A Nice Album To Scrape Your Shoes To

Blimey, the long-awaited re-release of The Stones' Exile On Main Street is here. Is this such a big deal because it's the favorite Stones album of so many, myself included? Or because it now boasts previously unheard and--until a few months ago--unfinished potential Stones gems? Or because the super-sized deluxe over-the-top edition has a DVD of Exile's making plus a book and other party favors? Or because I grew up ON Main Street (in the all-American college town of Murray, Kentucky) and the album is one of dozens of musical book-markers from those days before I was exiled off to college and thus a new, different real world? It's all of those, and the fact it's good to revisit and celebrate again a fine work of modern art, be it an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein in London's Tate Modern or four sides--plus bonus tunes!--of high-grade rock music created under one very beneficial displacement.