I have always had a soft spot in my heart for "Satanic"--sure, it sounds nothing like The Stones, but that's part of what gives it its charm. It certainly sounds almost nothing like "Sgt.Pepper", either, although it is clearly influenced by it. Songs like "Citadel", "2000 Light Years" and "Gomper" are much darker, heavier and more experimental than anything on "Pepper", and the catchy riffs and hooks *are* still there. There's only one thing missing in the new CD remaster and that is the 3-D effect on the cover art, although the rest of the packaging is up to par.

103 of 120 found the following review helpful:

Candy and Cathy...hope you both are well!  Sep 22, 2002
By Randall M. Benton
As any serious music historian knows, this album was the Stones' "Sgt. Pepper." It sounds like no other release in their impressive catalog. And it IS a departure. But, that's the point! Why have so few people NOT gotten it. Are they simply NOT LISTENING? "Satanic Magesties" is an awesome piece of work. And psychedelia never sounded so good as it does on the brilliant "2000 Light Years From Home." And it sounds great on "Sing This All Together," "Citadel," and "In Another Land" (Bill Wyman's 'underwater' vocals are both freaky and effective for the style of the song...NOT thin or weak like a reviewer stated!). And "2000 Man" and "She's A Rainbow" are two of the bands best efforts to date. Overall, a very much underappreciated and underated Stones album. Just give it a chance and listen to it with an open mind (and ears) and I think you'll discovery a true masterpiece. It's different all right...But, in keeping with the "Spirit Of '67" and the band itself...it's a GAS! GAS! GAS!

72 of 83 found the following review helpful:

Psychedelic Response  Sep 15, 2002
By Thomas Magnum
The much maligned Their Satanic Majesties Request is The Rolling Stones obvious response to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's album. The band dived headfirst into the psychedelic sounds of 1967's Summer of Love and the album sounds like no other in their catalog. Despite the criticism and attempt to keep pace with the Beatles (including the original 3-D cover), the album contains some excellent songs. The album opens up strong with the overture "Sing This All Together" with it's horns and sound effects and then slides right into the grinding guitar of "The Citadel". Bill Wyman's only lead vocal on a Stone's album is "In Another Land" and upon listening to it you can hear why it was his first and last. He has a tremendously thin voice and he makes Ringo Starr sound like Pavarotti. "2000 Man" is fast-paced and along with "2000 Light Years From Home" are the best songs on the album. The reprise of "Sing This All Together" is a major misstep and is a really bad song, but they pick up again with the flowery "She's A Rainbow". This album has taken an undue amount of heat, but as the years have passed, it should be looked at for what it is, a solid foray into the psychedelic arena by one of the best bands of all-time.

16 of 17 found the following review helpful:

On with the show, good health to you...  Sep 08, 2002
By Barry Veverka-Brownlie "Barry"
"When The Beatles take you on a trip, maybe you should pack a sandwich because you might get hungry on the way. When The Stones take you on a trip, you had better sublease your apartment and pack a trunk. You may be gone for a long time."
- The Beatles Book, "On With The Show", by Edward E. Davis, page 175, Copyright 1968 by Cowles Education Corporation)

No, no lonely hearts club band here. In some cases, barely recognizable pop songs. If 'Pepper' was carefully put together, '...Satanic Majesties...' is what happens when you put five celebrity musicians in a studio amidst drug busts and their aftermath trying their darndest to not do a 'Pepper'.

The great songs might have made a great EP - "Citadel", "In Another Land", "2000 Man", "She's A Rainbow" and "2000 Light Years From Home". And if it can fit, "The Lantern" could be included. But what do you do with the "Sing This All Together" opus, "Gomper" and "On with The Show".

But, for some reason, this is one of my favorite Stones albums. Maybe I like the experimentation of the psychedelic era more than others. And if you agree, this is one example of that era you will thoroughly enjoy.

