ROLLING STONES Their Satanic Majesties Request DECCA TXL103 Orig. Mono

	£		62
	$		82

Their Satanic Majesties Request is the sixth British and eighth American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released on 8 December 1967 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States by London Records. Its title is a play on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires..." text that appears inside a British passport.

Begun just after Between the Buttons had been released, the recording of Their Satanic Majesties Request was long and sporadic, broken up by court appearances and jail terms. For the same reasons, the entire band was seldom present in the studio at one time. Further slowing productivity was the presence of the multiple guests that the band members had brought along. One of the more level-headed members of the band during this time, Bill Wyman, wary of psychedelic drugs, wrote the song "In Another Land" to parody the Stones' current goings-on.

In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Wyman described the situations in the studio.Every day at the studio it was a lottery as to who would turn up and what — if any — positive contribution they would make when they did. Keith would arrive with anything up to ten people, Brian with another half-a-dozen and it was the same for Mick. They were assorted girlfriends and friends. I hated it! Then again, so did Andrew (Oldham) and just gave up on it. There were times when I wish I could have done, too.

Their producer and manager Andrew Loog Oldham, already fed up with the band's lack of focus, distanced himself from the band following their drug bust and finally quit, leaving them without a producer. As a result Their Satanic Majesties Request was the Stones' only self-produced album, which Mick Jagger admitted was not for the best.

Keith Richards himself has been critical of the album in later years. He said he liked the songs '2000 Light Years from Home', 'Citadel' and 'She's a Rainbow', but "basically I thought the album was a load of crap".

The band experimented with many new instruments and sound effects during the sessions including the theremin, synthesisers, short wave radio static and string arrangements by John Paul Jones. In 1998, a bootleg box set of eight CDs with outtakes of the Satanic sessions was released on the market. The box set shows the band developing the songs over multiple takes, and striking is the cooperation between Brian Jones, Keith Richards and session pianist Nicky Hopkins. Richards is leading the sessions and most songs seem to be written by him, and both Hopkins and Jones indulge in creating elaborate soundscapes.

The working title of the album was Cosmic Christmas. In the hidden coda titled "Cosmic Christmas" (following "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)"), Wyman tells "it's slowed-down: 'We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!'" Some of the album's songs were also recorded under various working titles, some appearing rather non sequitur and radically different from the final titles. These working titles include: "Acid in the Grass" ("In Another Land"), "I Want People to Know" ("2000 Man"), "Flowers in Your Bonnet" ("She's A Rainbow"), "Fly My Kite" ("The Lantern"), "Tough Apple" (2000 Light Years from Home), and "Surprise Me" ("On with the Show").

Released in December 1967, Their Satanic Majesties Request reached #3 in the UK and #2 in the US (easily going gold), but its commercial performance declined rapidly. It was soon viewed as a pretentious, poorly conceived attempt to outdo The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (released in June 1967), often explained by drug trials and excesses in contemporary musical fashion, although McCartney and Lennon did provide backing vocals on "Sing This All Together".

The production, in particular, came in for harsh criticism from Jon Landau in the fifth issue of Rolling Stone, and the Stones turned to Jimmy Miller to produce their subsequent albums, on which the Stones would return to the hard driving blues that earned them fame early in their career. In an April 1968 album review, Richard Corliss of the New York Times was also critical of the production value stating "...their imagination seems to have dried up when it comes to some of the arrangements. While still better than their previous ones, the arrangements are often ragged, fashionably monotonous and off-key." Despite this he gave the album an overall positive review, going as far as calling it a better concept album than Of Cabbages and Kings, The Beat Goes On and even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[6]

Richie Unterberger of Allmusic wrote:

Without a doubt, no Rolling Stones album — and, indeed, very few rock albums from any era — split critical opinion as much as the Rolling Stones' psychedelic outing. Many dismiss the record as sub-Sgt. Pepper posturing; others confess, if only in private, to a fascination with the album's inventive arrangements, which incorporated some African rhythms, Mellotrons, and full orchestration. Never before or since did the Stones take so many chances in the studio. […] In 1968, the Stones would go back to the basics, and never wander down these paths again, making this all the more of a fascinating anomaly in the group's discography.

