"More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies) [Bonus Tracks] [Digipak] [Remaster]" (08/27/2002) Oldies Rolling Stones (The), ABKCO RecordsThe Rolling Stones: Keith Richards (vocals, guitar); Mick Jagger (vocals); Brian Jones (various instruments, guitar); Mick Taylor (guitar); Bill Wyman (bass); Charlie Watts (drums). Additional personnel includes: John Lennon, Paul McCartney (background vocals). Producers: Andrew Loog Oldham, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Miller. Audio Remasterers: Jon Astley; Bob Ludwig; Steve Rosenthal; Teri Landi; Paschal Byrne. Photographers: Gered Mankowitz; Ethan Russell. Arranger: The Rolling Stones. When you're anthologizing the Rolling Stones, one of the first things you must accept is that you're doomed to failure. No one album can possibly tell the story of the band that's explored so many different musical avenues and recorded so many memorable songs. Still, the double-disc best of HOT ROCKS, and this, its sequel, come perilously close. This set wisely doesn't attempt to be comprehensive. Instead, it just picks out various gems from different points in the band's development. Their R&B/roots period is well-represented by covers of "It's All Over Now" and "Not Fade Away." "She's A Rainbow" and "2000 Light Years From Home" are monuments to the band's psychedelic phase. "No Expectations" and "Let It Bleed" are bluesy tunes that cut to the quick, emphasizing the Stones' gift for visceral compositions and the sound that defined what was--arguably--their greatest period (the late '60s). Though HOT ROCKS is the place to turn for a comprehensive cross section of the band's biggest and most essential hits, MORE HOT ROCKS is an excellent companion piece, bringing together some of the Stones' lesser known but equally satisfying work. Hot Rocks covers most of the monster hits from the Stones' first decade that remained in radio rotation for decades to come. More Hot Rocks goes for the somewhat smaller hits, some of the better album tracks, and a whole LP side's worth of rarities that hadn't yet been available in the United States when this compilation was released in 1972. The material isn't as famous as what's on Hot Rocks, but the music is almost as excellent, including such vital cuts as "Not Fade Away," "It's All Over Now," "The Last Time," "Lady Jane," the psychedelic "Dandelion," "She's a Rainbow," "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?," "Out of Time," "Tell Me," and "We Love You." The eight rarities are pretty good as well, including their 1963 debut single "Come On," early R&B covers of "Fortune Teller" and "Bye Bye Johnnie," great slide guitar on Muddy Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied," and the soulful 1966 U.K. B-side "Long Long While." [The Rolling Stones' London/ABKCO catalog was reissued in August of 2002, packaged in digipacks with restored album artwork, remastered, and released as hybrid discs that contain both CD and Super Audio CD layers. The remastering -- performed with Direct Stream Digital (DSD) encoding -- is a drastic improvement, leaping out of the speaker yet still sounding like the original albums. This is noticeable on the standard CD layer but is considerably more pronounced on the SACD layer, which is shockingly realistic in its detail and presence yet is still faithful to the original mixes; Keith Richards' revved-up acoustic guitar on "Street Fighting Man" still sends the machine into overdrive, for instance. It just sounds like he's in the room with you. Even if you've never considered yourself an audiophile, have never heard the differences between standard and gold-plated CDs, you will hear the difference with SACD, even on a cheap stereo system without a high-end amplifier or speakers. And you won't just hear the difference, you'll be an instant convert and wish, hope, and pray that other artists whose catalog hasn't been reissued since the early days of CD -- Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, especially the Beatles -- are given the same treatment in the very near future. SACD and DSD are that good. The reissue of More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies) also adds (in refreshing contrast to most of the 2002 re-releases, which usually added no or little bonus material) three additi