GRRR! The Stones’ Big Announcement

After promising a “big announcement” coming this week, the Rolling Stones dropped news of … wait for it … a greatest hits collection.

Titled GRRR!, the compilation will be available in five different formats, including a three-CD 50-track version and a four-CD super-deluxe version gathering 80 songs. All formats will include two new songs, “Gloom And Doom” and “One Last Shot,” new studio recordings recently completed by the group in Paris last month.

So, in case you haven’t gotten around to buying Forty Licks or Hot Rocks, you can get GRRR! in CD or vinyl beginning Nov. 13 in North America and a day earlier around the world.

Later that week, on Nov. 15, HBO will debut a new documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, which will document the entire career of the Rolling Stones. The band is of course celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – the actual date of birth was July 12, 1962, when the Rolling Stones played their first gig at London’s Marquee Jazz Club.

And if you’re wondering, any 50th anniversary tour plans have been moved to 2013 when, as Mick Jagger has said, it’s more “realistic” to get these codgers on the road. Looking forward to it!

R0lling Stones official web site

YouTube: “Honky Tonk Women”, live at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, 11th June 2003