- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Hearing all of these Rolling Stones songs in one place is an indelible experience – every song here is a killer, from their first U.S. hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on.
The Rolling Stones – Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) (1966): Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) is the Rolling Stones’ first retrospective album; other than the oddly named and British-only album A Collection of Beatles Oldies (1966), no retrospective albums by the Beatles came out until 1973, several years after they broke up. Hearing all of these Rolling Stones songs in one place is an indelible experience – every song here is a killer, from their first U.S. hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, to other early songs like “19th Nervous Breakdown” and “Get Off of My Cloud” having lyrics so dense that it is a wonder they could be sung at all, to their covers “Not Fade Away”, “It’s All Over Now”, and “Time is on My Side” that sure sound like they could have been written by the Stones.
Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) has one of the first gatefold album covers on a rock album and also excellent photography. From front to back, the cover photo shows Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts. My favorite song by the Outlaws, “Green Grass and High Tides” is evidently named for this album.