If I were to give any one Stones album five stars, mathematically, Sticky Fingers comes the closest (I don’t dislike a single cut on it either, so maybe I should just file it as five stars in my mind mentally anyway) but Satanic Majesties is the one I’ve built the longest-running listening ritual of any Stones album I have–I play pretty much the whole album every year around Thanksgiving, for some reason. I love “Citadel,” “She’s A Rainbow” and “In Another Land,” and I don’t think I’d cut any of it–even the two jams are kind of pleasant to listen to walking around at magic hour. I do agree though that having heard all their studio albums, the one track I’d single out the most as sounding the least like the Rolling Stones is indeed probably the nine minute bongo jam.

I thought the biggest thing hampering its reputation was Mick and Keith slagging it off in the press.

Four things I learned about Aftermath from reading up on it:

1)The comma in “Paint It, Black” is a Decca error–I’ve always wished it was never there, myself.
2)The original British cover was designed by Andrew Loog Oldham, and Mick Jagger hated it
3)The band was originally going to write a bunch of songs for a proposed film, to be directed by Nicholas Ray, but Jagger met Ray and didn’t like him
4)The original album title was Could You Walk On The Water? and was nixed by the record label for fear of offending all those Christians mad at John Lennon

NP: Michael Jackson - “Girlfriend”