Made in the Shade (1975)


 

  1.Brown Sugar
  2.Tumbling Dice
  3.Happy
  4.Dance Little Sister 
  5.Wild Horses
  6.Angie
  7.Bitch
  8.It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It)
  9.Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
 10.Rip This Joint

 

To the untrained eye—or, more precisely, the casual fan—Made in the Shade may not immediately register as a compilation. With its cohesive sequencing and familiar swagger, it almost passes for a new studio effort. Yet, even at the time of its release, the question hung in the air: why bother?

As it turns out, Made in the Shade is a retrospective of the band’s output from their period spanning four studio albums recorded between 1971 and 1974. The material here is, without question, well chosen. All the hallmarks of the band’s early seventies golden run are present: grit, groove, melody, and menace. As a listening experience, it’s highly enjoyable. But it’s difficult to avoid the sense that this was largely a commercial exercise—more product than statement.

A more logical approach might have been to pick up chronologically where Hot Rocks 1964–1971 left off. But bafflingly, this release includes material already featured on that earlier compilation. The redundancy suggests less a curated anthology than a cash-in, issued during a period when the band—between tours, transitions, and lineup changes—may have been short on fresh material.

That being said, if the intention was to provide a convenient gateway into the Stones’ 1970s output, then Made in the Shade largely succeeds. It offers a sampler of a particularly potent era in the band’s evolution—an era marked by stylistic range and creative ambition. Still, the timeframe it represents is so tight, and the source albums so consistently strong, that the discerning listener might be better served acquiring the original LPs in full.

In short, Made in the Shade is a competent, if somewhat unnecessary, compilation—more useful to the newcomer than the collector. It provides a fine snapshot, but for the full picture, one must dig deeper.


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