Rolling Stones - Forty Licks

What’s here: 40 of the Stones’ best, including “Gimme Shelter,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Jumpin’ Flash,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Under My Thumb,” “Get Off of My Cloud,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Paint It, Black,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Start Me Up,” “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

What’s not here: “Let It Bleed,” “Rocks Off,” “Can’t You Here Me Knocking,” “Sister Morphine,” “Bitch,” “No Expectations,” “Stray Cat Blues,” “Time Is on My Side,” “Play With Fire,” “Heart of Stone,” “I’m Free.”

OK, so all that “Sir Mick Jagger” stuff still doesn’t sound quite right, and so Keith Richards looks like an ancient, recently-disentombed mummy. Let’s face it, the Stones are, even by non-rock ‘n’ roll standards, old.

OK, so mostly these days when you think of the Stones you think of the old geezers wanly tottering off their country estates to go through the motions of the corporate-sponsored megatours of the 80’s and 90’s. The Stones are rich . . . and old.

Ok, so Stephen Davis’s recently published bio of the band was entitled “Old God Almost Dead”; John Strausbaugh’s recent diatribe “Rock Til You Drop: The Decline from Rebellion to Nostalgia” featured a photo of Mick on the cover. The experts agree: the Stones are old.

OK, so they haven’t been in their prime since 1972’s ‘Exile on Main Street.’ They haven’t released a great album since 1978’s ‘Some Girls.’ Keef hasn’t come up with a memorable riff since “Start Me Up” from 1981’s ‘Tattoo You.’ So what? The Stones are rich, beknighted, and—that’s right—old.

Despite all that, this fact remains—once upon a time, the Stones were one the all-time great rock bands. For those of you still requiring proof—‘40 Licks.’

‘Forty Licks’ is 40 of the best songs from the Rolling Stones 1962 to present (forty years . . . forty songs . . . ‘Forty Licks’—get it?). Well, really 36 of their best and 4 new songs the cat drug in. While it’s by no means a perfect collection, it’s the first time there’s been a single compilation of both the Stones tunes of both the Decca/London and Rolling Stones Records/Atlantic/Virgin eras.

All and all, this collection does a nice job of the rather daunting task of summing up forty years in forty songs. I do have some issues with it, though.

Disc 1 of ‘Forty Licks,’ covering 1963-1971, gives a little too much space to the Stones’ brief flirtation with psychedelica; the tracks included from that period sound more dated that anything else on the two disc set (check out “Have You Seen You Mother Baby?,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “She’s a Rainbow”—you’ll see what I mean).

In contrast to this, the Stones’ earliest period as and R&B cover band is largely ignored, represented here by only two tracks, “It’s All Over Now” and “Not Fade Away.” Left off are such early nuggets as their versions of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “Little Red Rooster,” as well as “Time is On My Side,” the Stones’ first top ten single in the US.

After listening to the first CD of this set, listening to the second is like looking at the ruins of ancient Rome. It’s still impressive, but it sure ain’t what it used to be. Covering 1971-present, Disc 2 documents the Stones from their late-sixties/earlier-seventies “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band” heyday, through their artistic decline and ever-amassing wealth in the 80’s and 90’s, to the ruined pop splendor of today’s Stones. With Ronnie Wood joining up in 1975, the Stones began their strange mutation for rock band to name brand, and while disc two has its flashes of brilliance (see “Start Me Up,” Tumbling Dice”), track for track, it doesn’t stand up to disc one.

Missing are some great album tracks from this period of the Stones’ career—“Can’t You Here My Knocking,” “Moonlight Mile,” “Bitch,” “Sister Morphine,” “Rocks Off,” “Torn and Frayed,” “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker),” “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “When the Whip Comes Down,” “She’s So Cold,” “Hang Fire,” “One Hit (To the Body),” “Harlem Shuffle,” “How Can I Stop”—and the inclusion of any of these instead of the four generic new songs included here would be a significant improvement (in fact, there's just too many new songs included--a couple of the songs have been edited to fit the collection's 20 song per disc format).

Still, this is heady stuff, much of it ranking with the best pop music has to offer. For those of you seriously interested in the Stones, you would, of course, as is nearly always the case, be better served buying the entire catalog of Stones records (particularly now that the early records have been re-released on remastered CDs), but if you’re looking to round out your collection and a little short on cash, there aren’t many all-in-one compilations with this much great material at this low a price.

Matt Parks (November 8, 2002)