Essential Rolling Stones?
 

I know basically nothing about the Rolling Stones and can only even tell you the names of like two of their songs (i cant get no satisfaction & gimme shelter). I don't really know why, but I've just never made an attempt to listen to them. I think the Beatles are great and I'm pretty much positive I'll love the Rolling Stones...I just need to know where to start.

So...what are the 3-4 essential Rolling Stones albums from their enormous discography? It appears that Exile on Main St. and Sticky Fingers are popular...but I'm not sure. Anyway, what do I do?

Exile on Main St.
Let It Bleed
Beggars Banquet
Sticky Fingers

Those are my top 4.

Yup agreed.

Then after that, if you're still hungry for more, I would go with:

Get Your Ya Ya's Out - Best live album
Aftermath (UK Version) - One of the best early Stones records

And for later Stones:
Some Girls - Pretty damn essential
Emotional Rescue - Some would take Tattoo You over this, but this is a fun, eccentric record that holds up amazingly well.
Undercover - A surprisingly strong late period record that often gets overlooked and one of the last to feature Bill Wyman.

So much (deserved) attention to their Late 60's-Early 70's albums, but there are four essential Pre-Beggars albums that should be checked out in my opinion.

Rolling Stones Now - possibly the very best of their Pre-Aftermath albums. It's pretty much a lot of the UK Volume 2, with some singles sides. Heart of Stone, Off the Hook, Surprise Surprise, Mona (Killer Brian Jones Guitar playing), and Little Red Rooster make this album great.

Out of Our Heads is solid

Aftermath is best heard with the UK edition

Between the Buttons is Mod Era Pop Rock the Stones way, and all the good for it. Lots of clever lyrics, excellent hooks, and plenty of cool. Connection, All Sold Out, She Smiled Sweetly, Yesterday's Papers, plus US edition tracks like Let's Spend the Night Together and Ruby Tuesday make it a fine album to get into '67 Stones. Lots of classic Brian Jones touches throughout.

There's one collection worth mentioning...

Flowers - Yes, this is one of those US collections, but being The Stones in their Mod-era Pop Prime, it's seriously something to check out maybe after hearing the rest of the essentials. A curio, but a great one.

It's tough to choose four, seriously.

Maybe a good all around 60's-Early 70's selection can be put to:

Hot Rocks Vol. 1 - One of the essential collections of all time.
Let It Bleed - Still my personal favorite Stones album
Sticky Fingers - Essential
Exile on Main Street - Worth the time to hear.

Then there's Some Girls, and the Hot Rocks Vol. 2 with a more interesting selection, Tattoo You, and some songs on Undercover are great (Love the title track!).


I like at least 3/4'ths of Satanic Majesties, "2,000 Man" being pretty under-rated while "2,000 Light Years From Home" and "She's a Rainbow" are rightfully in their long list of classics, but it's certainly not something to start off with, either.

if you want something off the wall and don't mind experimentation (or at least throwing in everything AND the kitchen sink), i'd recommend "Their Satanic Majesties Request"

sprawling but a very interesting listen

What I don't think has been mentioned yet is that quite a lot of the Stones early singles made between 1963 & 1967 were never released on official studio albums (Hence there being hundreds of compilations and differences between U.K. & U.S. releases) If you were to get Hot Rocks 1 & 2 or The London Singles Collection that would give you pretty much all of them plus B sides.

Also Goat's Head Soup doesn't seem to get a lot of love here but I would say it's easily their best album out of the top 4.

Make sure you check out their 4 golden era records, then worry about the others.

yes, it's severely overlooked

I'd like to echo this. Hot Rocks 1 is a great collection of songs and is probably an easier place to start than any of their albums.

Hot Rocks, More Hot Rocks 1 & 2 essentially covers everything left off the US & UK releases, and also has all of "Flowers"