Allegedly, following the success of the Beatles’ Anthology multimedia franchise, the Rolling Stones attempted to tell their own, similar story, but the self-interview process became such a hassle that they only went as far as publishing a coffee-table book. This was disappointing for fans, who hoped that the Stones would finally open the vaults and compile their own Anthology-style series of CDs chock full of outtakes and rarities.
However, that’s not how the Stones roll. (Sorry.) They’ve always looked to older, unfinished tracks when completing an album, as demonstrated by certain selections on Sticky Fingers and the whole of Tattoo You. Only more recently have they chosen to beef up a deluxe reissue of one of their albums with newly completed tracks from the same sessions, Exile On Main Street and Some Girls having received such treatment.
But as the contents of dozens of bootlegs can attest, the Stones have plenty of stuff in the vaults, and the band is just like the Beatles in wanting to preserve their version of their legacy. The reluctance to unveil anything from the ‘60s may be ascribed to the fact that they don’t own the publishing; most of the B-sides from the London years have already been collected elsewhere. For years, a handful of obscurities from the ‘70s and ‘80s stayed unalbumized, with the exception of those that had surfaced on the ultra-rare Collectibles disc in the limited-edition Flashpoint package.
This made the appearance of Rarities (1971-2003), mere weeks after A Bigger Bang came out, so surprising. The title is debatable, especially considering all the more obvious candidates that were left off. Someone had the good taste to include the live “Let It Rock” and “Through The Lonely Nights”, two excellent B-sides, on an album for the first time. But that doesn’t make up for the exclusion of “Think I’m Going Mad”, “The Storm”, “So Young”, “Jump On Top Of Me” and “I Wanna Drive”. “Everything Is Turning To Gold” had already appeared on both Sucking In The Seventies and the Collectibles disc, but was left off here. Even “Cook Cook Blues” had been included on Collectibles. Any of those would have been preferred to repeats from Stripped and any number of remixes.
The point behind a “rarities” collection is to entice the consumer by filling in the blanks, and Rarities (1971-2003) fails to do that. (In an extremely petty move, Bill Wyman was cropped out of the Some Girls-era photos in the package, despite having performed on half of the tracks.) Musically the disc has its moments, but it hardly fulfills any fan’s dream.
Rolling Stones Rarities (1971-2003) (2005)—2½
My wife got this for me that Christmas. A nice gesture, but she really shouldn't have bothered. The 12" dance remixes are fun, but so were the original versions. Aside from "Dance, Part 2", there isn't anything else hear that I'd care to listen to more than once in a while. I had never heard the last song before this. "Thru and Thru" is an absolutely HIDEOUS song, and it makes me glad that I never sprung for "Voodoo Lounge". This CD is only for the hardest of the hardcore, and even they might be unhappy with the group's choices.
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