On September 30, ABKCO will release The Rolling Stones In Mono box set on CD, vinyl, digital and hi res formats and a special limited package that includes The Rolling Stones In Mono (15 CDs or 16 vinyl LPs) bundled with a set of nine extremely limited Rolling Stones 7” vinyl singles. Each single is an exact reproduction of a significant hit record from a different country with original art matching how the single looked in that specific nation at the time of release. After the bundles are sold out, the remaining individual 7”s will only be available in local record stores in their respective countries.
These 7”s are:
- Poison Ivy/Fortune Teller (UK, 1963)
- Fortune Teller/Sad Day (Australia, 1966)
- Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)/Carol (Japan, 1964)
- Time Is On My Side/Congratulations (Norway, 1964)
- Empty Heart/Around And Around (Netherlands, 1964)
- Not Fade Away/I Wanna Be Your Man (Canada, 1964)
- 2,000 Light Years From Home/She’s A Rainbow (Germany, 1967)
- We Love You/Dandelion (France, 1967)
- Street Fighting Man/No Expectations (U.S., 1968)
The American version of “Street Fighting Man” was the Stones’ first picture sleeve single without an image of the band. Instead, it features a black and white photo of riot police at a protest, one officer with his foot on a fallen man, and another photo of riot police restraining a man. Released the same month as the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where police brutalized protestors, the art was immediately withdrawn, thereby making it one of the most valuable picture sleeve singles in existence by any artist. ABKCO has restored the controversial art for posterity. The band’s R&B roots are underscored in their version of the Coasters’ “Poison Ivy” and Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller” that comprise the UK market 7” that is part of the bundle.
The Rolling Stones In Mono includes the entirety of the band’s studio output in the 1960s, many tracks of which are available in mono digitally for the first time ever. During that era, great care was put into mono mixes, which outsold stereo versions of the same records for the first half of the decade. Mixing in stereo was more of an afterthought, and as a result, mono is thought by many to be sonically superior.
many mono versions of Stones releases from the latter part of the decade are extremely sought after and rare
Packaged as 14 separate albums, including Stray Cats, a newly conceived collection of non-LP singles and E.P. tracks, The Rolling Stones In Mono contains key releases from the band’s U.S. and U.K. discographies, organized to include every track from the era while minimizing catalog redundancies. Stray Cats, a single disc in the CD box set and a double album with the vinyl box set, ties up all loose ends, incorporating every 1960s Rolling Stones track that isn’t found on the other 14 albums, for a total of 24 tracks. It includes two versions of the aforementioned “Poison Ivy,” Barrett Strong’s 1959 hit “Money,” as well as “Fortune Teller.” Other rarities include “Con Le Mie Lacrime,” a version of “As Tears Go By” sung in Italian, “Stoned” (the instrumental b-side of “I Wanna Be Your Man”), and the 1965 outtake of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” now freed of the fake applause to disguise its studio origin when the track appeared on the 1966 LP Got Live If You Want It.
Stereo overtook mono as the dominant format by 1967. As a result, many mono versions of Stones releases from the latter part of the decade are extremely sought after and rare, and were not released in every territory. When the transition from analog to digital began in the 1980s with the advent of the compact disc, the stereo versions of songs were often the only ones that were reissued on the new format. Of the 186 tracks on The Rolling Stones In Mono, 58 will appear in a digital context (CD/download/streaming) for the first time ever.
The Rolling Stones In Mono [16 LP vinyl box set; 15 CD box set] (all tracks also available digitally)
- The Rolling Stones (UK, 1964)
- 12 X 5 (1964)
- The Rolling Stones No. 2 (UK, 1965)
- The Rolling Stones Now! (1965)
- Out of Our Heads (US, 1965)
- Out of Our Heads (UK, 1965)
- December’s Children (And Everybody’s) (1965)
- Aftermath (UK, 1966)
- Aftermath (US, 1966)
- Between the Buttons (UK, 1967)
- Flowers (1967)
- Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
- Beggar’s Banquet (1968)
- Let it Bleed (1969)
- Stray Cats (a new collection of single A & B sides plus E.P. tracks)*
*Stray Cats tracklist
- Come On
- I Want To Be Loved
- I Wanna Be Your Man
- Stoned
- Fortune Teller
- Poison Ivy (Version 1)
- Bye Bye Johnny
- Money
- Poison Ivy (Verison 2)
- Not Fade Away
- I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
- The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man (single version)
- 19th Nervous Breakdown
- Sad Day
- Con Le Mie Lacrime (As Tears Go By)
- Long, Long While
- 1Who’s Driving Your Plane?
- We Love You (single version)
- Dandelion (single version)
- Child Of The Moon
- Jumpin’ Jack Flash
- Street Fighting Man (single version)
- Honky Tonk Women
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want (single version)
Pre-orders are being taken via uDiscover (with or without 7″ bundles) and Amazon (without 7″ bundles) in advance of the Sept. 30 release date.
The Rolling Stones in Mono will be available via uDiscover and Amazon for the first 90 days after release (ending December 30, 2016) and thereafter will be sold everywhere.
Find out more information about The Rolling Stones In Mono and the albums that make up the set at here.
