Despite its lead members growing apart, heavy drug use and full-night recording sessions in the basement of a French villa, the Rolling Stones left Villefranche-sur-Mer in 1971 with the makings of one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time. Now, nearly 40 years later, Exile on Main St. has been re-released. And to top it all off the album comes straight in at Number 1, the Stones' first since 1994's Voodoo Lounge.

In a career that has spanned nearly half a century, the Rolling Stones have released over 90 singles, more than two-dozen studio albums, and numerous compilations and live albums. Ten of their studio albums are among Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Now, their tenth studio album, which placed seventh on the esteemed list, is being re-released in May, marking nearly 40 years since its original release. Exile on Main St. came out in May 1972 as a double LP, drawing on the influences of rock and roll, blues, country and soul. It was originally greeted with lukewarm reviews, but is now widely considered to be among the band's finest work and one of the defining masterpieces of the rock era.

The legendary album will be re-released with 10 new tracks, including ‘Plundered My Soul', ‘Dancing in the Light', ‘Following the River' and ‘Pass the Wine', as well as alternate versions of ‘Soul Survivor' and ‘Loving Cup'.

In the spring of 1971, with the beginnings of Exile on Main St. marinating in the heads of its creators, the Stones decamped from England to avoid the rising taxes the British government expected them to pay. They settled in France, at Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice, where guitarist Keith Richards had rented Villa Nellcôte, which he claimed was a Gestapo headquarters during the Second World War. The villa in the South of France would witness six months of cocktail and drug-soaked recording sessions, resulting in one of the greatest albums of the rock and roll era.

Recording began in the middle of June, reportedly with the band working every single night from eight until three the following morning. Bassist Bill Wyman recalls of the time: "Not everyone turned up every night. This was, for me, one of the major frustrations of this whole period. For our previous two albums we had worked well and listed to producer Jimmy Miller. At Nellcôte (below) things were different and it took me a while to understand why ..."

One of the reasons for the lack of complete participation on the project was that Richards had recently begun to take heroin on a daily basis. Thousands of dollars of the drug flowed through the French villa each week in addition to a contingent of visitors, including Gram Parsons, the American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons would be asked to leave Nellcôte in July, partly due to his obnoxious behaviour and partly as an attempt by Richards to clean the house of drug users as the result of pressure from the French police.

The basic band for the Nellcôte sessions is believed to have consisted of Richards, Bobby Keys, Mick Taylor, Charles Watts, Miller and Mick Jagger, when he was available. (He had very recently wed Bianca). Wyman did not like the ambience of the villa and sat out many of the French sessions. Wyman noted in his memoir years later that there was a clear dichotomy between the band members who freely indulged in drug use (Richards, Miller, Keys and Taylor) and those who abstained to varying degrees (Wyman, Watts and Jagger).

Along with the songs begun and recorded in the basement at Nellcôte, the Stones returned to Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles where numerous overdubs (piano and keyboard parts, all lead and back vocals, all guitar and bass overdubs) were added during sessions that meandered from December 1971 until May 1972.

Although Jagger was frequently missing from the Nellcôte sessions, he immediately took charge during the second stage of recording in LA. The elongated recording sessions and differing methodologies on the part of Richards in Villefranche-sur-Mer and Jagger in LA reflected the growing disparity in their personal lives.

Jagger was recently married, which was followed by the birth of a daughter, in October 1971. Richards was firmly ensconced with partner Anita Pallenberg, though both were in the throes of severe heroin addiction, which Richards would not overcome until the turn of the decade. Although Exile on Main St. is often described as Richards' finest moment, as the album is thought to reflect his vision for a raw, rootsy, rock sound, Jagger was already expressing boredom with rock and roll in several interviews at the time of the album's release.

With Richards largely dependent on heroin, the group's follow-ups - directed largely by Jagger - would experiment in varying degrees with other musical genres, moving away from the thoroughly roots-based sound of Exile on Main St.

And still today, the album conceived in a majestic villa in a tiny Southern French town, still stands up as one of the greatest rock and roll records of all time.