In the autumn of 2002, a mastering engineer sat before two stacks of tapes that had spent decades legally barred from sharing the same shelf. One pile held Decca-era Rolling Stones recordings, the other the band's post-1970 Virgin/EMI output. Forty Licks, the double-disc compilation released that year, was the first project to merge them into a single listening experience.
A catalog split since 1970
The Rolling Stones' catalog had been fractured since 1970, when the band severed ties with manager Allen Klein and Decca Records. Klein retained control of everything recorded before that split, including Let It Bleed. Even some tracks destined for Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. fell under his grip. For thirty-two years, no anthology could legally bridge both eras.
Forty Licks wasn't just a greatest hits package. It was a forty-year retrospective compressed into two discs, with pre-1970 material on disc one and the Virgin/EMI era on disc two. The title itself worked as a pun: forty tracks spanning four decades, each song functioning as a lick in a longer solo.
Mono remasters for early singles
Every track underwent digital remastering in stereo, except for pre-1966 compositions, which were remastered in mono. That technical decision preserved the original sonic character of early singles rather than forcing them into a modern stereo mold. The result sounded consistent across decades without erasing the texture of each recording period.
Disc two did more than collect familiar post-1970 hits. It contained four new songs, giving longtime fans a reason to buy a compilation they might otherwise skip. The Rolling Stones weren't just repackaging history; they were extending it, adding fresh material to a career already spanning four decades.
The Licks Tour and live follow-up
The release coincided with the Licks Tour, an international run lasting approximately one year. The album and tour functioned as parallel statements: one document captured the recorded legacy, the other pushed it forward onstage. Recordings from those shows later became Live Licks, released in 2004.
Critics largely responded with approval, though Stephen Thomas Erlewine at Allmusic offered a pointed caveat. He criticized the compilation for leaning too heavily on the ELV1S: 30 model, suggesting the track selection followed a commercial template rather than a curatorial vision. The comparison stung precisely because it had merit.
Chart peaks and critical caveats
Chart performance reinforced the commercial calculation. Forty Licks landed at number two in both the UK and the US, a near-simultaneous peak that demonstrated the band's enduring cross-Atlantic pull. Twenty-four years later, in 2026, that dual placement still reads as a measure of how thoroughly the compilation captured public appetite.
The mono remasters of pre-1966 singles remain the compilation's most quietly radical gesture. By refusing to upscale those early recordings into artificial stereo, the engineers preserved the exact sound that first made The Rolling Stones dangerous on a transistor radio. That fidelity to original sonic intent, not any collector's fetish, is what makes revisiting Forty Licks feel like opening two archives at once.
That fidelity to original sonic intent, not any collector's fetish, is what makes revisiting Forty Licks feel like opening two archives at once.
The split catalog never fully healed; licensing agreements still govern what can appear where. But for one release in 2002, the Rolling Stones made the fractured history sound seamless. The four new songs on disc two now sit sixty years from the band's earliest mono recordings, yet they occupy the same double-disc space without friction.