Featuring 50 Classic Tracks Across 5LPs, Including 2 Brand-New Songs Cut in 2012
Housed in a Casebound LP Box
There can only be one: The Rolling Stone's GRRR! Greatest Hits. Available here as a Limited Edition 5LP Box Set, and gathering a whopping 50 tracks, the collection tells the fascinating ongoing story of the Greatest Rock ’n' Roll Band In The World, from their high octane version of Chuck Berry’s “Come On,” their first single issued in June of 1963, via the thrilling chart-toppers “The Last Time,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Get Off Of My Cloud,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Honky Tonk Women” and the perennial juke-box and concert favorites “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Miss You” and “Start Me Up,” all the way to the present day with the inclusion of “Doom And Gloom” and “One More Shot,” two new studio recordings recently completed by the group in Paris, France in August of 2012.
These brand new recordings constitute the first time Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood have all been together in the recording studio since completing the exalted A Bigger Bang album in 2005, and follow on from the critically-acclaimed expanded re-releases of the historic 40th Anniversary live Madison Square Garden concert Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out in November of 2009, and of two of their '70s masterworks, Exile on Main St., in May of 2010, and Some Girls, in November of 2011. GRRR! features a striking painting by award-winning American artist Walton Ford, who has created the latest in a long line of iconic artwork that has always been part of the band’s DNA.
Jagger and Richards were school friends who lost touch, met up again at Dartford train station in 1960, and bonded over a shared love of rock'n'roll and Chicago blues. Within a couple of years, they were joined by guitarist Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart and became part of the rich rhythm and blues scene that gravitated around Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies in London. By January of 1963, they had added drummerWatts and bassist Bill Wyman and were playing a repertoire of Chess Records favorites Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters (whose "Rollin' Stone" composition provided their name) and Howlin' Wolf (whose "Little Red Rooster" became their second UK #1 in 1964). Jagger and Richards forged a creative partnership that endures to this day and has produced some of the most memorable songs in music history, including the much-covered "Ruby Tuesday" and "Wild Horses."
The Jagger-Richards catalog is remarkably consistent, full of unexpected lyrical and melodic twists which helped shaped popular music. Compositions like "19th Nervous Breakdown," "Paint It, Black," "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadow?" and "Let's Spend The Night Together" articulated the feelings and frustrations of the counterculture generation and held a mirror to British society. In 1968, the Rolling Stones made the seminal Beggars Banquet album, featuring the heart-of-darkness opener "Sympathy For The Devil" and the finely-observed "Street Fighting Man" whose "what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock'n'roll band?" lyric sounds more apposite than ever. They survived the loss of Jones, replaced by Mick Taylor who proved a sterling contributor to Let It Bleed, the influential 1969 album which included the elegiac "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and the ominous, eerily prescient "Gimme Shelter."
With Jagger, the ultimate showman setting the gold standard for other lead singers, and Richards, the iconic guitarist raising the bar in riff-making, the Rolling Stones were the first band to master the art and craft of playing arenas and effortlessly made the groundbreaking move into stadiums in the '70s. They have remained the world's top concert attraction with every successive record-breaking tour, as effective performing beautiful ballads like "Angie" and "Fool To Cry" as the out-and-out rocker "Respectable," their 1978 riposte to the punks who copped so many moves from them.
The arrival of Wood, who took over from Taylor in the mid-'70s, added his signature slide and pedal steel guitar to an already heady brew and proved the perfect partner in the 'ancient art for weaving' for Richards on tracks like "Beast Of Burden," coincided with the funkier direction of the dance floor fillers "Hot Stuff" and "Emotional Rescue." In 1983, the edgy, sonically-adventurous "Undercover Of The Night" showed the group still had their finger on the pulse of alternative culture.
The Rolling Stones overcame the mid-'80s hiatus that nevertheless saw them score one of their biggest successes with their superior version of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle," and returned stronger than ever with the Steel Wheels album and its irresistible lead-off track "Mixed Emotions" in 1989. Following Wyman's exit in 1993, they soldiered on and hit another purple patch with the Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon albums and their respective singles, the harmonica-led "Love Is Strong" and "Anybody Seen My Baby," their first hit to feature sampling and rapping. In 2005, the soulful, gospel-infused ballad "Streets Of Love," from A Bigger Bang, became a worldwide smash 42 years after their first chart entry, while the 1972 outtake "Plundered My Soul" helped the expanded Exile On Main St. return to the top the UK album charts 38 years after its original release, a feat unmatched by any artist.
Cherry-picking timeless hit singles and classic album tracks from their peerless catalog and bringing the story up to date, the GRRR! Greatest Hits 5LP Box Set offers the perfect collectible package to help Rolling Stones fans celebrate the group's 50th Anniversary in style! |