Rolling Stones - Rarities 1971-2003 - 2005

Product Description: The Rolling Stones, in collaboration with Starbucks Inc.'s Hear Music, unearth a collection of hard-to-find b-sides, alternate takes, and live tracks for RARITIES, 1971–2003. This grab bag of Rolling Stones gems features B-sides, live recordings, and remixes. Pulling from the somewhat arbitrary time span of 1971 to 2003, the sequencing and selection of the disc don't follow any particular logic, as a ferocious live version of "Live With Me" shares space with a club-ready dance mix of "Harlem Shuffle." Of course, logic has never been a factor in liking the Stones; it's all about the music, the attitude, and the energy, and there is plenty of that here. The band revisits their roots with covers of old blues and R&B classics like "I Just Wanna Make Love To You" and Muddy Waters's "Mannish Boy," keeping things lean and punchy with a 12-bar, back-to-basics approach. B-sides from the '70s, '80s, and '90s are interspersed with 12-inch remixes ("Miss You [Dance Version]" is a particular highlight), as well as plenty of live versions of Stones classics, including "Tumbling Dice" and "Beast of Burden." Although there are numerous Stones compilations out there, RARITIES is a unique enough jumble of music to please any fan. Though countless Rolling Stones zealots contend that the band's most compelling work bubbled to the top prior to 1973, the music department at Starbucks has unearthed a sundry collection of B-sides, live takes and unreleased studio recordings culled mostly from the three decades that followed. Cherry-picking from a selection many times larger than the 14 tracks presented here, the compilation's producers reach as far back as a 1971 live cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock" and navigate through the Stones' forays into blues (Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" from 1977; "Fancy Man Blues" from 1989), rhythm & blues (1986's "Harlem Shuffle" and a 1998 live take of Let It Bleed's "Live With Me") and disco (the seven-minute dance mix of the 1978 hit "Miss You"), as well as stripped-down 1995 versions of Glimmer Twins gems "Wild Horses" and "Tumbling Dice." The accompanying compendium of liner notes and band member comments testify that the Rolling Stones still believe that rock and roll will never die. And even those zealots must concur that the music here is timeless, as the band remains as vital as ever.

Reviews #1: The Stones, like many artists, are not the ones who should be in charge of excavating the archives (delegating to a passionate and obsessive individual or team, like the Dead have done, is the way to go). Problems begin with "Miss You" - the LP take is 4:50, the unedited version (originally on 12-inch) is 8:36. Either the casette or 8-track version of "Some Girls" had a completely different (5:45) version, which has never been reissued. So what do we have here? an edit (7:33) of the 8:36 version. (The Stones, or likely Mick Jagger, has an annoying habit of editing tracks for live albums and compilations). And so it goes. I'm glad to have many of these songs and versions in album form (1991's similar "Collectables" was not nearly as well mastered), but there are inexplicable re-runs from "Sucking In the Seventies" and too many good tracks from the Ron Wood era are simply MIA:
1 the complete 'Miss You' or the alternate cassette version.
2 'Think I'm Going Mad' (4:20) a soulful 1984 b-side
3 'Undercover' (6:22) killer long version, from the 1983 12-inch
4 'Feel On Baby Dub' (6:27) Wyman's bass rattles the windows on this hallucinatory, deep dub mix, the b-side of the "Undercover" 12-inch (1983)
5 'The Storm' (2:49) 1994 b-side and a marvelous blues
6 'So Young' (3:24) 1994 b-side, one of Jagger's raunchiest, and most hilarious lyrics - think of Andre Williams' "Jail Bait"
7 'I'm Going To Drive (3:45) another fine 1994 b-side
8 'Jump On Top Of Me' (4:29) from the 1995 "Ready To Wear" soundtrack
9 'I Go Wild (Scott Litt Mix)' (4:37) a very strong alternate mix (not a dance remix) of the 'Voodoo Lounge' track, longer and with more upfront guitars
10 'All Down The Line' (4:25) great Ron Wood slide on this terrific 1995 single (and Stripped outtake)
11 'Gimmie Shelter' (6:50) a beautiful, unhurried version, from a 1996 single, (and another Stripped O.T.)
12 'Black Limousine' (3:35) 1995 single, Stripped OT
13 'Honest I Do' from the 1998 "Hope Floats" soundtrack
Well, there's a baker's dozen, each excellent in any context, and I'm not even getting into seperating the wheat from the chaff as far as the countless 'remixes', the pretty-good-but-inessential live "Flashpoint" b-sides, etc. I'm glad this exists, collecting the 1971 'Let It Rock' (worthy of "Ya-Ya's"), energetic "Stripped"-era takes of 'Live With Me' and 'Tumbling Dice', not to mention the lovely 1998 single (and "Bridges To Babylon" outtake) 'Any Way You Look At It' (with both Mick and Keith on lead vocals)- the collection feels random, quickly thrown together, but flows remarkably well. A 2-cd Rarities would have been far more enticing, and the Stones STILL would not have had to touch anything truly unreleased (and very few major artists have as much high quality unreleased material as the Stones). So, while I like it, it is also a missed opportunity. ~ Amazon Customer

#2: What is it that drives a man to collect? What is it that turns Steve from IT Support, a normal man driving a beige Volvo, into a slavering, desperate animal who's sole purpose in life is to acquire the rare 12" version of Brown Sugar which has Mick Jagger belching Rule Britannia on the b-side, and who'll do anything, anything to achieve that goal? Well, whatever it is, it's what Rarities 1971-2003 is supposed to tap into. But for those who don't know offhand what Charlie Watts' middle name is (Robert, by the way), there's nothing here to get particularly exited about. There's some passing curiosity in seeing them hark back to the 12-bar blues template on covers (Mannish Boy) and B-sides (Fancy Man Blues), but nothing that a quick blast through Exile On Main Street wouldn't best. There's oddities which sound better on paper than in practice: a version of Harlem Shuffle with Tom Waites, Patti Scialfa and Bobby Womack on backing vocals is an interesting proposition, but in reality is just unfocused and pointless and the live versions capture nothing except the nagging feeling that if you'd been there it might have been pretty damn good. It's fun to hear Keith sing, mind you. Richards lends his vocal chords on two tracks salvaged from later era Stones, and you can then amusingly note the man sounds exactly like he looks: ravaged, battle-scared and plain fucking cool - a proper blues singer. He's got a voice you can swear in; when Jagger resorts to profanity (on Beast Of Burden) he sounds like your twelve year-old cousin trying to convince you to buy fireworks for him, whereas when Richards announces "he's got them fuckin' blues" on Thru And Thru it sounds like he means it, despite the fact he's a 60 year old rock star with £200million in the bank, and presumably very little to be blue about. Nothing 'unearthed' here adds anything to the Stones legend. Nothing is re-imagined in a way that makes you think they should have done in that way in the first place, nothing was thrown away prematurely before it had the chance to blossom into beautiful life. Still, Wild Horses is an astonishingly brilliant song, perhaps the apex of one of the most endearing partnerships in music, and hearing the 1970s incarnation of the group swagger through the Chuck Berry's Let It Rock can't help but put a smile on your face, but ultimately Rarities is just one for the fan club. For those who's devotion doesn't run to the slavish, it's a little bit unrewarding.