The Rolling Stones, Now!
Third American studio album by the Rolling Stones, released in 1965.
The Rolling Stones, Now! hit American shelves on February 13, 1965, as the band’s third US studio album via London Records. While it includes two songs never released before and an alternate take, the record is largely built from tracks that had already come out in the UK, plus the group’s latest American single, “Heart of Stone” with “What a Shame” on the flip side. Four of the songs were written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, while the rest came from American R&B and rock and roll writers.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- the Rolling Stones
- Released
- 13 February 1965
- Genre
- Rock and roll
- R&B
- blues rock
- Label
- London
- Producer
- Andrew Loog Oldham
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
Side one
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everybody Needs Somebody to Love | Solomon Burke, Bert Berns, Jerry Wexler | 2:57 |
| 2 | Down Home Girl | Jerry Leiber, Artie Butler | 4:15 |
| 3 | You Can't Catch Me | Chuck Berry | 4:30 |
| 4 | Heart of Stone | Jagger, Richards | 2:49 |
| 5 | What a Shame | Jagger, Richards | 2:50 |
| 6 | Mona (I Need You Baby) | Ellas McDaniel Bo Diddley | 3:55 |
| Total length | 21:16 | ||
Side two
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Down the Road Apiece | Don Raye | 3:00 |
| 2 | Off the Hook | Jagger, Richards | 2:35 |
| 3 | Pain in My Heart | Naomi Neville a.k.a. Allen Toussaint | 2:12 |
| 4 | Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin') | Barbara Lynn Ozen | 2:06 |
| 5 | Little Red Rooster | Willie Dixon | 3:00 |
| 6 | Surprise, Surprise | Jagger, Richards | 2:20 |
| Total length | 15:13 | ||
Track listing from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The songs were recorded between 10 June and 8 November 1964 at Chess Records studio in Chicago and RCA Records studio in Hollywood, California.
- The track "Mona (I Need You Baby)" was recorded on 3–4 January 1964 at Regent Sound Studios in London.
- The liner notes quote also appeared on some issues of the UK Rolling Stones No. 2 LP.
Marketing and sales
The album reached number five on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. Initial pressings included liner notes with producer Andrew Loog Oldham's advice to record buyers, which was quickly temporarily removed from some subsequent pressings. In August 2002, the album was reissued in a remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records, featuring stereo mixes of "Heart of Stone", "What a Shame", and "Down the Road Apiece".
Critical reception
The Rolling Stones, Now! has been called "easily the sharpest of the pre-Aftermath Stones LPs" by critic Robert Christgau, who bought it as one of his first four rock albums. He ranked it ninth in his top-ten submission for a 1978 book and later placed it in his "Basic Record Library." Christgau has described the record as "classic" and "passionate and urgent." Richie Unterberger gave it AllMusic's top rating of five stars, praising its "almost uniformly strong" run of songs and focus on the band's "blackest material," singling out covers like "Down Home Girl," "Mona," "Pain in My Heart," and "Oh Baby" as among their best R&B interpretations. The Rolling Stone Album Guide also awarded five stars—the highest for any Stones LP before Aftermath—calling it their "first consistently great LP" and highlighting "Heart of Stone," "Off the Hook," and the Leiber-Stoller oldie "Down Home Girl." The magazine later placed the album at number 180 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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