[2] Released during the band's 1969 American Tour, it is the follow-up to Beggars Banquet (1968), and like that album is a return to the group's more blues-oriented approach that was prominent in the pre-Aftermath (1966) period of their career.

The other Stones members (vocalist Mick Jagger, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts) appear on nearly every track, with contributions by percussionist Jimmy Miller (who also produced the album), keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart (himself a former member of the band), and guest musicians including Ry Cooder.

[4] Brian Jones, the band's original leader and founder, had, over the course of the recording of the previous two albums, become increasingly detached from the group.

Though present in the studio, he was frequently too intoxicated to contribute meaningfully, and after a motorcycle accident in May 1969, missed several recording sessions whilst recovering.

Always a talented multi-instrumentalist, Jones had previously contributed extensively on guitar, forming an integral part of the dual-guitar sound that was central to the band's chemistry.

Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor, appears on just two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live with Me", having contributed some overdubs during the May 1969 London Olympic Studios recording sessions.

Drummer Charlie Watts performed on all of the tracks except for "You Can't Always Get What You Want"; he struggled to attain the sought-after rhythm, so producer Jimmy Miller filled in for him instead.

[8] The Los Angeles-recorded portions included overdubs by guest musicians Merry Clayton (on "Gimme Shelter"), Byron Berline (on "Country Honk"),[9] and Bobby Keys and Leon Russell (on "Live with Me").

[10] As with Beggars Banquet the previous year, the album marks a return to the group's more blues-based approach that was prominent in the pre-Aftermath period of their career.

[1] Don Heckman, writing in The New York Times, felt that Let It Bleed was a "heavy" and "passionately erotic" album of hard rock and blues, influenced by African-American music.

[13] Richie Unterberger, writing for AllMusic, said it "extends the rock and blues feel of Beggars Banquet into slightly harder-rocking, more demonically sexual territory".

In August 2002, it was reissued in a remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records, and once more in 2010 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese only SHM-SACD version.

The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph, and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a film canister labelled Stones – Let It Bleed, a clock dial, a pizza, a bicycle tire and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band.

[45] In later commentaries, he has said the album "still speak[s] to me with startling fullness and authority",[46] with the quality of the "playing" alone "fantastic",[35] and that despite some "duff moments" on side two, every song "stands up".

[41] In his 2001 Stones biography, Stephen Davis said of the album "No rock record, before or since, has ever so completely captured the sense of palpable dread that hung over its era.

[48] In Steven Van Zandt's opinion, Let It Bleed was one in the Stones' series of four studio LPs—including Beggars Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main St. (1972)—that was "the greatest run of albums in history".