"Sing This All Together" sounds sinister and so unlike singing all together (I have read that this was done on purpose). "Citadel" with its great backing and unearthly medieval lyric. "In Another Land", showcasing Bill Wyman's compositional talents, suggests he should have been given more space to let that talent show. "2000 Man" in which a 1967 composition predicts a future that isn't too far off the mark. In "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" someone says "Where's that joint?" and I get the feeling it was found and inhaled for about 8 solid minutes. The girl in "She's A Rainbow" has the most colorful sexual experience ever depicted in song. "The Lantern" seems to fit if you can picture a foggy, psychedelisized evening in old London town. "Gomper" is "Within You Without You" turned upside down with a mysterious girl at its core. Then, a blast into outer space that more than exemplifies the mystery and emptiness of it all. Kubrick captured that in his film '2001'; The Stones capture it here in song. You are brought back to earth to a seedy bar in "On With The Show" which seems to have all the earthly treats available provided by the sneering emcee Mick Jagger. Strange, muffled conversations are heard that you wish you could make out as if they would reveal some secret the album holds.

They don't make albums like this anymore. Yes, maybe they shouldn't, but I'm glad this one exists.

For those who remember the days when you might find hidden gems in your plastic vinyl discs, how does one play the final track on side one, "Cosmic Christmas", so, you can hear "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in all its glory on a CD?

In the vinyl days, you changed the speed of your player from 33 and a 1/3rpm to 78rpm (I don't think playing it at 45rpm worked) to hear "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".

The packaging is fine, but couldn't there have been a limited edition 3D cover so we could get Paul and Ringo back in the picture?

And these Certificates of Authenticity that ABKCO provides in the first edition release of their SACD hybrid reissues of The Stones albums that they control - just who came up with this idea? It is not a guarantee that by buying all 22 new remasters once you will get all the unique, different 22 pieces of the Certificates puzzle, which ends up being a black and white representation of the '...Satanic Majesties...' cover. This colorful cover is done the most injustice by having these Certificates in black and white.

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:

The Rolling Stones Journey To Middle Earth And Find Damnation  Jun 04, 2008
By Cthulhu
This has always been my favorite Rolling Stones album. Always will be. Sure, it's spotty and flawed, the sound quality and/or mix is weak in places, parts of it are seemingly thrown together, but that becomes part of its charm, its strength, its mystique. What it does for the imagination, for me, is inestimable; the possibilities are endless. A wistful romanticism shines through the tarnish. What it lacks in polish, it more than makes up for in character. From the opener "Sing This All Together", a rousing hiking march sung in unison with Hobbitlike exuberance, you know you are going on a trip, a journey both physical and sensory as you are transported over varying terrain and through unfamiliar vegetation with subtle changes in the purposeful and multifarious percussion, finally sliding into the medieval "Citadel" with its strained, strange and brazen instrumentation (a Stones hallmark), and its rather complex arrangement (for pop music) with contrary instrumental lines. "Men at arms shout 'Who goes there...'" Stand forth and declare yourself. "...Here the peasants come and crawl, You can hear their numbers called..." I always loved the lyrics; for one, I was reading science-fiction and fantasy at the time. No doubt Mick & Keith were having some fun with this one, commenting on their cloistered existence as pop stars, and venting their antipathy toward conventional society. The traveller then shuffles along to the next attraction in the sideshow, the plucky harpsichord induced otherworldliness of Bill Wyman's "In Another Land" (I wish he'd done more like this gem, & "Shades Of Orange"), a cool, breezy, dream-within-a-dream which ends all too soon with the dragonlike snore of oblivion. Nicky Hopkins does some of his finest work here on the keys, evoking a wistful, timeless place where "the sea and the sky and the castles were blue". The track regularly emerges from the trance with a typical Stoneslike (although the bulk of the Stones did not participate until after the fact, Steve Marriott and Nicky Hopkins filling in with Bill and Charlie) refrain of barbaric intensity (oddly muted) and irreverence (the half-hearted vocalization of a trumpet, for instance). "And nobody else's hand will ever do, nobody else ('s hand) (will do)..." Romantic.

