Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An embarrassment of riches..., 1 Mar 2005
The first time I ever heard "Sympathy For The Devil" I was 15 and it absolutely blew me away. It was all too much - the slyly witty lyrics, the strident bark of Jagger's delivery, the creepy ambience...and when the indecently distorted guitar solo kicked in it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard. It more than deserves its reputation as one of the Stones' finest hours, and repeated listening does nothing to dull the magic. And that's just the first track.
The rest of the album is stuffed with tremendous songs, from the beautifully wistful "No Expectations" to the yearning lyricism of "Jigsaw Puzzle" to the strutting classic "Street Fighting Man" to the seamy celebration of the joys of jailbait that is "Stray Cat Blues" (these were more innocent times), the Stones could do no wrong on this record. It's that rare thing, an album that sounds so damned amazing on a first listen that you know you've just found a new friend for life.
Along with "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile..." this is one of my all-time Stones favourites, and if you've never experienced its seedy pleasures then you're in for a treat. Enjoy!!
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Introduction to The Stones most creative Period, 7 Sep 2003
With 'Sympathy for the Devil' re-released, remixed and heading back up the charts this recording may well be one of the first stops for a new generation of Stones fan and it's not a bad place to start at all.BB was the last album to feature Brian Jones (if you belive the press his only contribution was the photo shoot for the cover) and the first to feature producer supream Jimmy Miller whose deft touch is felt all over these sumptious tracks (another legend is that Miller and Wyman saved some of the tapes from a fire at the recording studio). SFTD has to be one of the best album openers ever and the Stones don't look back, every track is a little masterpiece of its own. SFTD, 'Street Fighting Man' and 'Stray Cat Blues' all ended up on the live set list of the 69 US tour and 'Parachute Woman' has to be one of the best Stones LP tracks ever. If your new to the Stones this is a great LP if you've been a fan for years the re-mastered version allows you to hear very clearly the instrumentation, such as Traffic's Dave Mason on the shenai on 'Street Fighting Man'.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You don't have to be a Stones fan to appreciate this., 11 Sep 2005
Beggar's Banquet is a great album that I'm only recently beginning to appreciate, despite the fact that I first bought it in 2003. I'm no great fan of The Stones, as yet (always preferred the Kinks when it comes to 60's British rock) but I can certainly understand why their peak albums, such as Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and this, are so well respected, with Mick and Keith really creating a melting pot of different rock n' roll elements that are advanced upon wonderfully by the other members of the band.
The overall style of the album is loose rhythm and blues, with nods towards country, folk and bluegrass thrown in for good measure. There's also that legendary opening track, Sympathy For The Devil, a song that has been covered, sampled and trotted out onto the soundtracks of so many films (most notably, Interview With The Vampire) that it must be recognisable even to people who think they've never heard the Rolling Stones in their life. From that exotic and sexually charged opening epic, the album moves into the more obvious country-inflected rhythm and blues numbers (the standouts amongst them including No Expectations, Parachute Woman and the immense Street Fighting Man). Jigsaw Puzzle is a nice piece of epic blues-rock with a great overall performance from the band and Jagger on fine vocal form, whilst the later Prodigal Son (a song credited to Rev. Wilkins) is a disorienting piece of carnival blues-rock in the same vein as Dylan's Rainy Day Women No's 12 & 35 from a few years before.
Stray Cat Blues is a great piece of rock and roll in the traditional sense of the word; with those swaggering vocals leading a top-notch band performance in which every member of the group seemed to be playing at their absolute peak. It leads us nicely into my favourite song on the album; the more folk-influenced Factory Girl, which has some fantastic acoustic guitar playing and an interesting approach to percussion. It's probably my favourite Stones song (although I'm not going to pretend that I've heard single song they've ever recorded... it's just the one that most appeals to me), and is a great track to lead us into the closing song on the album, Salt of the Earth. This is another excellent song that draws on bluegrass and folk, with the guitar and piano merging perfectly... complimented by Jagger's vocal, which here, seems to possess an innocent naivety far removed from the possessed intensity of some of the preceding tracks. The use of backing vocals towards the end of the song establish a soulful feeling that would carry over into Let It Bleed, making Salt of the Earth not only a great way to end Beggar's Banquet but also, strangely enough, a great place to start Let It Bleed.
Beggar's Banquet is a great place to start for those interested in discovering the music of the Rolling Stones, with the general critical consensus arguing that Beggar's Banquet is not only one of the best albums ever released by the Stones, but quite easily, one of the key rock albums of the 1960's. And, it must be said, that with songs like Sympathy for the Devil, No Expectations, Street Fighting Man, Factory Girl and Salt of the Earth featured on it, it's hard for me to disagree.
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