Limited Edition Version of ABKCO's Rolling Stones Mono Box Set to Include 7" Singles Bundle

ABKCO announced today a limited edition version of The Rolling Stones In Mono box set (15 CDs or 16 vinyl LPs) bundled with a set of nine extremely limited Rolling Stones 7” vinyl singles.

Each single is an exact reproduction of a significant hit record from a different country with original art matching how the single looked in that specific nation at the time of release. After the bundles are sold out, the remaining individual 7”s will only be available in local record stores in their respective countries.

The 7”s are

: - Poison Ivy/Fortune Teller (UK, 1963)
- Fortune Teller/Sad Day (Australia, 1966) )
- Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)/Carol (Japan, 1964) )
- Time Is On My Side/Congratulations (Norway, 1964) )
- Empty Heart/Around And Around (Netherlands, 1964) )
- Not Fade Away/I Wanna Be Your Man (Canada, 1964) )
- 2,000 Light Years From Home/She’s A Rainbow (Germany, 1967) )
- We Love You/Dandelion (France, 1967) )
- Street Fighting Man/No Expectations (U.S., 1968)

From the press release:

“The American version of “Street Fighting Man” was the Stones’ first picture sleeve single without an image of the band. Instead, it features a black and white photo of riot police at a protest, one officer with his foot on a fallen man, and another photo of riot police restraining a man. Released the same month as the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where police brutalized protestors, the art was immediately withdrawn, thereby making it one of the most valuable picture sleeve singles in existence by any artist. ABKCO has restored the controversial art for posterity. The band’s R&B roots are underscored in their version of the Coasters’ “Poison Ivy” and Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller” that comprise the UK market 7” that is part of the bundle.”

“Packaged as 14 separate albums, including Stray Cats, a newly conceived collection of non-LP singles and E.P. tracks, The Rolling Stones In Mono contains key releases from the band’s U.S. and U.K. discographies, organized to include every track from the era while minimizing catalog redundancies. Stray Cats, a single disc in the CD box set and a double album with the vinyl box set, ties up all loose ends, incorporating every 1960s Rolling Stones track that isn’t found on the other 14 albums, for a total of 24 tracks. It includes two versions of the aforementioned “Poison Ivy,” Barrett Strong’s 1959 hit “Money,” as well as “Fortune Teller.” Other rarities include “Con Le Mie Lacrime,” a version of “As Tears Go By” sung in Italian, “Stoned” (the instrumental b-side of “I Wanna Be Your Man”), and the 1965 outtake of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” now freed of the fake applause to disguise its studio origin when the track appeared on the 1966 LP Got Live If You Want It. “Stereo overtook mono as the dominant format by 1967. As a result, many mono versions of Stones releases from the latter part of the decade are extremely sought after and rare, and were not released in every territory. When the transition from analog to digital began in the 1980s with the advent of the compact disc, the stereo versions of songs were often the only ones that were reissued on the new format. Of the 186 tracks on The Rolling Stones In Mono, 58 will appear in a digital context (CD/download/streaming) for the first time ever.”

COMMENTS
Spin Lps's picture

I have a friend who owns the original picture sleeve and record. It's in a safety deposit box at the bank!

lensimons's picture

Any word on the provenance of these re-issues?

audiotom's picture

perhaps because it wasn't released in mono
but Let it Bleed deserves to be there for completeness

awaiting the sound quality reviews on this one before pulling the trigger on a purchase

thanks Mike

J. Carter's picture

Let It Bleed is part of the set and was released in mono

audiotom's picture

doh!

I was looking on the bottom row for it next to Beggars

Good to hear, thank you

has anybody heard these yet?

HelenM's picture

I love The Rolling Stones! Has anyone bought it? I'm curious about the quality. Dou you think it's really worth $469? I couldn't find any reviews.

Helen

Jeffrey Lee's picture

The post neglects to mention this salient fact but it's not out yet. Sept. 30 is the release date.

Lothar's picture

I have NM UK mono copies of many of the albums in the set...so I'm very interested in the SQ reviews when they come out.

They'll eventually be available for single LP purchase, right? The ones I most interested in are

UK Out Of Our Heads / US December's Children
UK Let It Bleed

Those are the only ones I really want to upgrade for condition, though the copies I have are pretty good.

So many interesting reissues coming out these days my budget is screaming and while I could sell some of my collection to fund new buys, I hate doing that! Even with multiple copies.

Got it bad.

hans altena's picture

Although I applaud the initiative to release all in Mono, I do not understand why it was chosen to combine the UK and US releases, thus continuing the problem of same songs popping up in various albums. I wished they had expanded on the Stray Cats model, giving for each period an album of outtakes and just sticking to either US or UK configurations. I know the Flowers album would remain a problem, it is loved by many, but in essence a sampler with a high redundancy factor in Lady Jane, Mother's little Helper etc., these also appearing on other albums. I would have been sold for this box had they dared to make a historical change and go against the bad policy of Decca and London Records in those years, which caused the elpees of the Stones to be haphazard collections in most cases. For once I would have lauded it when they had provided the UK standards together with US album songs for completion, even if this would create a wrong perspective in terms of history.

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