10 Albums: Sticky Fingers

Sticky Fingers. The name alone conjures up sexual overtones and then - the cover. Andy Warhol's cover photo/art shows tightly clad jeans with an obvious male bulge. The original album cover featured working zipper and underwear but that design was later scrapped given retailer warnings about damage to the vinyl record.

The model used for the cover photograph was never identified. While many assumed that the photo was of Mick Jagger, he was not photographed by Warhol for the album.

Cover photo intrigue aside, I think that Sticky Fingers is the best rock album of all time. Not only is this the best Rolling Stones album of their four album quartet of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street (name another band with four albums back-to-back of that caliber) but it shines as the best album by "the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world" (opening to Get Your Ya Yas Out), thus cementing status as best rock LP ever.

The album starts with "Brown Sugar," the Stones' best single ever, and then moves right into "Sway," "Wild Horses," and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." Side two features "Bitch," "Sister Morphine," and the underrated "Moonlight Mile."

Sticky Fingers is the Stones' at their raunchy best. Released in 1971, the album preceded a U.S. tour in 1972 that validated the band's status as the greatest live rock act, at the time, in the world.

Sticky Fingers--my favorite rock album ever and my pick for greatest rock album of all time.