Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones

Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones' sixth album, landed in December 1967 on Decca in Britain and London in the States, the first Stones LP issued in the same form on both sides of the Atlantic. With Andrew Loog Oldham gone, the band produced it themselves, and the title winks at the royal request printed inside every British passport.

This is the Stones gone full kaleidoscope: Mellotron, strings, sound effects and African rhythms swirl around songs of dreams and outer space, of loneliness, distance and people losing themselves in some chrome-plated future. "She's a Rainbow" is the sweet spot, "2000 Light Years From Home" the eerie one. Michael Cooper's lenticular cover only sharpened the charge that they were chasing the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, and reviews were mixed, though the years have been kinder. The band's answer was to run straight back to the blues.

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