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The Rolling Stones' 2002 collection Forty Licks - celebrating 40 years of The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band with 40 songs - was notable as their first career-spanning collection, encompassing songs from both their Decca/London years (controlled, then as now, by ABKCO) and their own Rolling Stones Records period and beyond. Now, that seminal compilation, which also included four new recordings, is coming to digital platforms and premiering on vinyl. The first-time digital release, due this Wednesday, July 26, will include an immersive Dolby Atmos mix of all tracks; the 180-gram vinyl presentation arrives two days later on Friday, July 28.
The non-chronologically-assembled collection spans the Stones' debut album (1964's The Rolling Stones, a.k.a. England's Newest Hit Makers) through 1997's Bridges to Babylon. Though a new Stones record is still a newsworthy event all these years later, the numbers speak for themselves about those remarkable three decades plus. 40 Licks contains a whopping twenty U.S. top ten singles, thirteen of which went to the top five and seven of which went straight to the top. Those chart-toppers include "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Get Off of My Cloud," "Paint It, Black," "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar," "Angie," and "Miss You." Across the Atlantic, the Stones were comparably successful. 40 Licks has twenty top tens, of which sixteen went to the top five and seven to No. 1. Unique to the U.K. peak spot are "The Last Time," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and "It's All Over Now."
The Mick Jagger/Keith Richards co-write "Don't Stop," the lead single off 40 Licks, made the U.K. top 40 as well as No. 21 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart and No. 5 on the Adult Alternative Songs chart; it placed strongly throughout Europe, as well. 40 Licks has gone on to sell seven million copies around the world, going 4x Platinum in the United States and 3x Platinum in the United Kingdom. It inspired the subsequent ABKCO/Universal cross-licensed collection GRRR!, which was issued in 2012 to mark the Stones' 50th anniversary and was even more super-sized, with 50- and 80-song iterations.
40 Licks remains perhaps the best primer of The Rolling Stones' classic recordings. Look for this definitive celebration of Jagger, Richards, Bill Wyman, Ronnie Wood, Mick Taylor, and the late Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, and Charlie Watts (and company!) on July 26 (digital, including Atmos) and July 28 (vinyl) from Universal Music Group.
The Rolling Stones, 40 Licks (Rolling Stones/Virgin/ABKCO 7243 8 13378 2 0, 2002 - reissued Universal, 2023) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
LP 1:
- Street Fighting Man
- Gimme Shelter
- (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
- The Last Time
- Jumpin' Jack Flash
- You Can't Always Get What You Want
- 19th Nervous Breakdown
- Under My Thumb
- Not Fade Away
- Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
LP 2:
- Sympathy For The Devil
- Mother's Little Helper
- She's A Rainbow
- Get Off Of My Cloud
- Wild Horses
- Ruby Tuesday
- Paint It, Black
- Honky Tonk Women
- It's All Over Now
- Let's Spend The Night Together
LP 3:
- Start Me Up
- Brown Sugar
- Miss You
- Beast Of Burden
- Don't Stop
- Happy
- Angie
- You Got Me Rocking
- Shattered
- Fool To Cry
LP 4:
- Love Is Strong
- Mixed Emotions
- Key To Your Love
- Anybody Seen My Baby?
- Stealing My Heart
- Tumbling Dice
- Undercover Of The Night
- Emotional Rescue
- It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)
- Losin' My Touch
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Definitely a solid collection... and for what it's worth, a better name and cover than the two career spanning collections that came after.
4 new songs were a bit much though and none as good as the 2 new ones on Grrr though. I mean, they're ok though. The CD was a little loud if I recall.
Average dynamic range value of all four CDs was 10. All depends who’s mastering the LPs, I suppose.
Mr. Marchese, any idea who has that task?
Thanks.
No information as to mastering/cutting/etc. was included in the press release; I'm sure those credits will come to light soon.
I’m mildly bummed that they just cut and pasted in all the full-length album versions for the streaming release, rather than sticking with the 7” edits used for the original CD set, (some of which still haven’t made it to streaming). But at least we’ve finally got the four original songs. “Losing My Touch” is one of my favorite Keith songs of all time.
another USELESS release, why can the 2 parties agree as they did here and put 2 box sets. 1 ,63 to 65.2 ,66 to 69. gather all the much bootleg trax put them in session order in GREAT fidelity. this would be THE box sets of the year. but no.............. , i dont hear that KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA CHING in their account.
Huh? What "2 parties" are you talking about? If you mean the two labels, then why are you suggesting a comp of just 60s material - which is all under one label...?
And frankly it's the post 60s material that has been represented less in collections.
There are not 50+ years of recordings from Sticky Fingers on.
what i meant was that all the unreleased trax from the 60s would make 2 great box sets,also why keep putting out best ofs and live shows from the 2000s etc.also their is very much unissued from the 70s that would be another great box set.
Care to elaborate?
The London albums should be re-released with stereo and mono versions.
Missing the following hits: (1) Tell Me (You're Coming Back To Me)
(2) Time Is On My Side
(3) Heart of Stone
(4) As Tears Go By
the stones before charlie illness cut and finished 42 new trax. don was who produced thought than none were in his opinon not ready for release. why not ?
Here we go again...another release that leaves one wanting more. I've said it before and I'll say it again: how about a Blu-Ray release of ALL promo films/MTV music videos remastered in 5.1 DTS or, even better and truly something unique, a Dolby Atmos mix for an Ultra HD/4k version...the Beatles managed to provide their fans with a BluRay called '1' that contained virtually every visual presentation of their hits. True Stones fans ain't getting younger and I'm gonna be upset when I'm on my deathbed and my grandchildren tell me 'Opa, you won't believe what the Stones archives are releasing tomorrow!'
as for the beatles ALL trax were not the mono mixes but NEW mixes . how sad.
I wonder if the 2-CD version will ever be released again. It’s currently out of print