I know some of you out there may be dismissing the importance of this with a “well, it’s not exactly The Beatles on itunes, now is it?” You know what? You’re right – it’s waaaay bigger than that. The fine folks at emusic not only place no restrictions on the music that you download (and they offer a bevy of amazing indie-centric fare) but they allow you to pre-purchase a set number of downloads per month via subscription. I have 50 a month and it isn’t nearly enough. The kicker is that the more you add to your subscription the less per track it runs you. It isn’t out of the question that with a 100 downloads a month subbie that Mick Jagger might just be paying you to listen to these golden nuggets for all intents and purposes. I can’t stress this enough. It is an incredible bargain. A lot of the tunes I am about to trot out could be had just by purchasing Forty Licks – the difference is you get to assemble your own best of here and can have 40 tracks for a quarter of the cost.

To fully put it in perspective you can have a Stones song of your very own for mere pennies when it cost The Verve millions.

To celebrate the breaking down of the digital download Berlin Wall we here at BYT (well me mostly) decided to put together a little play list of essentials. The Rolling Stones are one of those bands that you dig but you either own every album or just one best of and one other select choice record from the era of your choosing (mersey beat/country/psychedlic/soul/randb/disco/blues) as they have hit them all, with Charlie Watts keeping steady time no matter the genre.

If you think this list is heavy on Glimmer Twin hits – well, they are hits for a reason boys and girls. Downloads well spent. Now Get Your Rocks Off!

1. Sympathy For The Devil: Cale put in a vote for The Neptunes remix from a disc made up of all “Sympathy” remixes but I have to go with the original Jagger song that Keith forever changed by recommending the folk song be played as a samba. This is the shit. Mick sings with so much soul and vigor that it infuses the snaking instrumentation, tribal shaker and bongo beats and the best “whoo whoos” of all time to heights that simply can not be reached again. Who else could sing a song from the devil’s perspective and use it to trace history as if he was just doing his job. Genius. Seriously. (And I’m a Beatles guy when the argument comes up…)

2. You Can’t Always Get What You Want: The sheer brilliance of this song and it’s melody and lyrics is right there for you to see in the first 10 seconds. Sung by the London Bach Choir you can instantly hear that any interpretation of the song would be amazing if it held to the Jagger/Richards vision. It also adds a poignant nature that the Stones often missed, with their abundant swagger. Mick’s (that’s right) gentle strums that follow with his vocal hitting all his spots - yet singing around the melody in his own way with killer lines “I went to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse” leads into a perfect piano line and gospel/blues backing vocals and organ lines and then does it all over again and again building to the choir returning for a joyous conclusion. Seven and a half minutes of bittersweet joy. Did I mention these guys are geniuses?

3. Mothers Little Helper: The Stones mixing their blues shuffle into the psychedlic trappings framing a portrait of modern convenience and disassociated feelings brought on by the help of a few little pills. Sound familiar? Throw in killer fuzz bass by Bill Wyman and a claustrophobic vocal mix and chiming little guitar leads held down with Watts steady backbeat and you have a winner.

4. Get Off Of My Cloud: Pure unadulterated rock and roll. Garage blasted amplification of Brian Jones and Keith trading guitar licks through call and response vocals and “whoos” and handclaps and Watts (as always) clipping and punching things along – if you don’t tap your toe and sing along – well you just don’t like rock music now do you?

5. Gimme Shelter: Forever married to the horrors of the Vietnam War, this song is most notable for Merry Clayton’s impassioned singing rather than Jagger’s. Instead Mick plays the distorted bristling harmonica that serves as lead on the track. Twisting the frieghtened “its just a shot away” to a pleading “its just a kiss away” at the close to pull us further from the apocalypse with a sliver of hope.

6. Under My Thumb: Never released as a single, this track of not very feminist friendly intentions cemented the bad boy image the band had cultivated. It also has Brian Jones on marimba!!!! Worth the price of admission for that alone. The song would gain morbid significance by being the song they were playing when the fateful altercation at Altamont occurred.

7. Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?: Ominous bass underpins this twisted take on Tom Jones style white boy soul. Spooky and fun all the same time. This is the first Stones song with a brass section and one of the earliest songs to use guitar feedback.

8. Honky Tonk Woman: Country licks and muscle shoals style horns abound in this bar band romp that is the very essence of “more cowbell!” (Played by producer Jimmy Miller!!!)

9. I’m Free: I admit to digging The Soupdragons (although I prefer their Buzzcocks inspired era) take on this forgotten early single, mixing in safe versions of rave culture but when you hear the little tambourine break leading into the chorus of the original you know it didn’t need any updating.

10. She’s A Rainbow: I should hate this hippy loving track as it seems to try too hard but I can’t resist the Nicky Hopkins plinking piano and bizarre backing vocal/yodel and the stop start into a breakbeat and the froo froo string section (arranged by Led Zepplin’s John Paul Jones) as they kick it back into gear and the “Love” horns punching things up and it all works like a De La Soul “daisy age” mix. When the string section breaks down and the yodels fly in at the end you would think David Fridmann was at the control board

The emusic catalog comes to a halt currently in the early 70s but as an early Stones kinda fella I’m not bothered terribly for the stuff that follows (except Miss You with it’s “I’ve got some Puerto Rican girls just dying to meetchyooou!”) The way things are headed it seems like only a matter of time though. How are your Rocks? Off yet? Good. Then Get Yer Ya-Yas Out next.

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