Long available in the UK, this greatest hits album has finally been released in the US, and the question most fans will be asking is "Why?" The perennial classic collection Forty Licks surely enjoys a place of prominence in any Stones fan's CD rack, and, while that double album covers the band's entire career, Jump Back is limited to songs released between 1971 and 1993. Of the 18 tracks included, only 5 do not appear on Licks.
Of course, the Stones cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle" is a classic, and the only other place it's been released is on the disaster that was 1986's Dirty Work. It's a great interpretation of a great song and a perfect example of the band firing on all cylinders.
Likewise, "Rock & A Hard Place" was probably the best song on 1989's Steel Wheels, another album that more casual fans may be less familiar with. The song is a little too clean, almost to the point of being over-produced, but the guitars and Mick's vocals manage to break out of the studio polish more than once.
The other songs that aren't also on Licks include "Respectable," from 1978's Some Girls, "Waiting On A Friend," from 1981's Tattoo You and "Bitch," from the classic 1971 album Sticky Fingers.
So, why is Virgin releasing this album now? Despite a new cover, it is identical to the UK version, so there's nothing here that any diehard fan couldn't have picked up as an import any time in the past ten years. Granted, it's cheaper in its domestic incarnation, but surely anyone who is that much of a Stones collector would have this album already. True completists will want it, of course, but most Stones fans have every one of these songs elsewhere in their collections. And for anyone without Forty Licks in their collection, it should be a no-brainer to pick up that record before this one.
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