The Rolling Stones No. 2 by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones No. 2 is the second UK album by the Rolling Stones released in 1965 following the massive success of 1964's debut The Rolling Stones. Not surprisingly, The Rolling Stones No. 2 followed its predecessor's tendency to largely feature R&B covers. However, it does contain three compositions from the still-developing Mick Jagger/Keith Richards songwriting team. Interesting note: on the front of the (vinyl) album cover the title is: The Rolling Stones Vol. 2, the back of the album cover says The Rolling Stones No. 2. Using the cover shot for 12 X 5, the second US-released album in October 1964, The Rolling Stones No. 2's tracklisting would largely be emulated on the upcoming US release of The Rolling Stones, Now!. While Eric Easton was co-credited as producer alongside Andrew Loog Oldham on The Rolling Stones' debut album, Oldham takes full production duties for The Rolling Stones No, 2, which was recorded sporadically in the UK and US during 1964. A huge hit in the UK upon release, The Rolling Stones No. 2 spent 10 weeks at #1 in early 1965, becoming one of the year's biggest sellers in the UK. According to Bill Wyman in his book Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock'N'Roll Band, John Lennon said of The Rolling Stones No. 2: "The album's great, but I don't like five-minute numbers." Due to the preference towards the American albums, ABKCO Records overlooked both The Rolling Stones and The Rolling Stones No. 2 for CD release in 1986 and during its remastering series in 2002. Consequently, the album was out of print for many years and was thus widely bootlegged by collectors. The Rolling Stones No. 2 was again made available to the public as part of a limited edition vinyl box set, titled "The Rolling Stones 1964-1969", in November 2010 and (by itself) digitally at the same time.
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.
