Heroin, Taxes, and Double Albums: Exile on Main St. vs. Quadrophenia

Both the Stones and the Who spent 1972 making double albums under severe financial and substance pressure, but the results couldn’t have been more different. The Stones recorded Exile on Main St. at Keith Richards’ rented villa, Nellcôte, in the south of France—a tax exile move forced by the British government taking 93% of their income. They ran the sessions like a perpetual party, with heroin, cocaine, and loose friends drifting in. The budget ballooned, engineers quit, and Keith often couldn’t play guitar coherently, so the band overdubbed endlessly. The