Sixty years, and this is (almost) how it started, with an 18-disc box set of primal 1960s singles, every one of the 45s that the Rolling Stones released in the U.K. and U.S. between 1963 and 1966 (ABK-CO), and if there’s a more consistent, and consistently energizing sequence in the history of rock, then clearly you need your ears syringed.
From the opening bluster of “Come On,” to the shapeshifting delirium of “19th Nervous Breakdown”; from Buddy Holly to Bobby Womack; from “As Tears Go By” to “Tell Me”; and some of the greatest B-sides of the era as well, “Spider and the Fly,” “Play With Fire,” “Off the Hook”… for a songwriting partnership that had to be locked in the loo before it wrote its first song, Mick and Keith certainly came up with some goodies.
And that’s before we mention the three U.K.-only EPs… one eponymous, one mathematical and one confusingly given the same
