Everyone and their uncles and aunts knows the tales behind the process of making this now-infamous album, which I will not delve into. The point that needs to be made here is, this is the Stones "because-we-can" LP, or double LP, rather. Lots of what is collected here is great, lots of it is unnecessary, and most of it was cut while at least some of the participants (not all) were overindulging in recreational substance abuse. For me, really, the chaotic and wavering "Rocks Off" sets the tone and succinctly sums up the entire record in its' four and a half minutes of run time, showcasing a group of people who had willingly lost control of themselves, but somehow were still able to pull out spots of genius from the haze of excess. Truth be told, the material itself does not match up to past records, and there is too much of it to justify your full, undivided attention. The other thing which strikes me funny about Exile is, despite its' long-running reputation as THE preeminent garage-rock album, it is cleanly executed from a production standpoint - arguably better than Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. Yet somehow, producer Jimmy Miller's reputation has suffered over the years, thanks to Jagger and Richards throwing him under the bus.

A right confounding record to hear from a number of perspectives. Aerosmith at the end of the 70's were on the ropes - the very process behind making this record was tumultuous, to say the least, with Joe Perry leaving the group mid-record in the midst of a public on-stage row during a summer show - leaving Tyler and the rest of the band to complete the record later in the year with fill-ins (Richie Supa and Jimmy Crespo). The actual album cover photo was shot way back in early 1978, which tells you how long the band had this in the works. Whatever the case, the finished product does feel like a bits-and-pieces affair, even though Perry laid down most of his guitar parts before he left. The junkie feel from Draw The Line has faded away a bit (although still noticeable, mainly in Tyler's vocals), replaced by a more manic, edgy sort of driving feeling, as if the band was on a mission to recapture past glory. However, on the faster, or heavier tracks, there's something missing. Probably the best of these - and we are splitting hairs here - is the opener "No Surprize", which roughly tells the story of how the band made it big. But strangely enough, it feels like they are more reliant than ever on ear-splitting volume than gut-wrenching tone, and it starts to wear on the listener a bit by the time you get to covers like "Reefer Headed Woman" and "Think About It". Where I think the band comes up relative aces is on their reading of the Shangri-La's "Walking in the Sand" and the ending ballad "Mia". With the group in the broken state that they were at the time, the spooky reminiscence of the former track - and Tyler really going for it vocally at certain points - along with understated pathos of the latter track, earns the band a few sympathy points as a token return for the bridges and paths broken at this point in their careers. Fun times were not ahead, although without Perry, Tyler and the rest gamely kept the thing running on fumes, as we shall soon see….

From Day One, these guys held true to their bawdy shtick (“Brown Sugar”). But the album title says it all as well – despite the strong start, there are a lot of low-confidence jitters they had to get out of their system, too. Cut them some slack.

Fun, ZZ-Top inspired grunge album that was on the charts and radio for a good 2 years.

Here was a nice, pleasant, unobtrusive Smashing Pumpkins clone from the Pacific Northwest which never quite broke through on a major level. On this, their second album, they come close. "Dizzy" is all power-pop irony and gooey vibes, strengthened by the vocal dexterity of Tyler Willman and Mari Ann Braeden, and it fit right in with 1995's post-Cobain landscape.