THE ROLLING STONES ORIGINAL PRESSING 1967 RECORD Their Satanic Majesties Request

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ORIGINAL 1967 pressing

THE ROLLING STONES

Their Satanic Majesties Request

Their producer and manager Andrew Loog Oldham, already fed up with the band's lack of focus, distanced himself from them following their drug bust and finally quit, leaving them without a producer. As a result Their Satanic Majesties Request was the Stones' only self-produced album, which Mick Jagger admitted was not for the best.

According to Brian Jones, a month before the album's planned release date the group "hadn't got anything put together".

Keith Richards himself has been critical of the album in later years. While he likes some of the songs ("2000 Light Years from Home", "Citadel" and "She's a Rainbow"), "the album was a load of crap".[5]

The Stones experimented with many new instruments and sound effects during the sessions including the theremin, synthesisers, short wave radio static and string arrangements by John Paul Jones.[2] In 1998, a bootleg box set of eight CDs with outtakes of the Satanic sessions was released on the market. The box set shows the band developing the songs over multiple takes, and striking is the cooperation between Brian Jones, Richards and session pianist Nicky Hopkins. Richards is leading the sessions and most songs seem to be written by him, and both Hopkins and Jones indulge in creating elaborate soundscapes. Wyman was absent during the recording of "Gomper", in which Jones played the bass guitar, as well as various other instruments, on that track.

The working title of the album was Cosmic Christmas. In the hidden coda titled "Cosmic Christmas" (following "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)"), Wyman tells "it's slowed-down: 'We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!'" Some of the album's songs were also recorded under various working titles, some appearing rather non sequitur and radically different from the final titles. These working titles include: "Acid in the Grass" ("In Another Land"), "I Want People to Know" ("2000 Man"), "Flowers in Your Bonnet" ("She's a Rainbow"), "Fly My Kite" ("The Lantern"), "Toffee Apple" ("2000 Light Years from Home"), and "Surprise Me" ("On with the Show").[2]

Release and reception

Released in December 1967, Their Satanic Majesties Request reached #3 in the UK and #2 in the US (easily going gold), but its commercial performance declined rapidly. It was soon viewed as a pretentious, poorly conceived attempt to outdo The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (released in June 1967), often explained by drug trials and excesses in contemporary musical fashion, although John Lennon and Paul McCartney did provide backing vocals on "Sing This All Together".

The production, in particular, came in for harsh criticism from Jon Landau in the fifth issue of Rolling Stone,[6] and the Stones turned to Jimmy Miller to produce their subsequent albums, on which the Stones would return to the hard driving blues that earned them fame early in their career. In an April 1968 album review, Richard Corliss of the New York Times was also critical of the production value stating "...their imagination seems to have dried up when it comes to some of the arrangements. While still better than their previous ones, the arrangements are often ragged, fashionably monotonous and off-key." Despite this he gave the album an overall positive review, going as far as calling it a better concept album than Of Cabbages and Kings, The Beat Goes On and even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[7] In a 1970 Rolling Stone interview, Lennon commented on the album: "Satanic Majesties is Pepper. "We Love You"...that's "All You Need Is Love".[8]

Richie Unterberger of Allmusic wrote:[9]

The album was released in South Africa and the Philippines as The Stones Are Rolling because of the word "Satanic" in the title.[10] Starting with this release, non-compilation albums from the band would be released in uniform editions across international markets.

The Wyman-composed "In Another Land" was released as a single, with the artist credit listed as Bill Wyman, rather than the Rolling Stones. (The B-Side, "The Lantern", was credited to the Rolling Stones.)

Most album configurations contain the hidden track "Cosmic Christmas" (running time 0:35) following "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" (running time 7:58).

There are only two songs from the album which the Stones performed live, "2000 Light Years from Home" (1989–90 world tour), and "She's a Rainbow" (1997–98 Bridges to Babylon Tour).

In August 2002, Their Satanic Majesties Request was reissued in a new remastered CD, LP and DSD by ABKCO Records.[11] In May 2011, the album was reissued on SHM-SAC Packaging and design

One proposed cover-a photograph of Jagger naked on a cross-was scrapped by the record company for being "in bad taste".[12] Initial releases of the album featured a three-dimensional picture of the band on the cover by photographer Michael Cooper. When viewed in a certain way, the lenticular image shows the band members' faces turning towards each other with the exception of Jagger, whose hands appear crossed in front of him.[citation needed] Looking closely on its cover, one can see the faces of each of the four Beatles,reportedly a response to the Beatles' inclusion of a doll wearing a "Welcome the Rolling Stones" sweater on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. Later editions replaced the glued-on three-dimensional image with a photograph, due to high production costs. A limited edition LP version in the 1980s re-printed the original 3D cover design. Immediately following the reissue, the master materials for re-printing the 3D cover were intentionally destroyed. The 3D album cover was featured, although shrunk down, for the Japanese SHM-CD release in 2010.

The original cover design called for the lenticular image to take up the entire front cover,but finding this to be prohibitively expensive it was decided to reduce the size of the photo and surround it with the blue-and-white graphic design.

It was the first of four Stones albums to feature a novelty cover (the others were the zipper on Sticky Fingers, the cut-out faces on Some Girls, and the stickers on Undercover). The maze on the inside cover of the UK and US releases cannot be completed: a wall at about a half radius in from the lower left corner means one can never arrive at the "It's Here" in the centre of the maze. Track listing

All songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.

For reference;

Their Satanic Majesties Request is the sixth British and eighth American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on 8 December 1967 by Decca Records in the UK and the following day in the US by London Records. Its title is a play on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires..." text that appears inside a British passport.

Upon its initial release, the album "drew mixed reviews from the critics as well as some mixed reactions within the group itself."[1]