar line-up on any future ditties after almost 40 years spent honing the KR-RW Weaveyness and short, witty and vibrant solos?

SheRat (and Hello to you as well!), they had to have been more willing to be vulnerable and open back around the time of Beggar's Banquet up to Exile.  Look at how Keith describes Gimme Shelter coming about in his book.  No Expectations (a complete gem IMHO), Wild Horses, Moonlight Mile, Torn and Frayed...just to name a few are all pretty open about what the band, especially Mick and Keith, were living through.

I honestly don't think we will see a new album like that.  Unless, and I hate to say this, Mick feels the needs to exorcise the loss of L'wren musically.  Then it could happen. 

SheRat wrote on Jan 29^th, 2015 at 8:52pm:

Exile is the pinnacle of human achievement and as such cannot be replicated. So, no.

Words of wisdom SheRat!

bands that do the same album "another" over and over or even again…. those bands suck!!!

Most of the great rock classics were created by hungry young folks who had nothing to lose and laid it all on the line. Once popular and rich the desire and mindset differ and the creative juices suffer. The Stones tried to maintain popularity by recording the sound of the day whether it be Reggae or Disco. Had they stayed true to their blues roots we might be talking about one or two more classics in their career.

Yes.

The bands next three albums are, while shorter than 'Exile', every bit as delicious, and in the same spirit of experimentation with the sounds of the day visa vis older American musical forms. And the exact same can be said for their proceeding three albums.

Exile's great, obviously, but a whole myth has grown up around it since probably the early '90s which gives it this iconic status which it certainly didn't have 'til then, and tries to overshadow their other work of that era and shortly after. Myths always contain both truth and bollocks.

'Beggars Banquet' to 'Black and Blue' are ALL indispensible in my book, and for the same - MUSICAL - reasons, and to the same ends.

Mr. Yeats wrote on Feb 6^th, 2015 at 3:02am:

Exile's great, obviously, but a whole myth has grown up around it since probably the early '90s which gives it this iconic status which it certainly didn't have 'til then,

This is absolutely true. I'm not even fucking sure how this happened, but it does annoy me, since I remember people giving me blank fucking stares when I'd talk about the genius of Exile (or, indeed, even Keith Richards, who no one knew about or respected even when Talk Is Cheap came out).

I blame Johnny Depp.

SheRat wrote on Feb 7^th, 2015 at 7:46pm:

I blame Johnny Depp.

I blame the Interweb

No, Exile, will never be repeated or beat!
It Stands alone.
The Bands masterpiece.
IMO, I remember when I first heard it and Thought It just will not stop getting better. From beginning to end, I thought that then And still think that now.
I agree with the hunger and the "don't give a shit attitude"
The time of the release the way things were, and the way things are, so different and so much alike. No IMO in my and our generations eyes, it will not ever happen again. Miss you was close but no cigar, actually not even that close, it was just new fans discovering what we already knew.
The Band an any band "making it", actually screws up the formula.
Tryin to recapture the feel and the attitude of something is useless, Next!

Exile, to me, essentially sounds like an expanded album of Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers outtakes. Which it largely was.
Still wonderful, but hardly a unique progression stylistically for the Stones at the time. There's just more of it. Probably why it wasn't well received at the time.

It's certainly no stylistic leap like London Calling was.

Mr. Yeats wrote on Feb 6^th, 2015 at 3:02am:

The bands next three albums are, while shorter than 'Exile', every bit as delicious, and in the same spirit of experimentation with the sounds of the day visa vis older American musical forms. And the exact same can be said for their proceeding three albums. Exile's great, obviously, but a whole myth has grown up around it since probably the early '90s which gives it this iconic status which it certainly didn't have 'til then, and tries to overshadow their other work of that era and shortly after. Myths always contain both truth and bollocks. 'Beggars Banquet' to 'Black and Blue' are ALL indispensible in my book, and for the same - MUSICAL - reasons, and to the same ends.

Throw every myth out the window and Exile is still a better collection of songs than the three albums that came after it.

Not to downplay those LPs, I love em, but they dont come close to the scale of Exile.