The Rolling Stones' early British albums continue to exert a tremendous mystique on listeners, perhaps all the more so since they're evidently no longer officially in print on CD, the rest of the world having decided to emulate
ABKCO Records' reissue of the group's American catalog. This hasn't stopped some enterprising bootlegger from putting out this expanded reissue of the group's second U.K. album. Not only does the sound outperform
ABKCO's
Rolling Stones CDs (which date from the mid-'80s), with better bass and fuller presence overall, but the expanded lineup is everything that one expected from compact discs back when they were touted for their bonus tracks.
Rolling Stones No. 2 was roughly the equivalent of
Rolling Stones Now!, although its cover photo was used on
12 X 5 -- the U.K. version is slightly more weighted to
blues than
R&B, with
"I Can't Be Satisfied" present in lieu of
"Heart of Stone," and the group's cover of
"Suzie Q" here in place of
"Surprise, Surprise," but the bonus cuts fill in several holes; the early take (often described as a rehearsal) of
"Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," which graced the original U.S. LP, leads things off; the London version of
"Time Is on My Side," which has turned up somewhat less frequently than the later
Chess Records version; the leftover B-sides
"Congratulations" and
"Surprise, Surprise" and a bizarre Rice Krispies commercial cut by the band in 1964 for American radio; and the unreleased cuts
"Try a Little Harder" and the demo
"As Time Goes By," a brisk, almost
folk-ish early rendition of what became
"As Tears Go By" round out the CD. The packaging is a beautiful recreation of the original art in a digipack format. ~ Bruce Eder
![Led Zeppelin III [Remastered]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0081227964511_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Led Zeppelin III [Remastered]")
