The Stones started out as a British blues band, but what they played was unmistakably rock & roll, revving up everything fast and loud and mean about the blues—not just chasing good times, but insisting on them. Their debut includes just one original, "Tell Me." 

 The early Stones records are hodgepodges full of R&B covers going horribly wrong (“Under the Boardwalk” ) or shockingly right (“It’s All Over Now,” “Around and Around”). Here, Jagger and Richards learn songwriting on the job with mostly strong results. 

 December's Children, a compendium of tracks from the completely different U.K. version of Out of Our Heads, leaps out with the 90-second blast of "She Said Yeah," plus live rips through "I'm Moving On" and "Route 66." It also has "The Singer Not the Song," a chiming Beatle-style ballad ... 

 Out of Our Heads adds “Satisfaction,” the 1965 breakthrough single that continues to inspire garage-rock imitators today. Poor Mick: flying around the world with no girlie action, only his cars and clothes and cigarettes and TVs to keep him company. He sounds bored enough to blow up the world... 

 The Rolling Stones, Now! is their first consistently great LP, with the mean "Heart of Stone," the funky "Off the Hook," and the Leiber-Stoller oldie "Down Home Girl," where Mick has a blast playing the wide-eyed city boy rendered helpless by his sweetie's Southern-gal sex drive. There'... 

 For more than 20 years, the 1971 double-album anthology Hot Rocks was the standard introduction to the Stones’ music, the first one most of us ever heard, with a great doomy cover. Along with its predecessor, Big Hits, and its superb companion volume, More Hot Rocks, it’s been superseded by T... 

 Aftermath was the first album of Jagger-Richards originals and the first album the Stones recorded as a coherent whole. It showcases the sauciest Mick, the broodiest Keith, the prettiest Brian, the funkiest Bill, and Charlie–now and forever, Charlie. It’s blues-rock flower power, but all the ... 

 Between the Buttons is lighter and thinner, heavy on piano and a Kinks-like touch of ye olde Englandisms; having belatedly discovered pop melody, Jagger and Richards were suddenly overdosing on the stuff. The songs that stand out are the ones that bite: “Connection,” “My Obsession,” “Ye... 

 Flowers collects stray singles from this period, but it holds together as one of the Stones’ best records, a concept album about the social scene that gathers around five rich young men with an appetite for sex, drugs, and gossip. There’s the acoustic “Sittin’ on a Fence,” the sad accor... 

 Their Satanic Majesties Request was the Stones’ big psychedelic statement, with the band looking silly in medieval wizard costumes on the cover. Despite its bad rep, though, it’s an inspired mess, layering all the airy, effete melody of a Donovan or Kaleidoscope song on top of the powerhouse ... 

 Brian, never a day at the beach in the human-being department, was increasingly lost as a musical presence, but he has his final great moments on Beggars Banquet, the album on which the Stones stripped down for some kind of mutant acoustic blues. When Brian plays a ghostly slide guitar on "No Exp... 

 On 'Let It Bleed,' the Stones face up to the end of the Sixties, starting with the dread guitar rumble of “Gimme Shelter.” They rock through the darkness with the bluesy punch of “Monkey Man,” Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain," and “You Got the Si... 

 The band's brief but tasty psych period, well summed up by the 1969 singles collection Through the Past, Darkly, includes high-water marks of British pop such as "Child of the Moon" and "Dandelion." This Stones era ended much too soon—except that even better sounds were on the way. 

 Of the many Stones live albums, Ya-Ya’s is the stone classic, documenting a 1969 Madison Square Garden show in all its blood and glory; the 2009 reissue adds five songs, plus the opening sets of Ike and Tina Turner . Mick’s best line: “You don’t want my trousers to fall down, now do you?”  

 For more than 20 years, the 1971 double-album anthology Hot Rocks was the standard introduction to the Stones’ music, the first one most of us ever heard, with a great doomy cover. Along with its predecessor, Big Hits, and its superb companion volume, More Hot Rocks, it’s been superseded by T... 

 Sticky Fingers' songs are full of drugs, often as a metaphor for sexual loss (“Moonlight Mile”), but sometimes just as drugs (“Sister Morphine”). The incomprehensibly terrifying “Sway” destroys your notion of circular time, “Bitch” riffs on the... 

 For more than 20 years, the 1971 double-album anthology Hot Rocks was the standard introduction to the Stones’ music, the first one most of us ever heard, with a great doomy cover. Along with its predecessor, Big Hits, and its superb companion volume, More Hot Rocks, it’s been superseded by T... 

 The Stones fled to France to cut the double album Exile on Main St. Recorded in the basement of Keith’s French villa with electricity allegedly stolen from the French railway system, it’s their most physically jolting album and, ultimately, their most emotionally inspiring. Mick’s vocals ar... 

 Exile was the Stones’ biggest musical triumph, but all the decadence was catching up with them. The band lost focus, with Keith’s attention diverted by the pressing concern of stuffing as many toxic chemicals into his veins as possible. Goats Head Soup is overbaked melodrama, enlivened only b... 

 It’s Only Rock & Roll is formula, and the nearly song-free Black and Blue comes down to a pair of sincere ballads (“Fool to Cry,” “Memory Motel”) and the silly but shitkicking cowboy tale “Hand of Fate.”  

