| The Rolling Stones, Now! | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | the Rolling Stones |
| Cover: | Rollingstonesnow.jpg |
| Recorded: | 3 January8 November 1964 |
| Genre: |
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| Label: | London |
| Producer: | Andrew Loog Oldham |
| Chronology: | The Rolling Stones US album |
| Prev Title: | 12 X 5 |
| Prev Year: | 1964 |
| Next Title: | Out of Our Heads |
| Next Year: | 1965 |
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.
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 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]
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."
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. 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. The magazine also ranked it at number 180 on the list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[4]
Now! was one of the first four rock albums purchased by future music critic Robert Christgau.[5] For Paul Gambaccini's 1978 book , he included it in his top-10 albums submission at number nine.[6] He also listed it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in (1981).[7] In commentaries on the album, he has called it "classic",[8] "passionate and urgent",[9] and "easily the sharpest of the pre-Aftermath Stones LPs".[5]
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.
The Rolling Stones
Additional personnel