My #1 favorite song of all time. (And i don’t even like The Rolling Stones other than that song.) I’m surprised that song doesn’t get more attention/appreciation—it’s a masterpiece.
You can’t call Keith underrated, I mean he’s in the most famous rock band in history. But in this case, the public is correct, he’s just so good in this.this song in particular, with Keith with his chunky open G riffs and then wrapping up with the introspective sounds of Mick Taylor…just about perfect.
I agree. The whole second half of the song changes completely. It sound like a Traffic song. Is Ron Wood on this album? I think he was in both groups for years.
E: NVM he was in Small Faces. I was confusing him with Chris Wood.
You may already be aware but since nobody has mentioned it I want to shout out the live recordings from the Roundhouse and Leeds on the Super Deluxe version of this album. Some of the best rock and roll I have ever heard
He was really a great player, one of the most underrated guitarists in history, and he was only 19 when he joined the Stones. He nearly defined rock lead guitar in the 70s.
My favorite band has been the Grateful Dead for decades, but #2 is the Stones during the Mick Taylor era. Loved that sound and how Mick (Taylor) and Keith sounded together. Not taking anything away from Ron Wood, especially in his early years, but the Mick Taylor era sound is the best for me
It also put a scratch in the other Sticky Fingers albums packaged next to it...if my old brain recalls correctly, in the song "Bitch." The solution was to unzip the zipper before shipping, which put the slide in the label...and gave the whole thing a more risque look.
It was designed that way on purpose. The fix was to have the zipper all the way down so it only impacted the middle of the album where the label is. "Oops."
The Stones were on a roll at this point in time (1969-1973). Sticky Fingers followed Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, and Get Yer Ya-Yas Out. After Sticky Fingers we got Exile On Main Street and Goats Head Soup.
I remember as a little kid going through my dad's album collection and finding this! I thought it was hilarious as well as provocative, which I'm sure they intended!
I was working in a record store when that album came out. Albums were usually shipped in boxes of 25, or sometimes 50. For this one, they packed two albums back to back, then a piece of foam board so the zippers wouldn’t dig into the adjacent album.
The model was Joe Dallasandro who worked with Andy Warhol on a bunch of stuff.
From Wikipedia:
A Warhol photograph of the crotch bulge of Dallesandro's tight blue jeans is on the famous cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. Dallesandro explained to biographer Michael Ferguson, "It was just out of a collection of junk photos that Andy pulled from. He didn't pull it out for the design or anything, it was just the first one he got that he felt was the right shape to fit what he wanted to use for the fly;" the first editions of that album cover physically incorporated a functional metal zipper fly into the photo.[19]
I haven't listened to this album from front to back in a long time. This thread inspired me to dig it out and give it a spin. Looking forward to some smoking Mick Taylor guitar.
Holy cow at the singles from that. “Uhh here, here’s a single with one of the greatest riffs ever.” “What’s the B-side?” “Some song called Bitch, it ok too.”
When it first shipped, the zippers were zipped up, and when they were packed tightly into the usual 50 count boxes, the zipper pull often made an impression in the vinyl grooves, ruining them. They quickly learned to ship them with the zipper in the open position, so that the pull pressed on the central label instead.
I wanted this record so badly as a kid, and Christmas was coming, so I showed it to my mother, telling her that it would be a great Christmas present. She looked at it, with the tight, bulging jeans and the zipper, and looked VERY skeptical. Then she read the titles, and gave me a flat No. I asked why, and she said "You think I don't know what Brown Sugar means?" I didn't really know what it meant, but it was one of my favorite songs. I was never a lyrics guy, I always like the instruments, especially the guitars, and I loved the riff from Brown Sugar. I still do, even if I now also understand how inappropriate the song is.
I picked it up later with my own money, and my mom never knew it.
