Rolling Stones

When The Rolling Stones’ former manager Allen Klein assembled one of the band’s earliest compilation series in 1971 and 1972 (Hot Rocks 1964-1971 and More Hot Rocks), he was surveying an entirely different group than the one we know today. Four and a half decades later, there’s a whole lot more catalog to consider than what that original, unassailable run of ’60s albums offered at the time. Honk essentially picks up where Hot Rocks left off, plucking 36 tunes from a range of LPs starting with 1971’s Sticky Fingers and ending with 2016’s Blue & Lonesome. But while that timeframe is broad, the focus is stylistically tight. Aside from a few classic ballads (“Wild Horses,” “Angie”), Honk serves as a reminder of what the band built their name on: strutting rockers and barroom stompers.

A sequel of sorts to ABKCO’s three boxes of singles replicas from the mid-2000s, Universal’s The Singles: 1971-2006 is a gargantuan 45-disc box set that offers single replicas of every 45 the Rolling Stones released between Sticky Fingers and A Bigger Bang. Singles that saw release over multiple formats, whether they’re 12" dance singles or multi-format CD singles, see their various B-sides combined onto one CD, resulting in a whopping total of 173 tracks, 80 of which are “not currently available on official release.” This is a true statement but it greatly overestimates the actual number of genuine rarities here: most of these cuts are dubs, remixes, and extended versions, with only a small handful of B-sides being non-LP cuts…