Forty Licks

From Free net encyclopedia

Forty Licks is a double compilation album by The Rolling Stones. A thirty-eight-year career-spanning retrospective, Forty Licks is notable for being the first retrospective to combine the band's formative Decca/London era of the 1960s, now licensed by ABKCO Records, with their self-owned post-1970 material, currently distributed by Virgin Records.

Compiled following the enormous success of The Beatles' 1 compilation from 2000, Forty Licks is generally considered to be the definitive Rolling Stones retrospective, even though some worthy material is considered to not here due to time constrictions. While Disc 1 centers on the period ranging from 1964 to 1971, it lacks "Time Is On My Side", "As Tears Go By", "Little Red Rooser," "Lady Jane" and "We Love You". Furthermore, the addition of four new songs on its second disc, which concentrates on the 1971 - 2002 era ensures that additional material such as "Bitch", "Hot Stuff", "Respectable", "Waiting On A Friend", "Dead Flowers", "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", and "Harlem Shuffle" remain absent, while many of the songs presented are in edited form. It is for this reason that 1993's more expansive Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones has had enduring popularity with certain factions of the band's following. Of the four new songs, "Don't Stop" was promoted as a single, becoming a minor hit in both the UK and US.

Released in September, Forty Licks peaked at #2 in the UK and US - behind Elvis Presley's 30 #1 Hits package — selling several million units worldwide, not least in the United States, where it is certified quadruple platinum. Concurrently with the album's release, The Rolling Stones embarked on another successful year-long international tour to promote Forty Licks that stretched into 2003 and would result in Live Licks in 2004.