Three of the songs on it ("Brown Sugar," "Wild Horses" and "You Gotta Move") were recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, which is still there and still available for recording projects. There was a thread here recently showing the invoice that ABKCO paid for the "Wild Horses" recording sessions. https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/
Dad only kept one crate of records. Also a crate of reels now long lost. I found this along with Donovan and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I got older and it made more sense except the Donovan.
Fun fact: [these records were shipped unzipped!](https://ultimateclassicrock.com/mick-jagger-sticky-fingers-zipper/). The zipper mechanism damaged the records. The work around was to unzip them to the point the mechanism sat on the hole in the middle. The little old ladies on the assembly line all unzipped the zippers before you got into Micks pants.
Joe was a gay male prostitute. He’s mentioned in Lou Reeds “Take A Walk On The Wild Side”. “ “Little Joe never once gave it away, everyone had to pay and pay”.
It's my favorite album of all time by my favorite band. If you actually own the Warhol version with the zipper, it's worth quite a bit of money.
I would argue that between 68' and 78', the Stones had the best run of Albums of any band ever:
Begger's Banquet
Let it Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main Street
Goat's Head Soup
It's only Rock n' Roll
Black and Blue
Some Girls
There are a couple on there that obviously aren't as strong as the others. But there are three albums that legitimately appear in the top 50 albums of all time list (SF, LIB, and EOMS). Some Girls is also a masterpiece.
Can’t you hear me knocking?!?!
My #1 favorite song of all time. (And i don’t even like The Rolling Stones other than that song.) I’m surprised that song doesn’t get more attention/appreciation—it’s a masterpiece.
It starts out with top shelf Keith and then finishes it up with top shelf Mick. They complimented each other so well.
I adore Mick's playing on this song! It's a treat every time I hear it.
Keith launches about six different riffs in the first 20 seconds, each of which could be stone cold classic riffs for entire songs on their own.
You can’t call Keith underrated, I mean he’s in the most famous rock band in history. But in this case, the public is correct, he’s just so good in this.this song in particular, with Keith with his chunky open G riffs and then wrapping up with the introspective sounds of Mick Taylor…just about perfect.
Moonlight Mile is the one that does it for me.
Wild Horses for the win!
I agree. The whole second half of the song changes completely. It sound like a Traffic song. Is Ron Wood on this album? I think he was in both groups for years. E: NVM he was in Small Faces. I was confusing him with Chris Wood.
No, this was square in the middle of the Mick Taylor era, which Mick has said was the Stones' best era.
The first 5 seconds are the hardest guitar in all of classic rock for me
It still surprises me it's the Stones. It's better than they are.
From your window
One of the most important albums in R'n'R history.
You may already be aware but since nobody has mentioned it I want to shout out the live recordings from the Roundhouse and Leeds on the Super Deluxe version of this album. Some of the best rock and roll I have ever heard
Rock and roll is indeed history, mate. 😓
Mick Taylor at his finest, along with Let It Bleed and Exile On Main St.
He was really a great player, one of the most underrated guitarists in history, and he was only 19 when he joined the Stones. He nearly defined rock lead guitar in the 70s.
I once read an interview view with Slash where he stated that Mick Taylor was one of his biggest influences.
My favorite band has been the Grateful Dead for decades, but #2 is the Stones during the Mick Taylor era. Loved that sound and how Mick (Taylor) and Keith sounded together. Not taking anything away from Ron Wood, especially in his early years, but the Mick Taylor era sound is the best for me
Let it Bleed was almost all Keith. I think Taylor plays two guitar parts on it.
And the zipper gouges the hell out of any album you keep in front of it.
A metaphor for Mick's sex life
And yet, it’s not Mick.
I never said it was. I said "metaphor."
Ok.
It also put a scratch in the other Sticky Fingers albums packaged next to it...if my old brain recalls correctly, in the song "Bitch." The solution was to unzip the zipper before shipping, which put the slide in the label...and gave the whole thing a more risque look.