From the medieval we fastforward to "2000 Man", a futuristic hillbilly ballad with impressive, lovely acoustic guitar picking, and robust, though peculiar drum time which unexpectedly fits the meter of the song, then into the organ surging refrain and a continuation of the sci-fi tinged lyrics: "Oh daddy, proud of your planet, Oh mommy, proud of your sun..." Yes, there may be a pun in there. It doesn't have to make sense does it? This is impressionism; the whole album abounds in colorful glasslike fragments, like the 3D photo on the cover.

"Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" A free form, free fall instrumental continuation, replete with lots of percussion, of the opening track, amply summed up in the Newsweek article cited below.

"She's A Rainbow" I have long wondered: Is this a paean to Mia? "Have you seen the lady Farrow?" That's what it sounds like to me. After all, this was a time when, along with the Beatles, other pop stars and celebrities such as Donovan, Mike Love, Mia Farrow (whose sister, also at the ashram, was immortalized in John Lennon's song "Dear Prudence"), and Mick Jagger were spending time with the Maharishi. A continuation of the Stones formula to pop music with the one-two punch of the delicate and airy (the Stones could be quite elegant and courtly at times) on one hand, countered by the brutal and beastly on the other. Effective combination, later taken to dizzying heights of success by their understudies, Led Zeppelin. The song shimmers with iridescence, with tight little neoclassical musicbox piano sections, flawlessly executed, strings (arranged by John Paul Jones) and unknown instrumentation (characteristic of the entire lp), offset by the heavy pop rhythm, finally breaking up into the ominous foghornlike stylings and twittering violins segueing into...

"The Lantern" Distant church bells clang with foreboding as the song drifts into perhaps the most engaging double guitar intro in all popdom. Taken in combination with the prior song's outro, is this not contemporary classical music? Also, for me, among this album's highlights has long been those short, poignant instumental passages in this moody, atmospheric track. Very moving...

"Gomper" Ahh... "By the lake with lily flowers, While away the evening hours, To and fro she's gently gliding, On the glassy lake she's riding..." Is this not poetry? Music in the Eastern mode, this, with killer guitar line, augmented by Jones' sitar flourishes and flute, and the drumming and percussion is still with us to move us along on our trip. I see a late, golden afternoon sun scene interwoven with images on some ancient tapestry. Thus the gliding, aquatic themed song progresses along, until portentously turning into a disjointed, insectoidal/electronic freakout. What's not to like?

"2000 Light Years From Home" I was partial to this early on, with its science-fiction theme. Since I had discovered sci-fi, astronomy and pop rock at about the same time in my early adolescent life, I had long made a connection between them, and so was happy to receive this verification. And eagerly anticipated more. Eerie mellotron tones by Brian, evoking those lonely light years in the vast reaches of space, that he seemed destined to drift into on a more personal level. "It's so very lonely, you're two thousand light years from home..." I have always been fascinated with the throaty, raunchy guitar section in the middle, with attendant pulsating rhythm section, in all its glorious simplicity. Oh yeah, the only music video promo I know of from this lp is of this song, and it is a good one (good luck finding it---oh yeah, YouTube). I hope there are more (though I do doubt it)...

"On With The Show" Catchy tune, that, reminding us that all is glittering sham and that we're still in the show back here on planet earth, after all (time to start the album over). No doubt this drew further unflattering comparisons to "Sgt. Pepper" (i.e.: that the Stones "copied" the Beatles' idea of the Vaudeville, minstrel show concept prevalent on "Pepper"). Maybe so, but who cares? This is still a great album, and actually owes little to the Beatles' opus. After all, both bands were very much in "show business". Incidentally, "Child Of The Moon" (B side to "Jumpin' Jack Flash") belongs with TSMR, with its goin' against the grain musical motif. In fact, so does "Jumpin' Jack Flash", with its odd, dark fairytale lyrics---and these two were recorded mere months after the Satanic sessions. They were clearly transitional pieces---Request, with a boost in raw power, and were hailed as the Stones' "return".

