STONES IN THE ' BURGH | STONES IQ

The Rolling Stones' Top 10 Best Albums

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

You'd only need one hand to count the artists whose 10 strongest albums could hold a candle to the list I've put together.

It's not for nothing that they call themselves the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band.

1. "Beggars Banquet" - From the stranded-in-the-jungle beat that finds Mick Jagger playing Satan on "Sympathy for the Devil" to the working-class heroics of "Salt of the Earth," this timeless effort finds the Glimmer Twins at their peak as a songwriting dynasty. There's not a song here you could change and make the album any better. And Jagger has certainly never been more consistently brilliant on lyrics, as wrong as the line "Our love is like our music/It's here and then it's gone" would now appear to be.

2. "Exile on Main Street" - That rare double album you wouldn't feel comfortable editing down to fit on one side of a 90-minute tape. The band has never let it loose with more abandon or authority. And "Let It Loose," a song that should have topped the R&B charts, is a soul ballad worthy of Otis Redding.

3. "Let It Bleed" - A scary one, on which the Stones recover from the death of Brian Jones as though it were, at most, a minor setback. Taylor lends a hand on "Live With Me," the hardest rocker here, and "Country Honk," a revival of "Honky Tonk Women" as hillbilly blues. But Richards does just fine without the backup for most of the album, from the echo valley intro of "Gimme Shelter" to the extra funky rhythm work of "Monkey Man."

4. "Aftermath" - A huge creative step beyond the blues-obsessed parameters of their early days, with Jones adding sitar to "Paint it, Black" and Jagger assuming an upper-crust Englishman's accent, the better to sing the praises of his sweet Lady Jane. The album also introduced new evidence ("Stupid Girl," "Under My Thumb") that Jagger really was the he-man woman-hater his critics accused him of being. He's more of a predator, really.

5. "Goat's Head Soup" - An underrated classic, "Goat's Head Soup" is where the outlaw dopers of "Exile on Main Street" go to dance with Mr. D and eventu ally crash, but not before contributing "Angie" and "Winter" to the lexicon of timeless Jagger-Richards ballads.

6. "12X5" - A cover-heavy collection from back in the days when the Stones were apparently billing themselves as the world's greatest cover band. They're still the only band to do Chuck Berry even half as well as Berry does himself; "Empty Heart" is the sound of garage-punk to come; and "Good Times, Bad Times" is among the first true Jagger-Richards classics.

7. "England's Newest Hitmakers" - As debut albums stacked with covers go, it's hard to beat. "Route 66" alone would make it worth your while to track it down, but you also get "Carol," some classic American blues and the irresistible Jagger-Richards original "Tell Me."

8. "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" - Their strongest live set, fueled by Taylor's fierce guitar work and a set list drawing heavily from "Let it Bleed" and "Beggars Banquet." Best of all, you get to hear Mick Jagger ask a crowd, "You don't want my trousers to fall down now, do you?" back when it might have been something to see.

9. "Some Girls" - The world's greatest rock 'n' roll band successfully dabbles in disco with "Miss You" and something they probably meant to be punk with "Shattered." Keith's "Before They Make Me Run" is a classic example of turning your heroin busts into art, Bill Wyman's bass is at its funkiest, and by this point, new arrival Ronnie Wood has perfected his role as Richards' long-lost brother. I probably would have ranked it higher if it weren't for some of Jagger's uglier bad-boy posturing on the title cut and "When The Whip Comes Down."

10. "Sticky Fingers" - Do we really need a seventh minute of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"? Maybe not. But if the jamming feels a bit excessive in places, the writing ranks among their finest hours - "Moonlight Mile," "Brown Sugar," "Sister Morphine," "Sway," "Wild Horses," "Bitch," "Dead Flowers." What more could you want in an album?