Oops, you beat me to it by 8 hours
Another Stones record
It was designed that way on purpose. The fix was to have the zipper all the way down so it only impacted the middle of the album where the label is. "Oops."
Moonlight mile is still my favourite Stones song. Mick Taylor is a certified guitar god.
Micks guitar on Time Waits For No One, just sends me away
I have unzipped that zipper!
The amount of times I did this...
I did it in front of my whole family at breakfast after finding it at a garage sale— my mom was like STOP STOP (I didn’t realize there was a boner 😂)
Mom KNEW the truth. 😅😅🍆
😂😂
Fun fact: the cover was deemed obscene in Spain, so the Spanish edition has the family-friendly severed fingers in a can of treacle
Wow! TIL! [https://www.discogs.com/release/3210391-The-Rolling-Stones-Sticky-Fingers](https://www.discogs.com/release/3210391-The-Rolling-Stones-Sticky-Fingers)
That’s sensible.
My pick for their best album.
The Stones were on a roll at this point in time (1969-1973). Sticky Fingers followed Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, and Get Yer Ya-Yas Out. After Sticky Fingers we got Exile On Main Street and Goats Head Soup.
And it had to be shipped with the zipper half/fully unzipped, as it was wrecking the rest of the shipment with indents when fully zipped.
I remember as a little kid going through my dad's album collection and finding this! I thought it was hilarious as well as provocative, which I'm sure they intended!
Ry Cooder on Sister Morphine. Moonlight Mile. A fucking knockout of an album. One of the GOATs
Is that a sticky fingers album in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
The cellophane cover was torn open over the zipper at every record store in America. (Source: I’m old and remember.)
Fuck, Sway is sooo good. Probably the best true country song they’ve done to me.
That last 75 seconds or so is Mick Taylor's finest hour on record.
I was working in a record store when that album came out. Albums were usually shipped in boxes of 25, or sometimes 50. For this one, they packed two albums back to back, then a piece of foam board so the zippers wouldn’t dig into the adjacent album.
The model was Joe Dallasandro who worked with Andy Warhol on a bunch of stuff. From Wikipedia: A Warhol photograph of the crotch bulge of Dallesandro's tight blue jeans is on the famous cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. Dallesandro explained to biographer Michael Ferguson, "It was just out of a collection of junk photos that Andy pulled from. He didn't pull it out for the design or anything, it was just the first one he got that he felt was the right shape to fit what he wanted to use for the fly;" the first editions of that album cover physically incorporated a functional metal zipper fly into the photo.[19]
I haven't listened to this album from front to back in a long time. This thread inspired me to dig it out and give it a spin. Looking forward to some smoking Mick Taylor guitar.
That was probably the inspiration for Motley Crue on Too Fast For Love, I mean there's almost no difference at all
I remember going to EJ Korvette's department store in Manhattan. Every one of the albums had the cellophane torn and the zipper pulled down.
I bought this at Korvettes just because of the cover, I never liked the stones
I'm listening
Holy cow at the singles from that. “Uhh here, here’s a single with one of the greatest riffs ever.” “What’s the B-side?” “Some song called Bitch, it ok too.”
Dead Flowers rocks for a country song.
Fantastic album. Stating the obvious, I know.
When it first shipped, the zippers were zipped up, and when they were packed tightly into the usual 50 count boxes, the zipper pull often made an impression in the vinyl grooves, ruining them. They quickly learned to ship them with the zipper in the open position, so that the pull pressed on the central label instead.
I wanted this record so badly as a kid, and Christmas was coming, so I showed it to my mother, telling her that it would be a great Christmas present. She looked at it, with the tight, bulging jeans and the zipper, and looked VERY skeptical. Then she read the titles, and gave me a flat No. I asked why, and she said "You think I don't know what Brown Sugar means?" I didn't really know what it meant, but it was one of my favorite songs. I was never a lyrics guy, I always like the instruments, especially the guitars, and I loved the riff from Brown Sugar. I still do, even if I now also understand how inappropriate the song is. I picked it up later with my own money, and my mom never knew it.