 Jamming With Edward is an aimless jam session never intended for release; the outtakes collection Metamorphosis includes the irresistible “I’d Much Rather Be With the Boys.”  

 So far, there hasn’t been a completely satisfying collection of the post–Hot Rocks hits, despite some worthy-at-the-time artifacts now forgotten, such as the 1975 Made in the Shade, the 1984 Rewind, the 1993 Jump Back, and let us now remember the brilliantly titled 1981 Sucking in the Sev... 

 It’s Only Rock & Roll is formula, and the nearly song-free Black and Blue comes down to a pair of sincere ballads (“Fool to Cry,” “Memory Motel”) and the silly but shitkicking cowboy tale “Hand of Fate.”  

 Love You Live has a buried treasure in the skank-sloppy cover of Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up.”  

 Some Girls brought the band back to life, taking on punk and disco as the Stones rediscovered their sense of musical aggression with new guitarist Ron Wood, who made up in spirit what he lacked in guitar chops. “Miss You” combines funk beats, sax, guitars, urban loneliness, Sugar Blue’s har... 

 Their comeback in the can, the Stones kept it up for the next few years. Emotional Rescue was a high-spirited lark, racing through the hooks of “Let Me Go,” “Where the Boys Go,” and the fabulous “She’s So Cold.”  

 Tattoo You had the necrophiliac hit “Start Me Up,” the doo-doo-doo ditty “Hang Fire,” and Keith’s sincere pro-bitch statement, “Little T&A,” with Sonny Rollins blowing sax on the big ballad “Waiting on a Friend.”  

 So far, there hasn’t been a completely satisfying collection of the post–Hot Rocks hits, despite some worthy-at-the-time artifacts now forgotten, such as the 1975 Made in the Shade, the 1984 Rewind, the 1993 Jump Back, and let us now remember the brilliantly titled 1981 Sucking in the Sev... 

 Undercover was a serious but failed attempt to adjust their political lyrics to hip-hop production. Mick started to act on his long-threatened solo career, and the Stones began to fall apart, this time apparently for good.  

 So far, there hasn't been a completely satisfying collection of the post–Hot Rocks hits, despite some worthy-at-the-time artifacts now forgotten, such as the 1975 Made in the Shade, the 1984 Rewind, the 1993 Jump Back, and let us now remember the brilliantly titled 1981 Sucking in the ... 

 Dirty Work sounded like the band’s nasty kiss-off to one another, even though all the nastiness made the album feel alive, not to mention Stonesy. Too hard and bitter for mainstream acclaim, Dirty Work has a thriving cult, especially the title song, in which Jagger rails against Reagan with wha... 

 For more than 20 years, the 1971 double-album anthology Hot Rocks was the standard introduction to the Stones’ music, the first one most of us ever heard, with a great doomy cover. Along with its predecessor, Big Hits, and its superb companion volume, More Hot Rocks, it’s been superseded by T... 

 But the Stones didn’t really break up, of course; they were just sitting on a fence. After three years, they reunited for Steel Wheels and assumed their present roles as elder statesmen, road warriors, voodoo loungers, and men of wealth and taste. 

 So far, there hasn’t been a completely satisfying collection of the post–Hot Rocks hits, despite some worthy-at-the-time artifacts now forgotten, such as the 1975 Made in the Shade, the 1984 Rewind, the 1993 Jump Back, and let us now remember the brilliantly titled 1981 Sucking in the Sev... 

 Their post-reunion albums have been muffled by the soft retro production of Don Was–it takes a real studio whiz to make Charlie Watts sound like a click track. But Bridges to Babylon has prime moments, especially Mick’s “Might as Well Get Juiced” and Keith’s “Thief in the Night.”  

 The double-disc anthology Forty Licks is the closest thing to a comprehensive career-spanning intro, featuring daring picks ("Fool To Cry," "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?") and four new songs (including Mick's "Don't Stop," a plea for emotional rescue, and Kei... 

 As for The Singles Collection—of course, a three-disc singles box might seem redundant from a band whose original albums are classics. But we're talking the Stones here, and as an introduction, it's only one disc longer than Hot Rocks or Forty Licks, and not only brings together a... 

 Rarities mostly consists of previously released odds and ends; the Singles boxes are CD-single versions o/f the old 45s, with fancy packaging.  

 A Bigger Bang was worth the wait, bristling with Mick’s snakiest wit, Keith’s shrewdest guitar runs, Charlie’s loosest drum hooks. From “Rough Justice” to “This Place Is Empty,” it’s the work of hardened rock & roll dons who don’t feel any need to prove a goddamn thing, exce... 

 As for The Singles Collection—of course, a three-disc singles box might seem redundant from a band whose original albums are classics. But we're talking the Stones here, and as an introduction, it's only one disc longer than Hot Rocks or Forty Licks, and not only brings together a... 

 As for The Singles Collection—of course, a three-disc singles box might seem redundant from a band whose original albums are classics. But we're talking the Stones here, and as an introduction, it's only one disc longer than Hot Rocks or Forty Licks, and not only brings together a... 

 Shine a Light catches the Stones on a historic roll, reveling in their own live mastery, digging deep into the weirder corners of their songbook. It has Jack White wailing “Loving Cup,” Buddy Guy jamming on “Champagne and Reefer,” and Christina Aguilera vamping “Live With Me,” not to ...