The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup (Half Speed Master)

The Rolling Stones' eleventh UK studio album, recorded in Jamaica, Los Angeles and London as their last collaboration with producer Jimmy Miller, Goats Head Soup came in the wake of the band's landmark 1972 double album Exile On Main St. It was introduced by the single that became one of their most exalted ballads, the endlessly elegant "Angie," completed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards during a songwriting sojourn in Switzerland. The timeless love song, showcasing Jagger's yearning lead vocal and Nicky Hopkins' beautiful piano motif, topped the charts in the US, where it was certified platinum, and went to No. 1 across the world. "We decided to do something different, and it worked," Richards told Rolling Stone of "Angie." "Maybe a lot of people bought it that would never buy a Stones LP." In a recent interview with The New York Times, Bob Dylan chose "Angie" as one of three Stones songs he wished he had written.

Goats Head Soup, with its famous David Bailey sleeve, featured the Stones' vintage 1969-1974 line-up of Jagger, Richards, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, with the addition of some essential collaborators. On an album on which their trademark rocking sound was often augmented by more low-key, reflective material, there were no fewer than four featured piano players: Hopkins, Billy Preston, Ian 'Stu' Stewart and Jagger himself. "Angie" was the only single to be released from the LP in the UK, where it spent two weeks at No. 5 in September. In the US, the exhilaratingly funky, horn-filled "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)," featuring Taylor's wah-wah lead guitar, followed it into the top 20 in February 1974. The many other highlights included the majestically brooding opener "Dancing With Mr. D," the lithely strutting "100 Years Ago" and "Star Star" and the graceful "Winter." Richards' rueful lead vocal on "Coming Down Again" featured another Stones stalwart, saxophonist Bobby Keys. "Silver Train," the b-side of "Angie," would be revived after a gap of some 40 years, during the Stones' 14 On Fire tour of 2014, when Taylor reprised his original guitar part in shows in Tokyo and Brisbane.

When the album was first released, reviewers lined up to sing its praises. "This is music which could only come from good musicians who know each other really well," ruled the late and esteemed writer-broadcaster Charlie Gillett in Let It Rock. "The Stones succeed because they rarely forget their purpose – the creation of rock & roll drama," said Bud Scoppa in Rolling Stone. "It's deepening and unfolding over the coming months will no doubt rate as one of the year's richest musical experiences." Stephen Demorest in Circus said that the album "rushes and rambles with all the power and finesse that have become the signature of the hardworking band in performance." Forty-seven years on, the expanded reissues of Goats Head Soup prove that's still true, and then some.