Let It Bleed is the first Rolling Stones studio album I acquired and to this day I still recommend to those discerning to start with this album following some kind of greatest-hits package of the 1960's output. You get a good handful of hit songs - "Midnight Rambler", "You Can't Always Get What You Want", "Gimme Shelter" - plus some surprisingly good sleepers like "Monkey Man" and the first-ever all-Richards vocal outing, "You Got the Silver".
As observed with the Who the other day, the end of the sixties marked a big transitional moment, as the old "British Invasion" bands faded away and a new crop of hard rock bands rose up to take their place. The Stones had followed the familiar pattern of transforming from R&B to psych around 1966-1967, then promptly switching back to basics in the following year. Psych was never really their thing, as evidenced by the ridiculous Their Satanic Majesties Request. Let It Bleed follows right on the heels of the reactionary Beggar's Banquet. It's a musically sophisticated album (not everything was rolled back), but stripped of the ill-advised psych influences that led them astray a couple years back. There's still some nods to the past music, but the path is clearly laid out for what was to come. Rarely does a "transitional" album stand out so well, rather than end up half-baked.
Let It Bleed is also the final album to feature Brian Jones. Admittedly, his contributions were marginalized over the past year. The album was released after his death, but some of the recordings were cut a few months prior, so he's there, just in a very limited capacity. No "Paint It, Black" moments of instrumental genius here. Soon to be Rolling Stone (and ex-Bluesbreaker) Mick Taylor is also on the album, but mostly in a session-man capacity, playing on only a couple songs. Future albums, with Taylor fully on board, would further lead the Stones' sound to a more hard/country blues sound that they would be known for in the early 1970's.
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