If 1972’s Exile On Main Street is the Stones’ makeshift masterpiece, its cohesive 1971 predecessor, Sticky Fingers, is their best album by a moonlight mile. This super-deluxe box details the birth of an iconic band/brand.
Sessions for 69’s Let It Bleed yielded material that spilled into Sticky Fingers and Exile, marking the first work without founder Brian Jones and with Mick Taylor, the most essential Stones guitarist besides Keith Richards. Few ideas were left behind. The bonus material consists of alt/live versions of familiar songs, though nothing “new.”
The revelatory stuff is contextual. A live-in-71 CD shows off each Stone at his fucking best, as does a teasing two-song DVD. A beautiful book dishes about Andy Warhol’s iconic trousers-with-working-zipper cover design.
The infamous tongue and lips logo was invented in 1970 by John Pasche, a young art student inspired by a print Mick Jagger gave him of Hindu god Kali. It first appeared on Sticky Fingers, another significant fact about one of the greatest rock records ever.
Top track: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
