Yesteray night I enjoyed a good wine and "Goats head soup".
When it came out in 1973 I was 11 years old.
I knew the Rolling Stones, but only their "Hits", the songs
that were played on the radio, mostly Brian Jones era stuff.
In our small town was a little record shop and everyday after
school I watched the record-covers in the window.
I listened to Sweet, T. Rex, Gary Glitter and Slade then.
One day there was the "Goats head soup" cover in the window,
and it caught my interest because of the "strange" photo.
"Star star" had a lot of airplay in germany, but it remained
the only song I knew from this album until ca. 1980.
I borrowed the record together with "Exile" from a classmate
and copied it on tape.
Now I had the "Rolled gold" sampler as a good introduction to
the Stones-oeuvre, and I really didn't like these two LP's then.
"Exile" was too raw, without "hits"(well,maybe "Tumbling dice"

,
and "Goats" seemed to commercial, a disco-record, to me.
I only liked "Star star".
Later, becoming a Stones-afficionado, I began to like mostly every
record and "Exile" is one of my favouites now.
With "Goats" it took a long time, but finally I made my peace
with it.
Some songs really mean a lot to me now.
"Coming down again" reminds me of the burial of a friend of mine.
She committed suicide in 88, and back home after the burial I played
that song for hours.
Not because of the words, just for that sad feel.
"Winter" I once dedicated to a lovely lady.
I had to think about her yesterday, she really meant a lot to me.
"100 years ago" is a good one too, I think.
Comparing the raw sound of "Exile" with the nearly "funky" sound of
"Goats", they changed a lot in such a short time.
Maybe they wanted to be more "modern".
Billy Preston is very high in the mix, and the piano-parts very low.
I wondered, how this record with a different production would have
sounded - the lovely Nicky Hopkins piano more present in the mix
for example.
Less funk, more Stones...
By the way - this was the first post Jimmy Miller record, the first
one produced by the Glimmer Twins.
All in all I must say this record grew over the years and I really
enjoyed listening to it yesterday.
Give it a try!