It's often unfair to compare the Rolling Stones to the Beatles but in the case of the group's mono mixes, it's instructive. Until the 2009 release of the box set The Beatles in Mono, all of the Fab Four's mono mixes were out of print. That's not the case with the Rolling Stones. Most of their '60s albums -- released on Decca in the U.K., London in the U.S. -- found mono mixes sneaking onto either the finished sequencing or various singles compilations, so the 2016 box The Rolling Stones in Mono only contains 56 heretofore unavailable mono mixes among its 186 tracks. To complicate things further, the box -- which runs 15 discs in its CD version, 16 LPs in its vinyl incarnation -- sometimes contains both the British and American releases of a particular title (Out of Our Heads and Aftermath), while others are available in only one iteration (Between the Buttons is only present in the U.K. version). All this is for the sake of expedience: this is the easiest way to get all the mono mixes onto the box with a minimal amount of repetition. To that end, there's a bonus disc called Stray Cats -- with artwork that plays off the censored plain white cover art for the initial pressing of Beggars Banquet -- collecting the singles that never showed up on an official album, or at least any of the albums that made the box. Along with the odd decision to have the CD sleeves be slightly larger than a mini-LP replica (they're as big as a jewel box, so they're larger than a shrunk vinyl sleeve, a size that's rarely seen in other releases), this is the only quibble on what is otherwise an excellent set. The sound -- remastered again after the 2002 overhaul for hybrid SACDs -- is bold and colorful, with the earliest albums carrying a wallop and the latter records feeling like they're fighting to be heard in two separate channels and all the better for it. If nothing here provides a revelation -- none of the mixes are radically different, the way that some Beatles mono sides are -- this nevertheless is the best the Rolling Stones have sounded on disc (or on vinyl) and there's considerable care in this package, from the replications of the sleeves to the extensive notes from David Fricke. Plus, hearing the Stones in mono winds up being a hot wire back toward the '60s: this feels raw and vibrant, as alive as the band was in the '60s.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Surprisingly, very few artists can float a digital-age collection of number one singles without resorting to trickery involving foreign countries or obscure charts. The Beatles had little trouble (The Beatles 1) and Elvis Presley managed both a disc of number ones (Elvis: 30 #1 Hits) and one of number twos (2nd to None), but Michael Jackson bent the rules so far that calling his disc Number Ones is tantamount to consumer fraud. Additionally, a collection of number one singles may not be the best representation of an artist's career; the Elvis volume included nothing from his Sun years, and the Beatles' set skipped "Strawberry Fields Forever." The #1's, Motown's collection of chart-toppers by Diana Ross & the Supremes, fares much better. It benefits from two Supremes characteristics: as a pop group through and through, their biggest hits were often their best songs, and, with the help of the solo Diana Ross, they spent a long time on the charts (nearly 20 years separates the Supremes' debut at the top from Ross' last number one single). While Motown's separate volumes on Diana Ross and the Supremes (in the Ultimate Collection series) remain the best source for a single-disc picture of either act, The #1's works remarkably well. It includes 19 number one pop singles (13 from the group, six from the solo Ross), plus various number ones on the R&B and dance charts, and there aren't any glaring omissions. Granted, fans of early Motown can't live without the girl-group chestnuts "Buttered Popcorn" and "Your Heart Belongs to Me," while those who enjoy latter-day Ross won't find "One More Chance" or "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" -- but of course, this collection wasn't created with them in mind. For the group who recorded more hit singles during the '60s than any other act except the Beatles, and for one of the reigning solo artists of the '70s, The #1's is a worthy tribute.© John Bush /TiVo

