{"id":471021,"date":"2026-06-10T23:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/471021\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T23:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:03:14","slug":"mick-jagger-dislikes-the-rolling-stones-most-celebrated-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/471021\/","title":{"rendered":"Mick Jagger dislikes the Rolling Stones\u2019 most celebrated album"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Rolling Stones decamped to the south of France in 1971 to record what would become Exile on Main St., they created one of rock\u2019s most celebrated albums. But while the record has since attained near-mythic status, Mick Jagger has never been quite as enamored with it as the critics and fans who helped turn it into a classic.<\/p>\n

By June 10, 1972, Exile on Main St. had reached No. 1 in the U.K. and topped charts around the world. Over the decades, it came to be regarded as one of the Stones\u2019 defining statements. Yet Jagger has long viewed the album through a different lens\u2014one colored by memories of disorder, unfinished work and a recording process he felt largely fell on his shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cExile is not one of my favorite albums, although I think the record does have a particular feeling,\u201d Jagger said in 2003 (via Far Out<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n

\"From\n<\/p>\n

Jagger and Mick Taylor onstage at Colston Hall in Bristol, England, March 9, 1971. (Image credit: David Redfern\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not too sure how great the songs are,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt has some of the worst mixes I\u2019ve ever heard. I\u2019d love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because generally I think it sounds lousy. At the time, [producer] Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the whole record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I\u2019m ultimately responsible for it, but it\u2019s really not good, and there\u2019s no concerted effort or intention.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Those are striking comments about an album now widely considered a masterpiece. Yet they also reflect the reality of the sessions that produced it.<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones – Tumbling Dice [Official Lyric Video] – YouTube
\n\"The<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The Stones had begun work on some of the material at London\u2019s Olympic Studios during the Sticky Fingers era before relocating, as tax exiles, to Villa Nellc\u00f4te on the French Riviera. There, they converted the villa\u2019s basement into a makeshift recording space and worked in conditions that were anything but conventional.<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

For Jagger, who was preparing to become a father and frequently traveled to Paris to be with his wife, Bianca, the lack of structure proved frustrating. The villa became a revolving door of musicians, friends, dealers and celebrity visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of people who came to visit that I don\u2019t remember,\u201d guitarist Mick Taylor<\/a> later told Classic Rock. \u201cI don\u2019t remember John Lennon and Yoko<\/a> coming, but apparently they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Bianca\n<\/p>\n

Mick and Bianca attend a party celebrating Yves St. Laurent at 21 in New York City, November 13, 1972. Jagger took time away from the sessions to be with his new bride. (Image credit: Fairchild Archive\/Penske Media via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Keith Richards, meanwhile, was battling a serious heroin addiction. According to the band\u2019s lore, he was often absent from sessions taking place in Nellc\u00f4te\u2019s basement studio. The chaos that Jagger viewed as an obstacle was, for Richards, simply part of the environment.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t start off intending to make a double album,\u201d Richards recalled in According to the Rolling Stones. \u201cWe just went down to the south of France to make an album, and by the time we\u2019d finished, we said, \u2018We want to put it all out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Stones had reached a point where we no longer had to do what we were told to do,\u201d he added. \u201cI was no longer interested in hitting Number One in the charts every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Mick\n<\/p>\n

Jagger and Keith Richards perform at the Roundhouse in London, March 14, 1971, shortly before beginning work on Exile. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Richards would later tell Guitar World<\/a> that Exile represented a conscious move away from the pursuit of singles. \u201cIt was made for what it was,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was an album.\u201d<\/p>\n

That difference in outlook lies at the heart of the band\u2019s conflicting memories of the record. Richards remembers freedom. Jagger remembers trying to impose order on a situation that often seemed determined to resist it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Keith was pretty out of it for some of that period, which shouldn\u2019t have helped, but maybe it did,\u201d Charlie Watts once observed. \u201cMaybe that was where the creative energies came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sessions were plagued by practical problems as well. The summer heat played havoc with instrument tuning, recording schedules were inconsistent and songs often took far longer to complete than anyone anticipated. When Richards failed to pay the dealers providing him with heroin, they sent their henchmen to the house to steal several of the electric guitars<\/a> used on the sessions, including Taylor\u2019s 1959 Gibson Les Paul<\/a>, which is said to be at the heart of a dispute with the New York City Met.<\/p>\n

What emerged from the sessions was less a carefully executed plan than a collection of performances assembled amid confusion and constant interruption.<\/p>\n

Richards embraced that unpredictability. Jagger struggled with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMick needs to know what he\u2019s going to do tomorrow,\u201d Richards said in the 2010 documentary Stones in Exile. \u201cMe, I\u2019m just happy to wake up and see who\u2019s hanging around. Mick\u2019s rock, I\u2019m roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

That tension between discipline and spontaneity has always fueled the Stones. On Exile on Main St., it was amplified by circumstance, producing an album that still divides its creators even as it unites listeners.<\/p>\n

For all of Jagger\u2019s reservations, Richards has remained unequivocal in his assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a year or two, it was considered a bomb,\u201d he said in 2002. \u201cThis was an era where the music industry was full of these pristine sounds. We were going the other way. Yes, it is one of the [Stones\u2019] best.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 50 years later, Exile on Main St. remains a testament to the strange chemistry that powered the Rolling Stones at their peak: one songwriter trying to impose order, the other embracing disorder, and a classic album emerging somewhere between the two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Rolling Stones decamped to the south of France in 1971 to record what would become Exile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-471021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}