The original Grammy-nominated cover artwork, conceived and photographed by Andy Warhol, showed a picture of a man in tight jeans, and had a working zip that opened to reveal underwear fabric.

Additional contributions were made by long-time Stones collaborators including saxophonist Bobby Keys and keyboardists Billy Preston, Jack Nitzsche, Ian Stewart, and Nicky Hopkins.

With the end of their Decca/London association at hand, the Rolling Stones were finally free to release their albums (including cover art) as they pleased.

[2] When Decca informed the Rolling Stones that they were owed one more single, the band submitted a track called "Cocksucker Blues",[3] correctly assuming that this would be refused.

Instead, Decca released the two-year-old Beggars Banquet track "Street Fighting Man" while Klein retained dual copyright ownership in conjunction with the Rolling Stones of "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses".

Although sessions for Sticky Fingers began in earnest in March 1970, the Rolling Stones had been recording at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in December 1969, where they cut "You Gotta Move", "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses".

[8] The artwork emphasized the innuendo of the Sticky Fingers title, showing a close-up of a jeans-clad male crotch with the visible outline of a penis.

The cover of the original vinyl LP featured a working zipper and perforations around the belt buckle that opened to reveal a sub-cover image of white briefs.

So when there was a big act like the Stones, you knew the initial release would be a million-plus, and a custom package could be made without costing the label too much of a premium.

[13] Former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello said, "When the album came out, Glenn [O'Brein] was certain that it was he on the inside and Jay Johnson on the outside, but Andy would never say exactly whose crotch he had immortalized.

In 1992, the LP release of the album in Russia featured a similar treatment as the original cover; but with Cyrillic lettering for the band name and album name, a colourised photograph of blue jeans with a zipper, and a Soviet Army uniform belt buckle that shows a hammer and sickle inscribed in a star.

In a contemporary review for the Los Angeles Times, music critic Robert Hilburn said that although Sticky Fingers is one of the best rock albums of the year, it is only "modest" by the Rolling Stones' standards and succeeds on the strength of songs such as "Bitch" and "Dead Flowers", which recall the band's previously uninhibited, furious style.

[36] Writing for Rolling Stone in 2015, David Fricke called it "an eclectic affirmation of maturing depth" and the band's "sayonara to a messy 1969".

[41] In a 1975 article for The Village Voice, Christgau suggested that the release was "triffling with decadence", but might be the Rolling Stones' best album, approached only by Exile on Main St.

[42] In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), he wrote that it reflected how unapologetic the band was after the Altamont Free Concert and that, despite the concession to sincerity with "Wild Horses", songs such as "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "I Got the Blues" are as "soulful" as "Good Times", and their cover of "You Gotta Move" is on-par with their previous covers of "Prodigal Son" and "Love in Vain".

This remaster was initially released in a Collector's Edition CD, which replicated in miniature many elements of the original vinyl album packaging, including the zipper.

"[47] In a retrospective review, Q magazine said that the album was "the Stones at their assured, showboating peak ... A magic formula of heavy soul, junkie blues and macho rock.

"[28] Record Collector magazine said that it showcases Jagger and Richards as they "delve even further back to the primitive blues that first inspired them and step up their investigations into another great American form, country.

"[49] David Hepworth wrote in his 2016 book Never a Dull Moment that the contributions of guest performers such as Keys, Jim Dickinson, and Preston gave the album "more musical range than any other Rolling Stones album," including "Dickinson's honky-tonk piano on 'Wild Horses'" and "Preston's churchy organ solo on 'I Got the Blues'".

[50] Hepworth also suggested that Taylor's "Latin-flavored guitar solo" on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" was influenced by Santana's 1970 album Abraxas.