Kris Roe, leader of the Ataris, would seem a little young for nostalgia, but So Long, Astoria (its title referring to Astoria, OR, the town in the 1985 film The Goonies) is his musical version of a memory play, a series of reflections on his youth in the late '70s and '80s. Roe, who grew up in Anderson, IN, and moved to Santa Barbara, CA, to pursue his rock & roll dreams, reminisces fondly about adolescence in songs like "Summer '79" and addresses his own young fans in "My Reply." The Ataris' fourth full-length album of new material and their major-label debut on Columbia Records, So Long, Astoria is, musically, another collection of typical speed punk tunes, virtually indistinguishable from the work of Green Day and blink-182, not to mention dozens of other similar bands. It is only Roe's lyrical identity that makes the band's songs stand out, and you only pick up on those lyrics on repeated listenings. When you do, Roe's sentimentality stands in contrast to the music's aggression, but he doesn't really have much insight into his memories. The idea of covering Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" as a punk anthem has promise, but when Roe revises the famous line about the "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" by referring to Black Flag, he strikes a false note. Henley's observation was telling because it was true; Roe's is only cute because it scans. There's the problem when your memories are so infused with the movies you watched and the music you listened to -- they tend to sound secondhand. And when you set it to music already slavishly imitative of your betters, the problem is compounded.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Looking at the cover of Huey Lewis & the News' Live at 25, it's hard not to think, "Wow! I had no idea that the News had 25 members!" Of course, the middle-aged men crowding the cover of this 2005 release number a mere nine, which means the one-time sextet has been expanded with a full horn section (original guitarist Chris Hayes has been replaced by Stef Burns and bassist Mario Cipollina has been replaced by John Pierce, as well). New members and a horn section don't change the basic nature of the band, which hasn't changed since the beginning of its career -- no matter what they do, Huey Lewis & the News are a good-time, good-natured, unabashedly fun party band. That served them well at the height of their fame in the mid-'80s, and it serves them well 20 years later, as they do those big hits -- "The Heart of Rock & Roll," "I Want a New Drug," "If This Is It," "Do You Believe in Love," "Hip to Be Square" (subtly changed to "(Too) Hip to Be Square," although the lyrics haven't been altered) -- balanced with covers and newer tunes that sound as if they could have been good album tracks on Picture This. Although the liner notes don't mention the date or location of the recording of Live at 25, the specifics don't really matter since the album is designed to be less a historical document than a nostalgic souvenir for longtime fans, capturing the group at a quarter-century mark. In that respect, it works well: the song selection is good, the band sounds tight and professional, the production is clean and punchy, and while it's never especially engaging, it is an enjoyable performance. Not essential, and certainly not nearly as energetic as the original LPs, Live at 25 is warm, friendly, and fun nonetheless, a perfectly respectable way to celebrate the group's anniversary.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Recorded between 1968 and 1972, The Rolling Stone’s Beggars Banquet is a real rock’n’roll feast. One of the biggest feasts in history no doubt! Right from the first few shamanic bars of Sympathy For The Devil, it’s evident that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were trying to summon demons with their wickedly raw music. Blues, violence, rhythm'n'blues, sex, country, African music, revolt, soul, drugs and lust – there’s nothing missing from this electric frenzy. With its satanic prose, the album is carried by haunted guitars and minimalist rhythms. Here, the blue note either sweats buckets (Parachute Woman) or appears completely stripped down (Prodigal Son and Factory Girl). Rock had never been so poisonous and fascinating (Street Fighting Man). Richards releases bursts of demented guitar riffs while Jagger sings with unprecedented power and sincerity. The Stones would continue to build on this momentum with three other masterpieces: Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

The recording of Black and Blue took place at the same time as the auditions for guitarist Mick Taylor’s replacement. It's for that reason that the sessions were stalled and dragged on long enough to see the departure of an exasperated Glyn Johns – one of the Stones’ most loyal sound engineers who was involved in the production of their most successful albums – and finally the official addition of Ron Wood. A former guitarist for Rod Stewart, Wood wasn't as virtuosic as Mick Taylor but he was still an experienced musician and most importantly, he got along marvellously with the original members of the band. While we often remember the kitsch and simple ballads, Fool to Cry, and Memory Hotel from Black And Blue, it's also worth mentioning the tracks that are closer to what the Rolling Stones originally envisaged when they made the album: an eclectic album with Funk influences (Hot Stuff), Reggae (Cherry Oh Baby), and sometimes even sophisticated Blues/Jazz (on the amazing Melody). That being said, it wouldn’t be a true Stones album if here and there they didn’t show off their talent for creating a unique musical identity with electric guitars (Hand Of Fate, Crazy Mama). © Iskender Fay/Qobuz