The album was released in South Africa as The Stones are Rolling because of the word "Satanic" in the title. Starting with this release, non-compilation albums from the band would be released in uniform editions across international markets.

The Bill Wyman-composed "In Another Land" was released as a single, with the artist credit listed as Bill Wyman, rather than the Rolling Stones. (The B-Side, "The Lantern" was credited to The Rolling Stones.)

Most album configurations contain the hidden track "Cosmic Christmas" (running time 0:35) following "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" (running time 7:58).

There are only two songs from the album which The Rolling Stones performed live, "2000 Light Years from Home" (1989–90 world tour), and "She's a Rainbow" (1997–98 Bridges to Babylon Tour).

One original idea of having Jagger photographed naked on a cross was scrapped by the record company for being "in bad taste". Initial releases of the album featured a three-dimensional picture of the band on the cover by photographer Michael Cooper. When viewed in a certain way, the lenticular image shows the band members' faces turning towards each other with the exception of Jagger, whose hands appear crossed in front of him. Looking closely on its cover, one can see the faces of each of the four Beatles (a response to the Beatles' inclusion of a doll wearing a "Welcome The Rolling Stones" sweater on the cover of Sgt. Pepper). Later editions replaced the glued-on 3-dimensional image with a standard photo, due to high production costs. A limited edition LP version in the 1980s re-printed the original 3D cover design. Immediately following the re-issue, the master materials for re-printing the 3D cover were intentionally destroyed. The 3-D album cover was featured, although shrunk down, for the Japanese SHM-CD release in 2010.

The original cover design called for the 3D lenticular photo to take up the entire front cover, but finding this to be prohibitively expensive it was decided to reduce the size of the photo and surround it with the blue-and-white graphic design.

It was the first of four Stones albums to feature a novelty cover (the others were the zipper on Sticky Fingers, the cut-out faces on Some Girls, and the stickers on Undercover). The maze on the inside cover of the UK and US releases cannot be completed. It has a wall at about a half radius in from the lower left corner. One can never arrive at the "It's Here" in the centre of the maze.

The song "2000 Man" was featured prominently in Wes Anderson's 1996 debut Bottle Rocket and has been covered by Kiss for the 1979 album, Dynasty.

American neo-psychedelic band The Brian Jonestown Massacre paid tribute to the album with their fourth album Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request.

Punk/Goth pioneers The Damned covered "Citadel" on their 1981 Friday The 13th E.P. California's Redd Kross also covered "Citadel" on their 1984 Teen Babes From Monsanto EP. The Ohio punk band Sister Ray included "Citadel" in many of their live sets. Sheffield new wave band The Comsat Angels also covered "Citadel" for BBC (Time Considered as a Helix of Precious Stones) and Dutch (Unravelled) radio sessions, and released it as a bonus 12" to "I'm Falling", and on their 5th album, 7 Day Weekend.

The disc is graded as a conservative VG+ and the album cover is near EX. The original smoke sleeve is a little creased and showing ringwear (see photo).

The matrix is ARL-8126-T2-3K. M/S is 1 DK.

Graded as per the UK Record Collector Magazine guidelines.

VERY GOOD: "The record has obviously been played many times , but displays no major deterioration in sound quality ,despite noticeable surface marks and the occasional light scratch. Normal wear and tear on the cover or extra items, without any major defects, is acceptable." - this will be a respectable playing copy of the desired record. There may be a slight dulling to the vinyl shine due to faint surface marks- the record will play through well with no skips / jumps or sticks although there may be come light surface noise in the form of crackle /pops under the music especially on the intro and run out . Any audio defects will not spoil the overall enjoyment of the record. -The sleeve may have a few very minor edge tears / edge wear and possibly some ringwear showing. The opening edge may be a little worn / feathered.