Within my top 5 disagreements of Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 500 list is their placement of this truly perfect rock record at #62. NO COMPRENDE! The cuts on Sticky flow together so well. And every one of them is monumental. It’s got the height of Richard’s riffs (next to Exile..). And it has perhaps the greatest closing tracks, “Moonlight Mile” (below), in music history. Sorry about the hyperbole but ‘Moonlight Mile’ is like a whole affecting film in one song. I could definitely go on but I have a lot of records to get to…

Great words from Mark Richardson at Pitchfork:

Sticky Fingers came at a time when—on record, at least—the Rolling Stones could do no wrong. This album could reasonably be called their peak. They were called the World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band for entirely too long, but if that designation ever applied, it was here.

The story of the Baby Boomers, and their movement from adolescence to adulthood, has been documented and re-told endlessly. And few bands represent that story, and the move from the relative innocence of the mid-'60s into the hedonism and burnout of the '70s, better than the Rolling Stones. They started out as seemingly polite boys in jackets and ties and they grew and changed in front of the cameras and the microphones. Their music grew darker and more cynical, just like the times. At one of their shows, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, held just as the '60s came to a close, a group of Hell's Angels, possibly enlisted as security, killed a man, and the event, along with the Charles Manson murders four months earlier, have long been held up as the symbolic end of the peace-and-love '60s. Seen in retrospect, the Stones were a Zelig-like band for a while there, somewhere in the mix whenever there was a cultural shift underway.

That post-Altamont moment was the setting for their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, an album reissued many times that was recently released in its most extensive re-packaging yet. From 1968's Beggars Banquet and the following year's Let It Bleed on through this album and 1972's Exile on Main St., the Rolling Stones had one of the great four-album runs in pop music history. This was a time when—on record, at least—they could do no wrong, and Sticky Fingers could reasonably be called their peak. Beggars and Let It Bleed might have had higher highs, but both also had their share of tossed-off tracks; Exile's tossed-off tracks, on the other hand, were pretty much the whole point—it's the underground music's fan's favorite, but it never had the broader cultural impact of its predecessor. Sticky Fingers is where the myth met the songwriting; Keith Richards' riffs and melodies were in full flower, Mick Jagger never sang better, their new guitarist, Mick Taylor, was upping the ante musically, and the whole thing was wrapped up in a brilliant packaging concept by Andy Warhol.

The recording of Sticky Fingers was a long and complex process that spanned over a year and involved different locations, producers, and musicians. Here is a brief summary of how the album was made in four paragraphs:

• The first sessions for Sticky Fingers took place in December 1969 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, where the band recorded three songs: “Brown Sugar”, “Wild Horses”, and “You Gotta Move”. These songs were influenced by the American roots music that the band admired, such as blues, country, and soul. The band also experimented with different instruments and effects, such as slide guitar, acoustic guitar, and fuzz box. The sessions were produced by Jimmy Miller, who had worked with the band since 1968.

• The second sessions for Sticky Fingers occurred in March 1970 at Olympic Studios and Trident Studios in London, where the band recorded four more songs: “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”, “Bitch”, “I Got the Blues”, and “Sister Morphine”. These songs showcased the band’s hard rock and funk side, as well as their musical chemistry with their new lead guitarist, Mick Taylor, who had joined the band in 1969. The sessions also featured guest appearances by saxophonist Bobby Keys, keyboardist Billy Preston, and singer Marianne Faithfull2.

• The third sessions for Sticky Fingers happened from June to October 1970 at Stargroves, Mick Jagger’s country house in Newbury, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. The band recorded the remaining four songs: “Sway”, “Dead Flowers”, “Moonlight Mile”, and “The Chauffeur”. These songs reflected the band’s personal and emotional state at the time, as they dealt with various issues such as drug addiction, legal troubles, tax exile, and relationship problems. The sessions also included contributions by keyboardists Nicky Hopkins, Jack Nitzsche, and Ian Stewart.

• The final sessions for Sticky Fingers were held in November 1970 at Island Studios in London, where the band mixed and mastered the album. The album was released on 23 April 1971 on their own label, Rolling Stones Records, which gave them more artistic freedom and control over their music.