Ya’ know, I was just listening to the ‘94 Exile the other day and it sounds great to my ears. I considered getting the reissue on vinyl just to have it, but the vinyl edition doesn’t have any of the extras. Not to mention that the “lost” tracks probably make “Free As a Bird” sound like a classic. And only including an excerpt of the documentary? Total bullshit. The Stones sure do have big, clanging balls when it comes to releasing unnecessary product to grab some more of that filthy lucre. How many more castles do they need?

The main impetus for remastering and re-releasing ‘Exile’ yet again is the fact that the Stones catalog has changed hands yet again and Universal Music wants to get its money’s worth. Fair enough, but this doesn’t mean that those who already own the album should necessarily rush out and buy it again. Mick Jagger famously disliked the original mix of ‘Exile’, and the new one supposedly offers a bit more clarity, but as we fans know, the murk is essential to the ‘Exile’ experience. Some of those bonus tracks are actually quite a bit better than ‘Free As a Bird’ (of course, that bar is set pretty low): “Good Time Woman”, the alternate version of “Tumbling Dice”, is a fun track. The return-to-psych “Aladdin Story” is also a nice one, but these can be obtained on the Target disc. So, yeah, the whole thing does seem like a gross cash-grab, but Jagger has run out of space for his legendary knee-pad and yellow-spandex pants collection and could use another castle to store that shit in.

Well, that does make it a bit better. I’ll tell you what, though, the way the media glommed onto this reissue really makes you feel the impact the big labels still still have on the media landscape. Jimmy Fallon basically did a weeklong ad for it. Did anyone ever need to hear Sheryl Crow’s version of “All Down the Line”?

I mean, clearly it’s a classic album, and a reissue is going to get covered. But I don’t even think the Beatles remasters got this kind of press, and those were (so I’ve been told) revelatory.

The Beatles remasters did get a lot of press, although much of that was probably due to that Beatles video-game thing that got released simultaneously. In some ways, the ‘Exile’ hype kind of feels like the Stones trying to prove that they’re still as hype-worthy as their chief competitors, considering that this release follows so closely on the heels of The Beatles remasters. A more interesting comparison is this re-release of ‘Exile’ and the re-release and re-mastering of the Stones’ entire ABKCO catalog eight years ago, which didn’t receive a fraction of the hype ‘Exile’ has been getting. You want to talk revelatory, compare the previous versions of the ABKCO CDs from 1986 and the re-mastered SACDs from 2002. The Beatles’ catalog got an upgrade last fall; in 2002, the Stones catalog went from Betamax to Blue Ray.