Maps of Music

Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

Where the lyrics of Their Satanic Majesties Request take you, and where it was really made.

The album's title comes from a line printed in a British passport, and its cover hides a maze that can never be completed.

Key places

Where the Satanic Majesties sessions were recorded (1967)

Recording site Olympic Studios — Recording of the album began just after Between the Buttons was released in January 1967. The sessions were recorded at Olympic Studios in London, where the band's frequently interrupted work produced the album. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Sixth studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones
• Released December 1967 by Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the United States
• First Stones album released in identical versions in both countries
• Title plays on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires" text printed inside a British passport
• Psychedelic sound with Mellotron, sound effects, string arrangements, and African rhythms
• Lyrics use dreamlike imagery and science-fiction themes such as loss of identity in a futuristic society, space travel, and alienation
• Band members produced the album themselves after manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham had departed

Background

• Recording began just after the release of Between the Buttons on 20 January 1967
• Court appearances and jail terms meant the whole band was seldom in the studio at one time
• Bill Wyman, wary of psychedelic drugs, wrote "In Another Land" as a parody of the band's goings-on
• Oldham distanced himself after the drug bust and finally quit, leaving the band without a producer
• The album became the Stones' first self-produced album
• Mick Jagger later said this was not for the best

Recording

• Guests often arrived with band members, further slowing the work
• Sessions used Mellotron, theremin, short wave radio static, and string arrangements by future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones
• Several songs were recorded under working titles that differ sharply from the final ones
• A 1998 bootleg box set of eight CDs shows the songs developing over multiple takes

Cover

• The initial LP cover is a three-dimensional lenticular image by photographer Michael Cooper
• A proposed cover showing Jagger naked on a cross was scrapped as being "in bad taste"
• Later editions replaced the glued-on 3D image with a photograph due to high production costs
• The inner-cover collage and the maze on the UK and US releases were designed as part of the elaborate package

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in 1962 as an English rock band; their first stable line-up was Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
• Jones named the band after a Muddy Waters song; they were rooted in blues and rock and roll.
• Manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged them to write their own songs, and the Jagger–Richards partnership became their main creative force.

Members

• Current: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood (joined 1975).
• Former: Brian Jones (died 1969), Mick Taylor (1969–1974), Bill Wyman (1962–1993), Charlie Watts (1963–2021, died 2021).
• Steve Jordan became their drummer after Watts' death.

Career

• Hits included "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965), "Paint It Black" (1966) and "Start Me Up" (1981).
• Their 1969 Hyde Park show and Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. are key points of their career.
• Formed Rolling Stones Records in 1970, whose tongue-and-lips logo became their band logo.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989; the band has sold more than 250 million albums.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Initially received mixed reviews
• Criticised as derivative of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with the similarities extending to the cover
• Jon Landau in the fifth issue of Rolling Stone harshly criticised the production
• Richard Corliss of the New York Times in April 1968 criticised the arrangements but gave the album an overall positive review
• Corliss called it a better concept album than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Reappraisal

• Dave Marsh in The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979) called the album a bad idea gone wrong and named only three songs as redeeming it
• Robert Christgau of the Village Voice in a 1977 retrospective review said the album "no doubt contains several great songs"
• Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Pitchfork praised the dissonance between the band's gritty rhythms and its ornate arrangements
• AllMusic's Bob Eder called the mono mix a distinct improvement over the stereo version
• Keith Richards and Mick Jagger later distanced themselves from the album

Records

• Reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 2 in the US, easily going gold
• Commercial performance declined rapidly after release
• Reissued in August 2002 as a remastered CD, LP, and DSD release by ABKCO Records
• A 2017 set contained two LPs and two SACDs with a new stereo remastering
• Reissued in 2018 as part of Record Store Day on transparent coloured vinyl

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album came out in South Africa and the Philippines as The Stones Are Rolling because of the word "Satanic" in the title
• The working title was Cosmic Christmas, and a hidden coda plays a slowed-down version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" on an oscillator
• Brian Jones said the band had got together in chaos and had done little editing before the album was rushed out
• The album was the first of four Stones albums with a novelty cover, the others being Sticky Fingers, Some Girls, and Undercover
• Around 1997 rumours surfaced of a promo version with silk padding, but a Decca letter shown with a pink padded copy was almost certainly a forgery

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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