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List Price: $52.99 | | Label: Universal Japan
Salesrank: 605322
Released: March 27, 2006 |
| Our Price: $19.79 |
| Used Price: $39.99 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Between the Buttons Track Listing:
1. Yesterday's Papers
2. My Obsession
3. Backstreet Girl
4. Connection
5. She Smiled Sweetly
6. Cool, Calm & Collected
7. All Sold Out
8. Please Go Home
9. Who's Been Sleeping Here?
10. Complicated
11. Miss Amanda Jones
12. Something Happened to Me Yesterday
Editorial Review:
Japanese Limited Edition Issue of the Dsd Mastered Album Classic in a Deluxe, Miniaturized LP Sleeve Replica of the Original Vinyl Album Artwork.
Between the Buttons Reviews:
Let's Spend Some Time Together Listening To BETWEEN THE BUTTONS 
2009-01-16 - The American version of BETWEEN THE BUTTONS was the first Stones LP I ever bought. I was 15 years old at the time and just getting into rebellion in a big way. I finally understood the appeal of the "bad boys" over the "Mop Tops." When I was 12 or 13 and the Stones were pretty new on the scene, I found them incomprehensible--raw, vulgar and certainly not a group anyone was going to make a cartoon of. But by the time I reached high school age, I came around.
And so did they, really. They had started writing the bulk of their material and were not just recycling Berry and various blues masters, and oh yeah, the Beatles. The sound got progressively tighter and more innovative, the lyrics (when you could hear them) a little spicier, wittier and more controversial.
Still for a year or two, I contented myself with the singles, not the albums. So it was something of a leap to actually plunk down four or five whole dollars of my hard earned allowance for an entire album. Once it hit my turntable, however, it didn't leave for a long, long time.
There are plenty of rough moments on BETWEEN THE BUTTONS, though relatively speaking it was a pretty polished record for the time. The American version contained the hits "Ruby Tuesday" and "Let's Spend the Night Together," which were pretty much indicative of the direction(s) the Stones were heading in in 1967. The whistful ballad was nicely offset by a bit of raunchy fun. Those tracks served as something of preview for BETWEEN THE BUTTONS, which in turn would alternate between the pretty, the witty and the gritty (not always mutually exclusive categories either).
As guilty a pleasure as "Let's Spend the Night" was, I remember thinking it paled in comparison to some of the other uptempo songs on the American release. As songs, I much prefer "My Obsession," "Connection," and "Complicated." The fuzzy rumble of the guitars, offset by Jerry Lee Lewis style barrelhouse piano was irresistible. Listening to the British version now after all these years, I can't say that I miss "Spend" all that much. I've heard it enough times already. There's something to be said for the Brit version, which holds together as an album rather than as a couple of hits surrounded by "some other songs" (which on first hearing MIGHT sound like filler, leastwise 'til you got to know them better).
It's been said that the Stones anticipated SGT. PEPPER with their ironic music hall styled "Something Happened To Me Yesterday." Heard against the campy backdrop music, the "trippy" lyrics seemed particularly sly and ironic. As it turned out, sly and ironic was the Stones optimal mode, no matter what the subject, but certainly their later attempts at "peace and love" music (on SOME of the SATANIC MAJESTIES tracks) proved that full blown psychedelia would never be their forte.
But they could be experimental--and pull it off. The sitars, the harpsichords and whatever else Brian Jones felt like playing (with) actually WORKED here. Yes, the Rolling Stones most definitive music was still ahead of them, and it would not incorporate such exotic instrumentation to any significant extent. BUT this was 1967, and the Stones were able to pull off one of the emblematic albums (in either version, really) of the era.
Missing Track 
2008-09-21 - In 1966 I bought the original LP recording of Between the Buttons because my two favourite tracks were Ruby Tuesday and Back Street Girl. Why are they not both still on the remastered recordings?
The Stones Go a Little Psychedelic 
2006-06-13 - You can tell right away by looking at photographer Gered Mankowitz's kind of blurry psychedelic photograph that this isn't going to be your ordinary Rolling Stones record. Well, I suppose there are no ordinary Stones' records, but this one is a bit different. The Beatles were doing "Revolver" around this time. Bob Dylan was doing "Blonde on Blonde," Donovan was going all Flower Power. Some of that stuff was rubbing off on Mick and the boys and it wasn't all bad, no sir, because "Between the Buttons" is sort of the result. This is just a bang up fun record to listen to, "Back Street Girl" sort of reminds me of riding on a merry-go-round, I don't know why, but it does. "Yesterday's Papers" is sort of a kiss off song, you know, a guy telling a girl she's yesterday's news. I remember reading somewhere that Mick was sort of telling a girl he was through with her by doing this song. I like every song on this record, both the US and the UK versions. The Stones really pour their heart out here. "Between the Buttons" is a must own record for any Stones fan, for any Rock and Roll aficionado as well.
