Complicated

The first thing you’ll notice is in the video the mix is decidedly different from what’s heard on the record. It’s more raw and very drums-forward. Might be an outtake or something. Or, you may not notice that at all. Early Rolling Stones albums had terrible production values. The production is credited to Andrew Loog Oldham, which means that for all purposes there was no producer. The first seven (if you’re counting American) albums were thrown together live in the studio under great pressure and haste, and under the oversight of the unqualified Andrew and a handful of engineers. Compared to the fabs, who always had the best money could buy, the Stones albums sound downright unprofessional. Some of the mixes sound terrible and fuzzy, and the vocals are frequently muzzed under. It’s that tossed-off quality that’s important, of course. They did have a reputation as dirty bad-boys to upkeep, and putting out dirty bad-boy sounding albums went a long way to upholding that image. If they’d put out fresh and clean sounding records with crispy good sound the whole don’t-bring-home-to-mother menace-to-society act would have rung false, would it not? (Not to mention they were good clean boys in real life anyway.) I always thought the early young Stones were very punk in their way.