By the time the Rolling Stones began calling themselves the World s Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the late 60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the title. As the self-consciously dangerous alternative to the bouncy Merseybeat of the Beatles in the British Invasion, the Stones had pioneered the gritty, hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that came to define hard rock. With his preening machismo and latent maliciousness, Mick Jagger became the prototypical rock frontman, tempering his macho showmanship with a detached, campy irony while Keith Richards and Brian Jones wrote the blueprint for sinewy, interlocking rhythm guitars. Backed by the strong yet subtly swinging rhythm section of bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, the Stones became the breakout band of the British blues scene, eclipsing such contemporaries as the Animals and Them. Over the course of their career, the Stones never really abandoned blues, but as soon as they reached popularity in the U.K., they began experimenting musically, incorporating the British pop of contemporaries like the Beatles, Kinks, and Who into their sound. After a brief dalliance with psychedelia, the Stones re-emerged in the late 60s as a jaded, blues-soaked hard rock quintet. The Stones always flirted with the seedy side of rock & roll, but as the hippie dream began to break apart, they exposed and reveled in the new rock culture. It wasn t without difficulty, of course. Shortly after he was fired from the group, Jones was found dead in a swimming pool, while at a 1969 free concert at Altamont, a concertgoer was brutally killed during the Stones show. But the Stones never stopped going. For the next 30 years, they continued to record and perform, and while their records weren t always blockbusters, they were never less than the most visible band of their era -- certainly, none of their British peers continued to be as popular or productive as the Stones. And no band since has proven to have such a broad fan base or far-reaching popularity, and it is impossible to hear any of the groups that followed them without detecting some sort of influence, whether it was musical or aesthetic.

Tracklist

Disc 1

1. (I Can t Get No) Satisfaction
2. Paint It Black
3. 19Th Nervous Breakdown
4. Time Is On My Side
5. Mother s Little Helper
6. The Last Time
7. Its All Over Now
8. Play With Fire
9. Get Off My Cloud
10.Under My Thumb
11.As Tears Go By
12.Yesterday s Papers
13.Let s Spend The Night Together
14.Out Of Time
15.Ruby Tuesday
16.Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing In The Shadow
17.Lady Jane
18.She s A Rainbow
19.2000 Light Years From Home
20.No Expectations
21.You Can t Always Get What You Want
22.Sympathy For The Devil

Disc 2

1. Street Fighting Man
2. Jumpin Jack Flash
3. Honky Tonk Women
4. Brown Sugar
5. Gimme Shelter
6. Let It Bleed
7. Wild Horses
8. Tumbling Dice
9. Happy
10.Torn And Frayed
11.Angie
12.Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
13.Ain t Too Proud To Beg
14.It s Only Rock n Roll (But I Like It)
15.Hot Stuff
16.Hand Of Fate
17.Fool To Cry
18.Crazy Mama
19.Respectable

Disc 3

1. Miss You
2. Beast Of Burden
3. Shattered
4. Let Me Go
5. Emotional Rescue
6. She s So Cold
7. Start Me Up
8. Hang Fire
9. Neighbours
10.Waiting On A Friend
11.Undercover Of The Night
12.She Was Hot
13.Too Tough
14.One Hit (To The Body)
15.Harlem Shuffle
16.Winning Ugly
17.Sad Sad Sad
18.Mixed Emotions
19.Almost Hear You Sigh