Sticky Fingers

With the end of their Decca/London association at hand, the Rolling Stones were finally free to release their albums (including cover art) as they pleased. However, their departing manager Allen Klein dealt the group a major blow when they discovered that they had inadvertently signed over their entire 1960s American copyrights to Klein and his company ABKCO, which is how all of their material from 1963's "Come On" to ''Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert'' has since been released solely in America by ABKCO Records. The band later sued for their return but without success, settling in 1984. When Decca informed the Rolling Stones that they were owed one more single, the band submitted a track called "Cocksucker Blues", correctly assuming that this would be refused. Instead, Decca released the two-year-old Beggars Banquet track "Street Fighting Man" while Klein retained dual copyright ownership in conjunction with the Rolling Stones of "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses". Recording Although sessions for Sticky Fingers began in earnest in March 1970, the Rolling Stones had been recording at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in December 1969, where they cut "You Gotta Move", "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses". "Sister Morphine", cut during Let It Bleed's sessions earlier in March of that year, had been held over from that release. Much of the recording for Sticky Fingers was made with the Rolling Stones' mobile studio in Stargroves during the summer and autumn of 1970. Early versions of songs that would eventually appear on Exile on Main St. were also rehearsed during these sessions. == Music and lyrics ==

Sticky Fingers originally included 10 tracks. The music has been characterised by commentators as hard rock, roots rock and rock and roll. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it is "the Stones' most downbeat, druggy album, with new guitarist Mick Taylor stretching into jazz and country". ==Artwork==

Standard version The artwork emphasized the innuendo of the Sticky Fingers title, showing a close-up of a jeans-clad male crotch with the visible outline of a penis. The cover of the original vinyl LP featured a working zipper and perforations around the belt buckle that opened to reveal a sub-cover image of white briefs. The vinyl release displayed the band's name and album title along the belt; behind the zipper, the underpants were seemingly rubber stamped in gold with the stylized name of American pop artist Andy Warhol, below which read "THIS PHOTOGRAPH MAY NOT BE—ETC." The artwork was conceived and photographed by Warhol, and the design by Craig Braun. Billy Name is sometimes accredited as the photographer, however, Braun believes Warhol shot the Polaroid photos for the album, and the Factory associates who were involved in the photo shoot have claimed that Warhol took the photos. Braun and his team suggested wrapping the album in rolling paper – a concept later used by Cheech & Chong in Big Bambu – but Jagger was enthused by Warhol's concept. Warhol duly sent Braun Polaroid pictures of a model in tight jeans. Jagger said it was Jay Johnson, but the general consensus is that Warhol used his lover Jed Johnson as the model for the cover. It remains uncertain exactly who appears on the cover because Warhol photographed several men and never publicly revealed which photos he used. Former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello said, "When the album came out, Glenn [O'Brein] was certain that it was he on the inside and Jay Johnson on the outside, but Andy would never say exactly whose crotch he had immortalized." O'Brien, who was an editor for Warhol's Interview magazine, was "100 percent certain" he was the underwear model: "I knew it was me because it was my underwear!" The album introduced the tongue and lips logo of Rolling Stones Records, designed by John Pasche in 1970. Jagger suggested to Pasche that he copy the out-stuck tongue of the Hindu goddess Kali. Pasche felt that would date the image to the Indian culture craze of the 1960s, but seeing Kali changed his mind. Before the end of that year, his basic version was faxed to Craig Braun by Marshall Chess. The black and white copy was modified by Braun and his team, resulting in the popular red version: the slim one with the two white stripes on the tongue. Critic Sean Egan wrote: "Without using the Stones' name, it instantly conjures them, or at least Jagger, as well as a certain lasciviousness that is the Stones' own... It quickly and deservedly became the most famous logo in the history of popular music." The tongue and lips design was part of a package that, in 2003, VH1 named the "No. 1 Greatest Album Cover" of all time. Alternative version and covers In Spain, the original cover was censored by the Franco regime and replaced with a "Can of fingers" cover, designed by John Pasche and Phil Jude, and "Sister Morphine" was replaced by a live version of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock". This track was later included on the CD compilation Rarities 1971–2003 in 2005. In 1992, the LP release of the album in Russia featured a similar treatment as the original cover; but with Cyrillic lettering for the band name and album name, a colourised photograph of blue jeans with a zipper, and a Soviet Army uniform belt buckle that shows a hammer and sickle inscribed in a star. The model appears to be female. ==Release and reception==

