Is 'Their Satanic Majesties Request' a Good Starting Point for Rolling Stones Beginners?

Short answer: no, unless you’re specifically after a psychedelic detour. This 1967 album is the Stones trying to out-psyche the Beatles after Sgt. Pepper, and it’s a beautiful mess—sitar, Mellotron, echo chambers, and a band barely holding it together. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were just starting to feud, Brian Jones was unraveling, and the whole thing sounds like an expensive, stoned experiment.

For a beginner, it’s more like a collector’s curiosity than a roadmap. The real Stones identity—blues swagger, roots rock, snarling riffs—shows up on Beggars Banquet the following year. Start there or with Sticky Fingers. But if you want to hear what happens when rock stars take acid and forget who they are, Satanic Majesties is weird, underrated, and worth a spin once you’ve got context.