There are tracks on both Let it Bleed and Exile on Main Street that frankly bore my tits off*, but I cannot say the same thing about Sticky Fingers. (Cue the yelling.) The third release in what’s generally considered to be the Rolling Stones’ four album peak, Sticky Fingers (1971) was actually a haphazardly recorded affair that caught the band in transition.

But haphazard has always been good for the Stones. Between piecemeal sessions that started at Muscle Shoals in Alabama and ended in a mobile studio outside Mick’s house, the Stones managed to haphazardly split the atom. That’s what you’re hearing in the gleeful, barrelhouse provocation of "Brown Sugar" and the unfussy grooves of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?”, “Sway”, and “Bitch”. And who would argue that “Sister Morphine”, “Wild Horses”, and “Moonlight Mile” are anything but the most deeply felt downers in the band’s entire career?

On Sticky Fingers, the Stones don't even sound English anymore. They don't sound like anything anymore. The formula was perfected on Exile, but Sticky Fingers has the buzz of fresh creation and accidental genius all over it. This is a band that could have honourably peaked three years earlier with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and then called it a day. Miraculously, the best was yet to come.

Anyway, it’s deluxe reissue time for the album that, more than any other, made you think at length about Mick Jagger’s cock. According to the urgent missive we received this morning from Universal, there are more format options and extra-goodies than any of us really need (they even dusted off Nick Kent for a new essay), but decadence is as decadence does, as any good multinational corporation will tell you.

* Not really

Georgia Straight, March 2015