Sticky Fingers was released on 23 April 1971 and reached number one on the UK Albums Chart in May 1971, remaining there for four weeks before returning at number one for a further week in mid June. In the US, the album hit number one within days of release, and stayed there for four weeks. The album spent a total of 69 weeks on the Billboard 200. According to Billboards Top 200 list, it was one of the albums that topped the German chart that year. In a contemporary review for the Los Angeles Times, music critic Robert Hilburn said that although Sticky Fingers is one of the best rock albums of the year, it is only "modest" by the Rolling Stones' standards and succeeds on the strength of songs such as "Bitch" and "Dead Flowers", which recall the band's previously uninhibited, furious style. Jon Landau, writing in Rolling Stone, felt that it lacks the spirit and spontaneity of the Rolling Stones' previous two albums and, apart from "Moonlight Mile", is full of "forced attempts at style and control" in which the band sounds disinterested, particularly on formally correct songs such as "Brown Sugar". Writing for Rolling Stone in 2015, David Fricke called it "an eclectic affirmation of maturing depth" and the band's "sayonara to a messy 1969". In a positive review, Lynn Van Matre of the Chicago Tribune viewed the album as the band "at their raunchy best" and wrote that, although it is "hardly innovative", it is consistent enough to be one of the year's best albums. Writing for Slate, Jack Hamilton praised the album in a retrospective review, stating that it was "one of the greatest albums in rock 'n' roll history." Lester Bangs voted it number one in the poll and said that it was his most played album of the year. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked the album 17th on his own year-end list. In a 1975 article for The Village Voice, Christgau suggested that the release was "triffling with decadence", but might be the Rolling Stones' best album, approached only by Exile on Main St. (1972). In ''Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981), he wrote that it reflected how unapologetic the band was after the Altamont Free Concert and that, despite the concession to sincerity with "Wild Horses", songs such as "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "I Got the Blues" are as "soulful" as "Good Times", and their cover of "You Gotta Move" is on-par with their previous covers of "Prodigal Son" and "Love in Vain". Re-releases In 1994, Sticky Fingers was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records. This remaster was initially released in a Collector's Edition CD, which replicated in miniature many elements of the original vinyl album packaging, including the zipper. Sticky Fingers was remastered again in 2009 by Universal Music Enterprises and in 2011 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese-only SHM-SACD version; the latter was also used in 2013 for SHM-CD and Platinum SHM-CD, and then again in 2020 for another Japanese-only (standard) SHM-CD version. In June 2015, the Rolling Stones reissued Sticky Fingers in its 2009 remastering in a variety of formats to coincide with a concert tour, the Zip Code Tour. The Deluxe and Super Deluxe versions of the reissue featured previously unreleased bonus material (depending on the format): alternative takes of some songs, live tracks recorded on 14 March 1971 at the Roundhouse in London and the complete 13 March 1971 show at Leeds University. It re-entered the UK Albums chart at number 7, extending their UK Top 10 album chart span beyond 51 years and 2 months since their self-titled debuted at number 7 on 23 April 1964. It also re-entered the US Albums chart at number 5, extending their US Top 10 album chart span beyond 50 years and 6 months since 12 x 5 on 14 December 1964. == Legacy ==

Sticky Fingers was ranked number ten in the 1994 first edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. He stated, "Dirty rock like this has still to be bettered, and there is still no rival in sight." In a retrospective review, Q magazine said that the album was "the Stones at their assured, showboating peak ... A magic formula of heavy soul, junkie blues and macho rock." NME wrote that it "captures the Stones bluesy swagger" in a "dark-land where few dare to tread". In a 2018 retrospective review, The Guardian's Alexis Petridis ranked it the best album the band had ever produced, stating "their claim to be The Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the World has no more compelling evidence than the flawless 46 minutes of music here." David Hepworth wrote in his 2016 book Never a Dull Moment that the contributions of guest performers such as Keys, Jim Dickinson, and Preston gave the album "more musical range than any other Rolling Stones album", including "Dickinson's honky-tonk piano on 'Wild Horses'" and "Preston's churchy organ solo on 'I Got the Blues. Sticky Fingers was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. It was listed as No. 63 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, No. 64 in a 2012 revised list, and No. 104 in a 2020 reboot of the list. ==Track listing==

Deluxe edition (2015) Super Deluxe edition (2015) ==Personnel==

• Track credits are noted in parentheses and based on CD numbering where the titles of the second side are numbered from 6 to 10. The Rolling Stones • Mick Jaggerlead vocals , acoustic guitar , castanets , maracas , electric guitar • Keith Richardselectric guitar , acoustic guitar , backing vocals • Mick Taylorelectric guitar , acoustic guitar • Bill Wymanbass , electric piano • Charlie Wattsdrums Additional personnel • Paul Buckmasterstring arrangement • Ry Cooderslide guitar • Jim Dickinsonpiano • Rocky Dijoncongas • Nicky Hopkinspiano • Bobby Keys (credited as B. Keyes) saxophone • Jimmy Millerpercussion • Jack Nitzschepiano • Billy Prestonorgan • Jim Pricetrumpet , piano • Ian Stewartpiano Technical • Jimmy Millerproducer • Glyn Johnsengineer • Andy Johnsengineer • Chris Kimseyengineer • Jimmy Johnsonengineer • Doug Saxmastering engineer • Andy Warholcover concept/photography • John Paschecover concept (Spanish issue) • Phil Judephotography (Spanish issue) ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==