Blue & Lonesome is the first studio album in over a decade from The Rolling Stones. Recorded in just three days in London, England, Blue & Lonesome takes the band back to their roots and the passion for blues music which has always been at the heart and soul of the Rolling Stones. Blue & Lonesome is available in various formats and will be released on December 2nd by Polydor Records. The album was recorded over the course of just three short days in December 2015 at British Grove Studios in West London, just a stone’s throw from Richmond and Eel Pie Island where the Stones started out as a young blues band playing pubs and clubs. Their approach to the album was that it should be spontaneous and played live in the studio without overdubs. The band – Mick Jagger (vocals & harp), Keith Richards (guitar), Charlie Watts (drums), and Ronnie Wood (guitar) were joined by their long time touring sidemen Darryl Jones (bass), Chuck Leavell (keyboards) and Matt Clifford (keyboards) and, for two of the twelve tracks, by old friend Eric Clapton, who happened to be in the next studio making his own album. Blue & Lonesome sees the Rolling Stones tipping their hats to their early days as a blues band when they played the music of Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, Eddie Taylor, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf – artists whose songs are featured on this album. The tracks are – ‘Just Your Fool’, ‘Commit A Crime’, ‘Blue And Lonesome’, ‘All Of Your Love’, ‘I Gotta Go’, ‘Everybody Knows About My Good Thing’, ‘Ride ‘Em On Down’, ‘Hate To See You Go’, ‘Hoo Doo Blues’, ‘Little Rain’, ‘Just Like I Treat You’, ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’. “This album is manifest testament to the purity of their love for making music, and the blues is, for the Stones, the fountainhead of everything they do.” - Don Was, Co-Producer of Blue & Lonesome. - @rollingstones.com

Let's set the scene: Tattoo You was released in August 1981. After an incredible run with Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, the Stones were careening between highs (Goat's Head Soup, Some Girls) and lows, not to mention some real deep dips (Black and Blue, Emotional Rescue). Most of all, Mick and Keith were grating on each other more and more. But since touring is what keeps the cash register ringing, it was time to put together an album and take it around the world. That album was to be Tattoo You, in fact a bit of a counterfeit "new" record because as it was made up of scraps from the previous albums, and even old demos and embryos of songs that were never finalized. While all this did not bode well, the result was surprisingly miraculous. Indeed: for many fans Tattoo You would be the last truly good Rolling Stones record. A very rock'n'roll side A, a B side with more of a focus on ballads, and everywhere Mick and Keith's flawless expertise... After the hit Start Me Up which always plays very well in 80,000-seater stadiums, some excellent and rather edgy songs—not really Richards' thing—such as Hang Fire or Neighbours show that there is still plenty of life left in the old dogs yet! And as yet another reminder that the real source of the Stones' music is the blues, we are treated to an excellent, lively rendition of Black Limousine. In terms of the slower numbers, the soulful Top is pretty steamy, and Heaven sees Jagger's spirited falsetto reach new heights. Finally, on Waiting on a Friend, they bring on board a giant of jazz, the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who puts out an impeccably powerful solo with Caribbean flavours (he is also present on Neighbours and Slave)… The 40th anniversary edition of Tattoo You enjoys Deluxe Edition treatment with a new mix, rarities like covers of the Chi-Lites (Troubles a' Comin), Jimmy Reed's Shame Shame Shame and Dobie Gray's Drift Away, not to mention a hearty live performance recorded in London's Wembley Stadium in 1982. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Funny that the much-touted "reunion/comeback" album Steel Wheels followed Dirty Work by just three years, while it took the Stones five years to turn out its sequel, Voodoo Lounge -- a time frame that seems much more appropriate for a "comeback." To pile on the irony, Voodoo Lounge feels more like a return to form than its predecessor, even if it's every bit as calculated and Bill Wyman has flown the coup. With Don Was, a neo-classic rock producer who always attempts to reclaim his artist's original claim to greatness, helming the boards with the Glimmer Twins, the Stones strip their sound back to its spare, hard-rocking basics. The Stones act in kind, turning out a set of songs that are pretty traditionalist. There are no new twists or turns in either the rockers or ballads (apart maybe from the quiet menace of "Thru and Thru," later used to great effect on The Sopranos), even if they revive some of the English folk and acoustic country-blues that was on Beggars Banquet. Still, this approach works because they are turning out songs that may not be classics but are first-rate examples of the value of craft. If this was released ten years, even five years earlier, this would be a near-triumph of classicist rock, but since Voodoo Lounge came out in the CD age, it's padded out to 15 tracks, five of which could have been chopped to make the album much stronger. Instead, it runs on for nearly an hour, an ironically bloated length for an album whose greatest strengths are its lean, concentrated classic sound and songcraft. Still, it makes for a stronger record than its predecessor.