Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass (The Rolling Stones, 1966)

As I previously noted, the pre-Aftermath Rolling Stones albums, which largely depended on ample cover material, can be a bit confusing for the novice to navigate. You could do worse than start with Big Hits, which doesn't add any value to a complete Stones collection, but helps introduce listeners to the early material. Like all compilations of this nature, it will generally fall into disuse once you build a complete collection. Since I haven't been in any hurry to gobble up the early albums, I've gotten a fair amount of mileage out of this, the "original" Rolling Stones greatest hits album.

Although the band during this era was largely fueled by covers, many of which they could probably have played live in their sleep they are done so tightly, most of the songs on Big Hits are originals, with all but three of the twelve songs credited to either Jagger/Richards, or "Nanker Phelge" (which was easier to write than Jagger/Jones/Richards/Watts/Wyman). Just to totally confuse the crap out of everyone, there is also a 14-song British edition (not in my possession) which includes much later chronological songs like "Paint It, Black" and "Lady Jane" alongside earlier material not in the American release, and did not seem worried about observing any chronological boundaries. I would stick with the US edition, which is more tightly bound to their earlier sound.

Big Hits would spawn two "sequel" packages: Though the Past, Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. 2) covers the Aftermath through Let It Bleed period, then More Hot Rocks: Big Hits and Fazed Cookies which covered the less popular songs left off of the Hot Rocks compilation. The second volume is as useful as the first for its respective time period, while the third is only of interest for including a side of "rarities" on the second (vinyl) disc. If you are intent on collecting the studio albums directly, you can save yourself the time by skipping all of these, although the last few songs of More Hot Rocks has a few oddballs only found on the regular British releases. There are probably cheaper ways to track these down.