The Best Rolling Stones Live Album for a New Fan to Feel the Band's Energy

If you want to hear the Rolling Stones at their most dangerous and loose, start with Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! (1970). Recorded during their 1969 American tour — the one that ended with Altamont — it captures the band right after Brian Jones died and before they became a stadium act. Mick Jagger sounds like he’s grinning through every snarl, and the rhythm section of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman is so locked in you feel it in your ribs. It’s the closest you’ll get to a small, sweaty club without a time machine.

For a later era that still feels tight and unpolished, Brussels Affair (recorded 1973, released 2011) is a monster. Originally a radio broadcast, it catches the Stones in their mid-70s cocaine peak: Keith Richards’s riffs are greasy, Mick Taylor’s solos are liquid fire, and the setlist pulls from Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup. If you want to hear why people still call Taylor the best lead guitarist they ever had, this is the proof. Both albums put you in the room — no overdubs, just four guys and a drum kit trying to knock the walls down.