616. monkey man

1969 ended badly for the Rolling Stones at a free concert in Northern California, a place called Altamont — a man murdered directly in front of the stage. But that was only after Brian Jones got booted from the band he’d founded, then drowned in his swimming pool, or was he murdered, too? And meanwhile, Keith Richard just kept slipping deeper and deeper into the fool’s kingdom known as heroin. And yet the Stones still found time to record Let It Bleed, maybe their single greatest slab of vinyl, with Monkey Man a track that managed to not get played to death on commercial radio. Too bad, too ugly, too good.

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847. love in vain

By 1969, the Rolling Stones were all messed up on heroin, cocaine, super stardom, yet still somehow capable of being true to an original Robert Johnson blues. It’s possible Satan was involved.

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