Forty Licks (2002)


 

Disc One
  1.Street Fighting Man
  2.Gimme Shelter
  3.(I Can't Get No)Satisfaction
  4.The Last Time
  5.Jumpin'Jack Flash
  6.You Can't Always Get What You Want
  7.19th Nervous Breakdown
  8.Under My Thumb
  9.Not Fade Away
 10.Have You Seen Your Mother Baby
    Standing in the Shadow?
 11.Sympathy for the Devil
 12.Mother's Little Helper
 13.She's a Rainbow
 14.Get Off My Cloud
 15.Wild Horses
 16.Ruby Tuesday
 17.Paint it Black
 18.Honky Tonk Woman
 19.It's All Over Now
 20.Let's Spend the Night Together

Disc Two
  1.Start Me Up
  2.Brown Sugar
  3.Miss You
  4.Beast of Burden
  5.Don't Stop
  6.Happy
  7.Angie
  8.You Got Me Rocking
  9.Shattered
 10.Fool to Cry
 11.Love is Strong
 12.Mixed Emotions
 13.Keys to Your Love
 14.Anybody Seen My Baby
 15.Stealing My Heart
 16.Tumbling Dice
 17.Undercover of the Night
 18.Emotional Rescue
 19.It's Only Rock 'N Roll
 20.Losing My Touch

 

There’s always a sense of dread when another greatest hits package gets announced—particularly from a band like the Rolling Stones, who by this point had already released more “career retrospectives” than most bands have albums. The cynic in you says: “Here we go again.” But against the odds, 40 Licks not only works—it works brilliantly.

The key difference this time is scope. While earlier sets had focused on one era or another (the 1989 box set, for instance, concentrated strictly on singles and ended somewhere around 1971), 40 Licks finally pulls the full story together. Two discs: one centered largely on the ‘60s, the other on everything that came after. Yet the running order isn’t chronological. It’s sequenced more like a live setlist, ebbing and flowing with a natural rhythm that elevates the entire experience. You’d be forgiven for thinking someone had actually put thought into this one.

Of course, not every classic makes the cut—but that’s always the case with these sorts of releases. Complaining about missing tracks is beside the point. What matters is what’s here, and the selections are undeniably strong. The real sticking point for most is likely the inclusion of four new tracks. In fairness, they’re a mixed bag. Don’t Stop is easily the best—an upbeat, guitar-driven number that would’ve slotted nicely into almost any era of their output. The others—Keys to Your Love, Stealing My Heart, and Losing My Touch—are serviceable but ultimately feel more like curiosities than essentials.

Still, given the band was pushing sixty at the time, it’s hard to fault them for sneaking in a few fresh tunes while they still could. And truthfully, if you had to point someone to a single Stones compilation that captures both their raw beginnings and their surprisingly durable later years, this is the one. Flawed? Yes. But final? Quite possibly. And in the end, it’s the best of its kind.


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