Their Satanic Majesties Request review

The 6th Rolling Stones album, and finally the one where the British and American track listings are the same. This is The Rolling Stones' main attempt at psychedelic music.

Tracks:

1. Sing This All Together: 5/10 reasonably well-constructed, but highly irritating and trippy for the sake of being trippy.

2. Citadel: 6/10 the cool riffs may distract from the painfully pretentious lyrics. Don't get your hopes up though.

3. In Another Land: 4/10 while it picks up during the chorus, in the end this is merely artless psychedelia.

4. 2000 Man: 4/10 another enormously annoying song including a reference to the narrator having sex with a computer. It's barely a 4.

5. Sing This All Together (See What Happens): 3/10 a laughably bad instrumental jam in which many, many psychedelic sounds are unleashed in a messy, unstructured tidal wave and pound the listener over the head repeatedly. Sgt Pepper this ain't.

6. She's a Rainbow: 8/10 surprisingly touching and this time the metaphor isn't completely pretentious and irritating, even if it's just repeated again and again throughout the song.

7. The Lantern: 4/10 a decent tune doesn't make the rambling and pretentious lyrics any less grating.

8. Gomper: 5/10 the tune is quite nice some of the time but eventually becomes grating while the lyrics, though pleasant, don't seem to be about anything.

9. 2000 Light Years From Home: 7/10 an interesting science-fiction journey, though not outstanding.

10. On With the Show: 5/10 inoffensive and passable, though not very interesting.

Best song: She's a Rainbow
Worst song: Sing This All Together (See What Happens)

Summary: This remains a divisive work. Some dislike it, but many defend it. I'm with the former camp all the way. This is a messy work of psychedelia with little art and too much pretentious self-indulgence. It's not a terrible record, but when it gets bad it gets very, very bad although when it gets good it's pretty satisfying. Thankfully the Stones went back to their usual music after this. Clearly this style of music doesn't really suit them, so hopefully this mess won't be repeated again. Overcooked, messy and consistently jarring, this will always be a low point in the 50 year plus history of The Rolling Stones.  



Final rating: 4/10