Rolled Gold by The Rolling Stones
When Rolled Gold was initially released in 1975, there was no shortage of Rolling Stone compilations -- hell, there were two others released that year, the useful Decca/London-era rarities compilation Metamorphosis and the slapped-together Rolling Stones Records singles comp Made in the Shade, containing the American singles released on Rolling Stones Records in the early '70s, along with assorted album tracks. Designed for the U.K. market and never released in America, Rolled Gold split the difference between the two, rounding up all the big hits they had on Decca/London. At 28 tracks and two LPs, the collection offered a lot of bang for the buck and it was an enormous hit in the U.K., yet it never made it onto CD -- and, in a way, it didn't really need to, as the CD era brought lots of excellent compilations, ranging from reissues of the Hot Rocks sets to the three-disc 1989 box The Singles Collection: The London Years to 2002's Forty Licks, which offered a double-disc overview of their entire career. In light of these, a reissued Rolled Gold didn't quite seem necessary, but it eventually did surface, making it into stores just in time for the 2007 holiday season. This edition of Rolled Gold is pumped up with 12 tracks, making it 18 tracks shorter than The Singles Collection -- about a disc shorter, which is appropriate -- and it largely fills in the gaps with American singles like "Tell Me" and album cuts that have become Stones staples, along with extending the running length into 1971 with "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses," the two early Rolling Stones Records singles that wind up on every ABKCO comp. Although it's hard to imagine who doesn't have this music in their collection already, this expanded Rolled Gold is nevertheless a good compromise between the original early singles set Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) and the box The Singles Collection, an album that provides almost all of the Stones' early classics in a very entertaining -- if not quite necessary -- package.
Part of loving 1976’s <i>Black and Blue</i>—and there’s a lot to love—is letting go of what you expect from The Rolling Stones. They were still a rock band, if rock was what you wanted: “Hand of Fate” could’ve been on <i>Beggars Banquet</i> and “Crazy Mama” on <i>Exile on Main St.</i> But where <i>Goats Head Soup</i> and <i>It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll</i> worked to keep continuity with the sound they developed in the late ’60s, <i>Black and Blue</i> didn’t bother trying.<br /> Jagger had moved to New York and fallen in love with funk and disco (“Hot Stuff”, “Hey Negrita”); Keith Richards with reggae (“Cherry Oh Baby”). Mick Taylor left the band and Ron Wood joined, stripping out the guitar solos and moving back towards pure rhythm. The songs were short, the grooves were long, and the performances—Jaggers’s, especially—combined sex and humour in ways they never had before. That “Hot Stuff” was the band’s first song to make the R&B charts since “19th Nervous Breakdown” 10 years earlier made sense: Not since their early albums had they sounded so connected to Black music, or so joyfully indebted to it.<br /> The critic Lester Bangs called it the “first meaningless Rolling Stones album”. An insult, of course—but it could’ve just as well been a compliment. After the relentless significance of the band’s late-’60s and early-’70s run—the politics, the violence, the cultural referenda—<i>Black and Blue</i> felt like a liberation, like fresh air. They sounded funny, weird and alive. And when they downshifted for the ballads (“Memory Motel” and the classic “Fool to Cry”), they did so with a softness that penetrated deeper than any heavy-handed approach might.
