Jann Wenner, in a 1995 "Rolling Stone" interview with Jagger, describes the album's songs as "disturbing" and the scenery as "ugly". When asked if the Vietnam War played a role in the album's worldview. Jagger said: "I think so. Even though I was living in America only part time, I was influenced. All those images were on television. Plus, the spill out onto campuses". The album cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn. 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 motorcycle tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The cake parts of the construction were prepared by then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith. The reverse of the LP sleeve shows the same "record-stack" melange in a state of disarray. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was "Automatic Changer". Jagger originally asked artist M. C. Escher to design a cover for the album; Escher declined. The album cover was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010. Released in December, "Let It Bleed" reached number 1 in the UK (temporarily demoting the Beatles' "Abbey Road") and number 3 on the "Billboard" Top LPs chart in the US, where it eventually went 2× platinum. In a contemporary review for "Rolling Stone" magazine, music critic Greil Marcus said that the middle of the album has "great" songs, but "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" "seem to matter most" because they "both reach for reality and end up confronting it, almost mastering what's real, or what reality will feel like as the years fade in." Robert Christgau named it the fourth best album of 1969 in his ballot for "Jazz & Pop" magazine's annual critics poll. In later commentaries, he has said the album "still speak[s] to me with startling fullness and authority", and despite some "duff moments" on side two, every song "stands up".