STICKY FINGERS by THE ROLLING STONES (1971, Rolling Stones Records)

Lock up your grand-daughters because this year its the Strolling Bones' 50th birthday! God only knows what mischief these naughty pensioners will make. To celebrate here's a little blog on my favourite Stones album; STICKY FINGERS. 

What a name! What a cover! What songs! Everything about it is downright dirty. The kind of dangerous, swaggering rock n roll yer mama warned you about. The cover of the original vinyl version even unzipped. Gosh. 

It's a perfectly constructed album. Perfectly paced, well ordered with massive peaks, gentle lows every song now feels settles into it's right place.

It was the first album the Stones released on their own label, the first not to feature any Brian Jones material and the first full album for the short-lived Stone, Mick Taylor.

It's has so many great moments. 'Brown Sugar'. Nothing more to say about that one. 'Sway'' with its tearaway guitar solo. 'Wild Horses', the 2nd greatest song the Stones ever wrote. The best being 'Tumbling Dice'. Obviously.

The downright funky 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking?' a song that makes you feel like one of the three little pigs with Mick the salacious wolf at the door slapping those big sexy lips. "Yes Mick I can hear you knocking but i'm not letting you in. You scare me."

'You Gotta Move' is drunken and scary. The sound of the Stones howling at the moon. Guitar slides all over the place.

And then there's 'Bitch'. Wow. What a song. Mick's frustrated and horny like a dog on heat.  "When you call my name I salivate like Pavlov's dog / and when you lay me down, my heart starts beating like a big bass drum...." Mick yelps. Keef solos like a baddun. Charlie thumps the skins and then theirs that big brass section courtesy of Mr Bobby Keys. Yowzer!

And then we have comedown. 'I Got The Blues' is big soul ballad the kind Otis Reading would have destroyed (in a good way). It's followed by a stellar hat-trick of 'Sister Morphine', 'Dead Flowers' and the sweeping, orchestral 'Moonlight Mile'. The perfect finish.

Sex. Drugs. Death. Heartbreak. All the good stuff. STICKY FINGERS has got everything the best rock albums should. By the end you'll feel used, sullied, defiled and heartbroken. But desperate to let to let the Stones do it to you all over again.

The greatest rock n roll album recorded? I challenge you to name one better...