This lp has often been compared unfavorably to the Beatles offering "Sgt. Pepper", which became THE record album against which all future albums would be measured for some time to come. Sure, Pepper was released prior to Request, undoubtedly informed and inspired the Stones' (& everyone else's) effort, was sheer in-your-face genius when establishment media pundits were gleefully predicting the Fab Four's demise every year, was arguably the first "concept" album (which spawned hundreds of others by various groups), but. Pepper and Request occupied different universes. Whereas the Beatles album was an earthbound, transcendant, ironic small town carnival ride, the Stones offered a trip through the outer cosmos, through time and space. You could get lost there. While it celebrated the familiar and mundane, Pepper was really about the inner journey. Where Pepper was introspective, Request was strictly outward bound (what could be construed as an appeal to the inward search, "Open our heads, let the pictures come..." was more an invocation to submit to the sensory magic of the voyage), ranging from the Middle-Ages (even prehistoric: "...Pictures of us painted in our caves...") to the interstellar---eclectic, outlandish and strange, and it would have been interesting had the Stones continued on that trip.

But then, the drug busts and attendant chaos had entered the studio with them. They managed, in spite of it all, to finish the album. But sooner or later the Stones had to come back to earth. They were too far out. Back on terra firma with the delta blues; earthbound once more, like Icarus with his melted wings.

Point of fact, some early reviews of "Their Satanic Majesties Request" were quite favorable. One in Newsweek for January 1, 1968 related a music critic's "amazement and admiration" upon hearing "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)", later referring to it as a "masterpiece" (strange as that may seem), a "fantastic eight-minute pocket opera of a disoriented world, a perfectly articulated jetstream of sound which vacuums out of the air everything from pure melodies to fragments of conversation, screams, volcanic rumblings, mad ornithological croakings, Stravinskyan karate chords, turning itself rhythmically inside out like a wind sock, and ending with a choral climax..." He goes on to say, "It is the Stones' look into the abyss, their giant anthem of the new chaotic togetherness that leaves no one either connected or alone." A fellow high school pal of mine at the time related another glowing review of the lp, though I don't now recall his source or much detail. Condemnation became quite fashionable later (one negative Rolling Stone magazine review comes to mind), everybody scrambling to get on the bandwagon, because the Stones had dared to make a departure from the same old tried and proven formula. Back to the blues, rock 'n' roll, back to the cotton fields, the salt mine, at the expense of any further exploration. What a shame. Even the Stones have felt compelled to be apologetic about this album ever since, so great was the animosity directed towards it. Once again, people in the main prove themselves to be hidebound, deaf and blind fools. And groups such as Pink Floyd have been extolled for the very thing the Stones were denounced for.

Of course, I'll be among the first to say that some of the Rolling Stones' best work was their powerful blues renditions. Nobody did it like them. And the gritty rock numbers, not to mention the lyricism of their folkish tracks of yore. But don't let anyone convince you otherwise; there's not a bad song on this album, and it does draw from their past work.

The Stones really had been building up to this, at least since "As Tears Go By". Not content to merely cover great blues standards, and needing to branch out into pop music (where the money was) with original songs possessing a diverse mix, due in no small part to Brian Jones' virtuosity and fascination with exotic instruments, they began to experiment with more original sounds. So the progression toward Request was in that sense inevitable. If you listen carefully to "Going Home", the long track from "Aftermath" of the previous year, somewhere in the break you can hear traces of that incipient melody that would later grow into "Sing This All Together".

I have been fascinated with this record from the first time I saw it hanging on the wall at the record store, with its white smoke and blue cover bordering the enigmatic 3D color photo. With a cover like that, it had to be good, I reasoned. So when my sister asked what I wanted for Christmas, I said that album. And it was a great Christmas present---one of the best I ever received. For one thing, Yule was a great time to explore that record, what with all the time off from school. And explore I did. I don't remember anything else about that holiday season, except listening to TSMR. Over, & over, & over... Sitting in the cushioned chair with my head between the speakers, looking at the cover front and back, inside and out. Later on I bought a second copy just so I could stack the records to hear both sides without having to get up. Omigod, this has all the earmarks of brainwashing (now gaze into the 3D image). And happily did I take that trip...

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