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List Price: $47.49 | | Label: EMI
Salesrank: 176708
Released: June 17, 2003 |
| Our Price: $134.59 |
| Used Price: $99.04 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Editorial Review:
This special limited collector's edition of the definitive Rolling Stones hits collection is released to coincide with the start of the band's European tour which kicks off in Munich on June 2, 2003 and concludes on September 14th taking in 38 gigs in 13
Description of Forty Licks:
The band that proclaimed itself "The Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World" has long since represented rock's most overarching confluence of art and commerce--with a distinct emphasis on the latter in recent decades--a notion this 40-track, five-decade-spanning anthology can't completely escape. While this is the first anthology to gather hits from the band's entire career, it's the early tunes that highlight one of the Stones' central ironies: virtually their entire "bad boy" reputation was built working for The Man. That original '60s musical arc bounded from '50s rock and R&B revivalism ("Not Fade Away," "The Last Time") to anti-Mop Top aggression ("Satisfaction," "Get Off My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown") to proto-goth cynicism ("Paint It Black," "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby") and psychedelic minstrelsy ("She's a Rainbow," "Ruby Tuesday") to the epitome of blues-based cock rock ("Street Fighting Man," "Jumpin' Jack Flash") in quick succession. Wresting control of their own destinies--and future copyrights--at the end of the '60s, they'd spend the next 30 years largely recycling their earlier incarnation ad infinitum--their music sprinkled with occasionally successful forays into contemporary club and disco fodder ("Some Girls," "Shattered")--and resting on their well-paid laurels. Unfortunately, the listless quartet of new tracks that flesh out this collection seems little more than another business deal to hype their 2002-03 world tour, with "Don't Stop" arguably the weakest in a long string of post-'80s Stones McSingles. If Jagger seems typically detached here, Keith Richards injects some welcome, craggy warmth into the closing barroom lament, "Losing My Touch." But it's also a performance that suggests his legendary band has become little more to him than "The Greatest Day Job in the World." --Jerry McCulley
Forty Licks Reviews:
Stones as product. 
2009-11-10 - If nothing else, this 2-CD set collects most of the necessary Stones singles together and offers stunning remastered sound. A few tracks are curious inclusions ('Have You Seen Your Mother Baby', 'Anybody Seen My Baby'), a few exclusions are puzzling ('Waiting on a Friend', 'Let it Bleed'), and the 4 new tracks are serviceable but underwhelming. Still, overall this collection will satisfy casual fans and longtime Stoners. Packaging is stark, and designed for maximum store display impact. Probably a necessary release, and yet a cynical marketing ploy at the same time, 'Forty Licks' is both the definitive and redundant Stones collection.
Back When The Stones Earth Was Young
2009-11-03 - I will repeat here what I have mentioned in other reviews of the early work of The Rolling Stones.... "Hey, in 2009 no one, including this reviewer, NEEDS to comment on the fact that The Rolling Stones, pound for pound, have over forty plus years earned their place as the number one band in the rock `n' roll pantheon. Still, it is interesting to listen once again to the guys when they were at the height of their musical powers (and as high, most of the time, as Georgia pines)". This "greatest hits" compilation takes us back to the days, before the heavier rock sound but right up their in competition with the Beatles for the `soul' of the youthful rock fans of the 1960's. Some of these songs are classic of the rock `n' roll song book others are just faded memories. The cover of "Not Fade Away",their own "Satisfaction", "The Last Time", "Gimme Shelter", Sympathy For The Devil" and "19th Nervous Breakdown" will endure as long as people need rock `n' roll to get through the day. "Street Fighting","Tell Me" and "Play With Fire" are more for youthful memories. The new stuff added for this tour promotion is rather same old-same old. It's the old stuff you want this for, especially for beginners.
Forty Licks licked The Hell out of me 
2009-09-28 - Considering that I was born in 1981, I am not a music geek, and I do not find Mick Jagger remotely attractive, I love this collection of hits from the Rolling Stones because it encompasses all of the great hits. Some of the hits are: have you seen my baby, start me up, angie, jumping jack flash, gimme shelter, you can't always get what you want, under my thumb, sympathy for the devil, and many more. I love to sing along to this collect and it is a shame that it is being discontinued because this is the perfect collect for someone on a budget! Hope the old guys keep on rockin' it because their music makes me shake my booty! The Rolling Stones are to me what the Beatles would be to everyone else.
Nice collection, but... 
2009-09-25 - This is a nice low-budget collection of old (and some new) Rolling Stones classics. Nothing more said about the songs that most people interested in music knows very well. But I have some complains about the remastering, and the sound quality in general. I know that I can`t expect takes from the 60`s and early 70`s to sound like a pre 2000 publication (especially not early Stones..), but with todays remastering technologies, I still expect the sound to be less harsh and hollow than which is the case here, of course without losing the "soul and mood" in the songs.
Great Songs, Poorly Compiled
2009-09-05 - When I first got this album I hated it. I actually considered throwing it away. The song sequencing is atrocious, too many important songs are excluded, and three of the four new songs are extremely weak. ("Don't Stop" is nice, but "Losing My Touch" is terrible.) Upon reconsideration, this album does have a large number of essential songs, and, taken on its own, is undeniably very good. However, due to the aforementioned (less than critical) problems, the Stones career is much better summarized by the terrific 2-disc Rolled Gold+, which summarizes their sixties career, and the very good Jump Back, which summarizes their career from 1971 through 1989. Rolled Gold+ is mostly sequenced chronologically, flowing beautifully from their first UK single, "Come On", through their 1971 classic "Brown Sugar". Every song from their Hot Rocks album is included, plus all their other major hits and several album tracks which were included on More Hot Rocks. The superb #1 UK single, "Little Red Rooster", is included on Rolled Gold+, but not on Hot Rocks or Forty Licks. Jump Back duplicates "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar", which are also on Hot Rocks and Forty Licks, is not chronologically sequenced, fails to include several minor hits from the seventies and eighties (e.g. "Going to a Go Go"), and doesn't include anything later than 1989. However, it does contain every post-sixties top 24 song, and every essential (except maybe "Shattered") post-sixties Stones song on a single disc. The music flows along nicely, with absolutely no mediocre tracks. I would highly recommend getting Rolled Gold+ and Jump Back if possible. Forty Licks should be purchased only as a last resort.
