Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones

Let It Bleed, the Rolling Stones' eighth album, came out in the last weeks of 1969, on London Records in America on 28 November and on Decca in Britain on 5 December, while the band was out on its American tour. Like Beggars Banquet before it, it goes back to the blues that drove them before Aftermath, with gospel, country blues and country rock seeping in around the edges.

It was made in the middle of a crisis. Brian Jones, who had founded the group and led it in the early days, had become so unreliable in the studio that he was fired partway through the sessions; he plays backing parts on just two songs and was dead within a month. His replacement, Mick Taylor, turns up on two tracks with guitar overdubs. That left Keith Richards to play nearly all the guitar himself, rhythm and lead, with Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts on almost every cut and a strong supporting cast: producer Jimmy Miller on percussion, Nicky Hopkins, Al Kooper and Ian Stewart on keyboards, and guests including Ry Cooder.

You can hear the end of the decade in it. "Gimme Shelter" rolls in like a storm front, "Midnight Rambler" stalks and slithers, "Monkey Man" leers, "Live With Me" and the title track swagger through the gutter, and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" offers a weary, big-hearted shrug. It went to number one in Britain and number three in America without a big hit single, yet its songs became staples of the band's shows and of rock radio. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.