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Aftermath, released in April 1966 by Decca Records, is the fourth British studio album by the Rolling Stones. It was issued in the United States in June 1966 by London Records as the group's sixth American album. The album is considered an artistic breakthrough for the band: it is the first to consist entirely of Mick Jagger–Keith Richards compositions, while Brian Jones played a variety of instruments not usually associated with their music, including sitar, Appalachian dulcimer, marimbas and Japanese koto, as well as guitar, harmonica and keyboards, though much of the music is still rooted in Chicago electric blues. It was the first Rolling Stones album to be recorded entirely in the US, at the RCA Studios in California, and their first album released in true stereo. It is also one of the earliest rock albums to eclipse the 50-minute mark, and contains one of the earliest rock songs to eclipse the 10-minute mark ("Goin' Home").

Recorded during their American tour in late 1969 and centered around live versions of material from the Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed era, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! is often acclaimed as one of the top live rock albums of all time, although its appeal has dimmed a little today. The live versions are reasonably different from the studio ones, but ultimately not as good, a notable exception being the long workout of "Midnight Rambler," with extended harmonica solos and the unforgettable section where the pace slows to a bump-and-grind crawl. Some Stones aficionados, in fact, prefer a bootleg from the same tour (Liver Than You'll Ever Be, to which this album was unleashed in response), or their amazing the-show-must-go-on performance in the jaws of hell at Altamont (preserved in the Gimme Shelter film). Fans who are unconcerned with picky comparisons such as these will still find Ya-Ya's an outstanding album, and it's certainly the Stones' best official live recording.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

Early in March 1977, the Rolling Stones played a pair of surprise shows at the El Mocambo, a 300-seat club in Toronto. The purpose of the gigs, the only concerts they played in 1977, was to generate source material for a live album that turned out to be Love You Live. Only four tracks from the El Mocambo performances showed up on Love You Live, amounting to a side of blues covers on that double-LP. A full album's worth of El Mocambo recordings circulated as a bootleg for years, but the overdue 2022 official release contains the entirety of the second night's show along with three bonus tracks from the first night, amounting to a whopping 23 tracks. Such an exhaustive portrait is welcome as Live at the El Mocambo does represent a bit of an odd moment for the Stones: it captures them caught between the over-sized jam session Black and Blue and the audacious revitalization of Some Girls, a period where Ron Wood was just getting his sea legs. Wood encouraged the group to play a bunch of blues standards and they agreed, balancing these chestnuts with some of their own oldies ("Let's Spend the Night Together," "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Honky Tonk Women"), a good chunk of Black and Blue and It's Only Rock N Roll, plus "Worried About You," a ballad that sat on the shelf until Tattoo You. This means Live at the El Mocambo presents the Stones as something between a hard-working club band and conquering heroes hawking their latest ware; the set list is very much of its time, lacking such warhorses as "Satisfaction" and "Street Fighting Man," and it's better for it. The Stones often sound as if they're enjoying hunkering down on a smaller stage, giving enthusiastic performances that avoid sloppiness. It adds up to a gas, a record that belongs alongside Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! and Brussels Affair as among the best official live Stones albums.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Recorded live on the 1989 Steel Wheels tour, this compilation documents the Rolling Stones' explosive show in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With guest appearances including Axl Rose and Eric Clapton, the project highlights the excitement of the band's return to touring.© David Crone /TiVo