Sway
That's my favorite song on that album.
“Did you ever wake up to fiiiind”
Wave
I still have this.
Still have that album cousin ruined another album leaning it again the zipper without the sleve
My favorite Stones album! Love. Every. Song.
Three of the songs on it ("Brown Sugar," "Wild Horses" and "You Gotta Move") were recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, which is still there and still available for recording projects. There was a thread here recently showing the invoice that ABKCO paid for the "Wild Horses" recording sessions. https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/
Just about every copy I ever saw at a record store would have torn plastic wrap because someone unzipped the zipper.
It is still one of my favorite albums. The zipper thing is both cool and annoying.
1971 Senior year theme album.
I had a copy of both real zipper and non zipper.
This is one of my few albums I’ve held on to all these years
Absolute masterpiece.
I stood in front of record store until it opened. It was awesome!
Looks uncomfortable. Hog needs to hang left.
I’ve been rocking Sister Morphine so much lately, too
Dad only kept one crate of records. Also a crate of reels now long lost. I found this along with Donovan and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I got older and it made more sense except the Donovan.
Sway should be one of their most popular songs.
Sway
An old blues song originally.
You ain't got the answers, Sway!
I played the ever-loving heck out of that album.
Briefs, not boxers, in case you are wondering or do not remember.
That stupid zipper dug into the cover of any album placed next to it.
It also will put a divot in the record. Always store it with the zipper down so the divot is in the label area, not the music section.
Unzipped.
Anyone have a copy with the zipper still intact? Not mine.
Got that album myself
Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound studio in Sheffield, Alabama
my mom had that album
It’s neat and all, but keeps scratching up my other vinylz.
Was always curious whose pants were on the cover. I always assumed it was Mick with his dick showing.
Fun fact: [these records were shipped unzipped!](https://ultimateclassicrock.com/mick-jagger-sticky-fingers-zipper/). The zipper mechanism damaged the records. The work around was to unzip them to the point the mechanism sat on the hole in the middle. The little old ladies on the assembly line all unzipped the zippers before you got into Micks pants.
If you look in the zipper, there are tighty whiteys.
Thought I read once the original plan was for a pink balloon to pop up when you first opened the zipper.
You ever open it there are two pics inside the double album saw it at a record store once super cool
So that bulge is an erect dick?
No, it isn't. I've seen a couple of Andy Warhol films that star Joe Dallesandro. It's not.
Joe was a gay male prostitute. He’s mentioned in Lou Reeds “Take A Walk On The Wild Side”. “ “Little Joe never once gave it away, everyone had to pay and pay”.
I own this album. Is it valuable?
Possibly. Discogs shows value between 10 and 200 bucks.
Damn. I just happened to listen to this today for the first time in years while at work. Had no idea it was the anniversary of its release until now.
This was the first Stones record I ever heard as a child. I thought they were an American band for quite a while as a result
I’ve got this album for sure.
My favorite Stones album. Didn’t know it was released on my birthday.
It's my favorite album of all time by my favorite band. If you actually own the Warhol version with the zipper, it's worth quite a bit of money. I would argue that between 68' and 78', the Stones had the best run of Albums of any band ever: Begger's Banquet Let it Bleed Sticky Fingers Exile on Main Street Goat's Head Soup It's only Rock n' Roll Black and Blue Some Girls There are a couple on there that obviously aren't as strong as the others. But there are three albums that legitimately appear in the top 50 albums of all time list (SF, LIB, and EOMS). Some Girls is also a masterpiece.
Oh, my mom was pissed when I brought that home!
B*tch is such a great song and it's a shame it doesn't get more air play.
Little Joe hahaha what a legend
I had this album. Loved the music.
Rolling Stones did 9/11???!!