Track Listing

1. Brown Sugar
2. Sway
3. Wild Horses
4. Can't You Hear Me Knocking
5. You Gotta Move
6. Bitch
7. I Got The Blues
8. Sister Morphine
9. Dead Flowers
10. Moonlight Mile

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7814 in Music
• Released on: 1994-08-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Sister Morphine", the heart of guitarist Mick Taylor's first full studio album with the Stones, doesn't get brought up as often as "Brown Sugar" or "Wild Horses". But it's one of the most vivid, horrifying songs about drug abuse ever recorded--as Mick Jagger sings "from my hospital bed," the ringing guitars of Taylor and Keith Richards build to full catharsis behind him. On that and lighter songs like the countryish "Dead Flowers" and the rocker "Bitch", Charlie Watts establishes himself as rock's prototypical drummer. He's creative and propulsive and knows how to swing, but he never overwhelms the song or the other Stones. --Steve Knopper

CD Description
Sounding subdued, or at least more wary than most Stones albums, STICKY FINGERS' 1971 release betrayed the difficultiesthe band members were enduring. From Mick Jagger's breakup with the emotionally troubled Marianne Faithfull, to Keith Richards's concern about his newborn son Marlon, the band found themselves re-evaluating their lives, and this depth of emotion made its way into the album. Be it in the terrifyingly spare "Sister Morphine" and "Moonlight Mile", or the near-dangerous, electrified "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", the songs on STICKY FINGERS are anything but innocent.
The lineup on this album solidified with Mick Taylor in place as a second guitarist. Recorded partially in the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, the Stones were flirting with the blues, but adding a Southern soul flavour. Much of STICKY FINGERS is this tasteful mixture of blues and soul. Added to the brew are the spicy horn arrangements of saxophonist Bobby Keys and trumpet player Jim Price. The use of horns in the Stones' repertoire seemed inevitable--when they kick in during "Brown Sugar" and "Bitch", it is as if Richards's guitar is rebirthed in brass. STICKY FINGERS proved that the endlesssummer of the 1960s was over, but that the Stones would rock just as hard in the following decade.

Customer Reviews

Here Come The Seventies
The Stones now reach a level with this album (1971) where it is very difficult to criticize even one track. Even 'You Gotta Move' which is the obvious weak link here fits the album perfectly, and in context is quite enjoyable. For the rest of the album, we have a closet of Golden Wonders. And I'm not talking about Crisps. The opener 'Brown Sugar' is no less than the best Rock Dance Number ever committed to vinyl. Forget the live versions. This is the one. 'Sway' finds the Stones at their swaggering best. Quite an album track. 'Wild Horses' is utterly infectious. Up there in the Top 3 ballads this band ever recorded. And that means better than 'Fool To Cry' (1976) or even 'Waiting On A Friend' (1981). That good. 'Can You Hear Me Knocking' is an extended jam featuring Mick Taylor and Keith combining on on some quite superb guitar. It goes on a bit but is pretty compelling for the most part.I Got The Blues' is an incredibly moving slow blues number with great organ support from Billy Preston. Compare this, for example, to 'Coming Down Again' from Goat's Head Soup'. They only matched this style of track on 'Let It Bleed' (1969) with 'Love In Vain' or 'No Expectations' from 'Beggars' Banquet' (1968). 'Sister Morphine' is a brilliant piece in its atmosphere. Depressing maybe, but quite brilliant musically...and pretty hard hitting lyrically. 'Dead Flowers' is wonderful relief to all this gloom, classic tongue in cheek Country and Western Jagger. Nice guitar. And then we come to the closing number 'Moonlight Mile' which is utterly superb. In every way. Lines such as 'with a headful of snow' are perfectly evocative. And the melody and Jagger's vocal delivery are quite incredible. Not a single but a classic all the same.
Rarely have this band produced an album of such consistent brilliance.

What the money making machine is all about.
For those, like me, unable by the cruelty of birth to have seen the Stones at their best, this is a reminder of what today's monstrosity is all about.

If you were to wake up in the darkened corridor of a washed-out hotel at 6am with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and no money to your name, this album would provide the soundtrack to make it all seem OK. Keith's enthusiasm for his craft was matched at this stage of his career only by his appetite for the fullness of life, and both collide here to devastating, knee-trembling effect. The songs all come equipped with down-and-dirty guitar riffs fitted as standard, while Mick is able to wring every last sneer of emotion from his vocals.

This is where rock & roll meets the blues, gets laid and gives birth to a bastard love-child that the parents can be proud of.

Still fantastic after 30 years
Sticky Fingers was the second album that I bought, and some thirty years later I still listen to it regularly. The word classic is over used but if ever an album deserved the description this is it. This is the Stones at their best, and if they have made a better album then I have yet to hear it. To my ears it is timeless, just as enjoyable today as when it was first released. If possible it would get six stars. There is not a weak song on the album and all aspects, composition, performance, production and (even) track order are superb. If I had to choose a favourite it would be Sister Morphine, extremely evocative and haunting, a chilling account of the consequences of drug addiction, brutally honest but not in any way judgemental. A very dark and powerful album, definaetly not one that you can listen to once and then put aside.