Continuous Hit Music – a weekly exploration of vinyl finds in 2012. Read ’em all here.
Artist: The Rolling Stones
Title: Hot Rocks 1964-1971
Original Release: 1971
Label: ABCKO
Store: Egg Records, 3 Wilson Street, Newtown, Sydney
Price: $19.99
(Original US pressing)
Egg Records in Newtown. I wrote about them before but not this year. A great place to find rare records in the hub of Newtown. Occasionally their website will announce, excitingly, that a new shipment of US records has come in.
And there they are, a bunch of boxes in the middle of the store, and a bunch of folks on their knees, going through them all. It’s usually the same old 60s and 70s American rock. They probably pick em up for under and tenner and sell them for double. There must be millions of Help! in the US.
But I finally decided to pick up Hot Rocks. It’s not an uncommon record, and you can probably find it for under $20. But this was in pretty good condition, and lately, I’ve just been loving the Rolling Stones.
Hot Rocks is the greatest. Every song on here are amongst the greatest works in popular music. It is also the best summation of the early Rolling Stones. If you for some reason feel like you only need one Rolling Stones title, this is the one. Of the dozens of Rolling Stones hit collections, this is easily the best.
It’s the story of the Rolling Stones I know best. It opens with Time Is On My Side. It’s gospel pop, and from that mid 60s baroque period they had. The first of this double album is full of them. Ruby Tuesday, As Tears Go By, Play With Fire, etc. And they start there!
Here’s the thing about the Rolling Stones. One too many shit, bluesy rock song, and people forget how great a pop band they were. Nowadays they are like AC/DC, rememberd for their big anthems that are variations of a musical theme. That It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, Start Me Up, Love Is Strong thing. But they were capable of stunning beauty. Yet, it’s hard to imagine them writing Ruby Tuesday today.
So for me, the Rolling Stones were always the band that did those thick sounding pop records (usually produced by Andrew Loog Oldham), and then did a bunch of great records in the early 70s. How can you deny such impulsive, urgent, nasty songs like 19th Nervous Breakdown and Paint It Black? How can you say these guys are just dumb rock ‘n’ rollers?
Album 2 collects tracks from their three greatest albums – Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. You know the songs. Sympathy for the Devil. Gimme Shelter. Brown Sugar. Wild Horses.
Which is why I love this collection. One half is a collection fo 12 60s pop songs that are as good as any. The other is a snapshot of an band at the peak of their emotive powers. And it stops before it descends into parody and recycling.
The album cover was always odd, but makes more sense on vinyl – big and arty. The inner photos are great also, but how Mick’s face is so big on the inside cover, I don’t know. Surely Keith would have had a word?