On December 8, 1967, the Rolling Stones released their sixth album (eighth in the U.S.), His Satanic Majesty’s Request. To celebrate the album’s 50th anniversary, ABKCO is releasing both a double vinyl LP and a double SACD (Super Audio CD). The new editions will be out September 22.
The album was a huge departure for the band, going from an R&B to a more psychedelic sound, and it didn’t sit overly well with critics or fans. Still, over the decades, its reputation has grown and songs from the set have been covered by a wide variety of artists.
The album took eight months to record for a long list of reasons. Three of the band members were arrested for drug possession, Andrew Loog Oldham quit during the recording causing the Stones to produce themselves and the band periodically was touring. At very few times were all the members of the band in the studio at the same time.
Grammy award winning music historian Rob Bowman writes in the liner notes for the new set, “Their Satanic Majesties Request should be recognized as an important stepping stone in The Rolling Stones’ development from an r&b-inspired band to the inventors of modern rock for the 1970s.”
Falling between Between the Buttons and Beggars Banquet, it was the first of their albums to have identical tracklists in the U.S. and UK. Satanic Majesties’ ten tunes are saturated with studio effects, non-traditional instruments such as mellotron and theremin, ambient sounds created using oscillators, string arrangements by John Paul Jones (who went on to help establish Led Zeppelin the following year) and more percussive devices than can be named. Citadel foreshadowed the direction towards straight-forward rock the Stones would take, while 2000 Light Years From Home and She’s a Rainbow (a minor hit in the U.S.) capture the band in all its psychedelic glory at that moment in time. They remain the only two songs from the album the band has ever played live. Sing This All Together, its looser reprise Sing This All Together (See What Happens), Gomper and On With the Show transition from traditional song structure to free form freakout – a trademark of that era, also heard on records by the Mothers of Invention and Pink Floyd.
The album was a chart success, reaching number 3 in the U.K., 2 in the U.S. and 1 in Australia, but the singles did not fare as well. In Another Land and She’s a Rainbow reached 87 and 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 but failed to chart in their native U.K. A third single, 2000 Light Years From Home, was top ten in Germany and the Netherlands.
The original lenticular cover, shot using 3D technology of the day, has been reproduced for the new set. Both the stereo and mono mixes are included in both packages.
The track lists:
Vinyl
Side A (stereo)
Sing This All Together
Citadel
In Another Land
2000 Man
Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
Side B (stereo)
She’s a Rainbow
The Lantern
Gomper
2000 Light Years from Home
On with the Show
Side C (mono)
Sing This All Together
Citadel
In Another Land
2000 Man
Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
Side D (mono)
She’s a Rainbow
The Lantern
Gomper
2000 Light Years from Home
On with the Show
Hybrid SACD
Disc 1 (stereo)
Sing This All Together
Citadel
In Another Land
2000 Man
Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
She’s a Rainbow
The Lantern
Gomper
2000 Light Years from Home
On with the Show
Disc 2 (mono)
Sing This All Together
Citadel
In Another Land
2000 Man
Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
She’s a Rainbow
The Lantern
Gomper
2000 Light Years from Home
On with the Show
