As the longest continuously surviving band in rock and roll, The Rolling Stones have become a symbol of staying power, and STRIPPED proves why. Its lean, live, acoustic format draws from their Voodoo Lounge tour, which mixed the band's early material with some judiciously picked covers and a handful of country-blues classics, giving the band more punch as a live act that it's had in the studio in years.
The Stones' clever interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" finds Mick Jagger asking "how does it feel to be on your own"; some thirty years after the song first hit the charts, the question still rings true. There is no other band like The Rolling Stones, and they are now completely on their own--peerless, that is. The Stones are also armed with a musical catalog that'll never be equaled, and STRIPPED shines because it brings some brilliant, underutilized elements of that catalog back to the forefront. The barroom boogie of "I'm Free" and the subdued country-gospel of "Wild Horses" are steeped in the reverence that makes the delicate blues of Delta deity Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain" so crucial.
It's all in here--everything that makes them The Rolling Stones: Jagger's sermonizing vocals, Keith Richards' and Ronnie Wood's acoustic honky-tonk guitars, Charlie Watt's flawless metronome drums. STRIPPED isn't as naked as it claims to be, but it's the perfect modern way to view the Stones' impressive past, and the band's ongoing strut as leaders of the pack.
![The The Clash [US]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0074646388327_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "The The Clash [US]")
