The Rolling Stones, Now!
Studio album by
the Rolling Stones
ReleasedMarch 1965 (1965-03)
Recorded3 January – 8 November 1964
Genre
Length35:58
LabelLondon
ProducerAndrew Loog Oldham
The Rolling Stones US album chronology
12 X 5
(1964)		 The Rolling Stones, Now!
(1965)		 Out of Our Heads
(1965)
Singles from The Rolling Stones, Now!
  1. "Heart of Stone"
    Released: December 1964

The Rolling Stones, Now! is the third American studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones, released in March 1965 by their initial American distributor, London Records.[2] Although it contains two previously unissued songs and an alternative version, the album mostly consists of songs released earlier in the United Kingdom, as well as the group's recent single in the United States, "Heart of Stone" backed with "What a Shame". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote four of the songs on the album (including the US single), with the balance composed by American rhythm and blues and rock and roll artists.

Marketing and sales

The album reached number five on the Billboard 200 album chart and was certified "gold" by the Recording Industry Association of America. The liner notes on initial pressings contained producer Andrew Loog Oldham's advice to the record buying public, which was quickly temporarily removed from some subsequent pressings:

This is THE STONES new disc within. Cast deep in your pockets for the loot to buy this disc of groovies and fancy words. If you don't have the bread, see that blind man knock him on the head, steal his wallet and low [sic] and behold you have the loot, if you put in the boot, good, another one sold!

This quote also appeared on some issues of the UK Rolling Stones No. 2 LP.

In August 2002, The Rolling Stones, Now! was reissued in a new remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records. This version included stereo mixes of "Heart of Stone", "What a Shame", and "Down the Road Apiece".[3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
The Great Rock Discography8/10
MusicHound Rock
Music Story
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[5]
Tom HullA−[6]

In a retrospective review, music critic Richie Unterberger gave the album AllMusic's highest rating (5 out of 5 stars). He commented "Now! is almost uniformly strong start-to-finish, the emphasis on some of their blackest material. The covers of "Down Home Girl," Bo Diddley's vibrating "Mona," Otis Redding's "Pain in My Heart," and Barbara Lynn's "Oh Baby" are all among the group's best R&B interpretations."[4]

The Rolling Stone Album Guide also gave the album 5 out of 5 stars, the highest rating for a pre-Aftermath album by the group.[5] It noted "The Rolling Stones, Now! is their first consistently great LP, with the mean 'Heart of Stone,' the funky 'Off the Hook,' and the Leiber-Stoller oldie 'Down Home Girl'".[5] The magazine also ranked it at number 180 on the list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[7]

Now! was one of the first four rock albums purchased by future music critic Robert Christgau.[8] For Paul Gambaccini's 1978 book Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums, he included it in his top-10 albums submission at number nine.[9] He also listed it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).[10] In commentaries on the album, he has called it "classic",[11] "passionate and urgent",[12] and "easily the sharpest of the pre-Aftermath Stones LPs".[8]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Original releaseLength
1."Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"Solomon Burke, Bert Berns, Jerry WexlerThe Rolling Stones No. 2 (UK) has an alternative longer version in a different key2:57
2."Down Home Girl"Jerry Leiber, Artie ButlerThe Rolling Stones No. 24:15
3."You Can't Catch Me"Chuck BerryThe Rolling Stones No. 24:30
4."Heart of Stone"Jagger/Richardssingle (US)2:49
5."What a Shame"Jagger/RichardsB-side of "Heart of Stone" (US) & The Rolling Stones No. 2 (UK)2:50
6."Mona (I Need You Baby)"Ellas McDaniel a.k.a. Bo DiddleyThe Rolling Stones (UK)3:55
Total length:21:16
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Original releaseLength
1."Down the Road Apiece"Don RayeThe Rolling Stones No. 23:00
2."Off the Hook"Jagger/RichardsB-side of "Little Red Rooster" (UK) & The Rolling Stones No. 2 (UK)2:35
3."Pain in My Heart"Naomi Neville a.k.a. Allen ToussaintThe Rolling Stones No. 22:12
4."Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin')"Barbara Lynn OzenThe Rolling Stones, Now!2:06
5."Little Red Rooster"Willie Dixonsingle (UK)3:00
6."Surprise, Surprise"Jagger/RichardsThe Rolling Stones, Now!2:20
Total length:15:13

Recording sessions

The songs were recorded between 10 June and 8 November 1964 at the Chess Records studio in Chicago, and RCA Records studio in Hollywood, California; except "Mona (I Need You Baby)", 3–4 January 1964, Regent Sound Studios, London.

Personnel

The Rolling Stones

Additional personnel

Charts

Chart (1965) Peak
position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[13] 2
US Billboard 200[14] 5

Certifications

Region CertificationCertified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[15] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ↑ "The Top 30 British Blues Rock Albums Of All Time". Classic Rock. Future plc. 23 March 2007. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  2. ↑ "Great Rock Discography". p. 694.
  3. ↑ Walsh, Christopher (24 August 2002). "Super audio CDs: The Rolling Stones Remastered". Billboard. p. 27.
  4. 1 2 Unterberger, Richie. "The Rolling Stones, Now! - The Rolling Stones | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 Rolling Stone album guide
  6. ↑ Hull, Tom (n.d.). "Grade List: The Rolling Stones". tomhull.com. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  7. ↑ Rolling Stone (2010). "500 Greatest Albums of All Time: 180 – The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones, Now!". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
  8. 1 2 Christgau, Robert (17 June 2020). "Xgau Sez: June, 2020". And It Don't Stop. Substack. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  9. ↑ Gambaccini, Paul (1978). "Robert Christgau's Top Ten". Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums. Omnibus. pp. 83–84. Retrieved 20 March 2020 – via robertchristgau.com.
  10. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "A Basic Record Library: The Fifties and Sixties". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 0899190251. Retrieved 16 March 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  11. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1976). "The Rolling Stones". In Miller, Jim (ed.). The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. Rolling Stone Press. ISBN 0394403274. Retrieved 10 February 2020 – via robertchristgau.com.
  12. ↑ Christgau, Robert (30 June 1975). "It Isn't Only Rock and Roll". The Village Voice. Retrieved 20 March 2020 – via robertchristgau.com.
  13. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  14. ↑ "The Rolling Stones Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  15. ↑ "American album certifications – The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones Now". Recording Industry Association of America.
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