The Rolling Stones
Beggars Banquet

THE REVIEW

The 1968 what a year, what an era! The Rolling Stones serve us one of their best works: Beggars Banquet, "the banquet of the poor"? But what poor? Certainly not them.

They appear inside, gorging themselves on food, lounging on benches and sofas, the table laden with dishes and liquors, a banjo peeking out... Listen, the Rolling Stones are the emblem of defiance and rebellion, who knows, maybe even today, facing an impending old age that almost can do nothing against the energy and will to live of these.
The cover was supposed to be the one depicting a shabby toilet, and the wall behind with all sorts of writings that we often find in public toilets or do you remember in school toilets? There are: toilet paper (but what color is it?), symbols of peace, invocations of love, to the woman... At the time it was censored and replaced with a useless but perhaps fitting, in some ways, all beige cover with only the name of the album, in elegant lettering, like a wedding invitation.

Fortunately, the first cover has returned with subsequent re-releases. "Sympathy For The Devil" almost faced the same fate due to its explicit content. Provocative and bizarre in its almost tribal march with Keith Richards' outbursts, it is a very important point in the career of the Rolling Stones, but not only: Mick Jagger presents himself as the devil and proudly recounts his features over the centuries. Alternative stuff, stuff that shocked the world, stuff that defined them as satanic, stuff that smells of revolution, not against religion or such things, but against a proper and perfect system that would logically have been upset.
Music perhaps began, thanks to them, to be loaded with more daring lyrics, for better or for worse. Here's what appears beyond the show's canvas "Beggars Banquet": folk and country songs, “Dear Doctor” (how funny!) and the beautiful “Factory Girl” (oh my what feelings!), the blues cadences of “Parachute Woman”, “Parachute woman, land on me tonight”, and of “Prodigal Son” (Wilkins' cover), the nostalgic ballad “No Expectations”.

The harmonies of the slide guitar of a masterpiece like “Jigsaw Puzzle” will remain immortal, the angry singing of Mick in the famous “Street Fighting Man” (I can already see him moving on stage with his famous moves..), the pure rock and roll of “Stray Cat Blues” (I see myself now speeding on my little car on an imaginary Saturday night..) and finally, as intense as ever, “Salt of the earth”, sung by Keith and then by Mick, (it seems that Saturday is over but nothing is lost..) ends with a gospel choir and a relentless piano.
A great work that, in these last songs and in the initial “Sympathy For The Devil”, does not seem to have aged at all and indeed with the digitally remastered reissues has gained a more crystalline and deep sound.

For the history, the Rolling Stones will then have to face the death (willingly or not, it is a mystery) of Brian Jones, the group's second guitarist, the release of "Let It Bleed" (69), the 70s among great records and some hints of crisis... the rest doesn't interest me, I'm not a fan of theirs, I don't love them, but I think I can understand the importance of certain works.

"Beggars Banquet" is one of those. I think..