Rolling Stones - Satisfaction

Aaron,
In the 90's I too owned a US pressing of Hot Rocks and this track was definitely mono on mine. It came with both discs in one large ("chubby") jewel case.
I only found the wide stereo mix when I purchased the import version which was split up into "Hot Rocks 1" and "Hot Rocks 2".
Now I did notice that when they did the 2000's remaster of the US version, it now appeared in narrow stereo with drums and vocals centered, and only the acoustic guitar/piano track separated.

I suppose it's possible that early versions of the US set had it in stereo and were quickly withdrawn....
MM

For the life of me, I can't remember where I picked up the set, but it's
exactly as Mark describes. It was in a chunky 2-disc jewel case, most
likely purchased from Walmart. In the mid 90s, I lived in a pretty small
town, and Walmart was one of the few places that sold CDs. I also
bought from Columbia House and BMG quite a lot, so if either of the
clubs carried the Rolling Stones, I may have also gotten it from there.

The one thing I can remember for sure is that I didn't hesitate getting rid
of the old set once I had the SACD. Aside from having the wonky wide
stereo on Satisfaction, overall the sound was far worse.

Edited by aaronk

My recollection is that the record store "Turtles" and
other stores became impatient with Abkco, who wasn't
releasing CDs very quickly, and imported Rolling
Stones CDs from Germany and Japan. They just threw
them in the racks with everything else. These CDs were
on had the London label and were not marked as Imports
but WERE imports (and had higher prices). The Germans
(or Japanese, I don't remember who remastered this
first) apparently used the masters from the Mobile
Fidelity Sound Lab vinyl boxed set from the 80's,
which contained stereo remixes. I don't believe there
was ever a domestic release of Stones CDs until Abkco
released them.

Aaron, my US Hot Rocks 1964-1971 London/Abkco double-CD features the organ-intro "Time Is On My Side" in mono.

The catalog number is 66672; the number on the disc 1 face is "CD 606" and the matrix ring number is "111206-45-I". "Made in U.S.A." is on the bottom perimeter.

Every single detail of my 1986 US copy of Hot Rocks 1964-1971 is exactly
as Santi has just described his copy to be, right down to the
matrix/deadwax info. (After the matrix info, however, my disc additionally
notes "Made By Disctronics".) Also housed in a "chubby", in addition to the
mono, guitar intro version of "Time Is On My Side" being included,
"Satisfaction" also appears in mono.

You brought this topic up for the track "Satisfaction", Aaron, and even
though we haven't yet been able to 100% confirm your memory that it
appeared in stereo on at least some early U.S. Hot Rocks CD copies (we
will, though), I am just so pleased to discover that at least *some* U.S.
Abkco Hot Rocks copies did include the original, organ-intro 45v for
"Time Is On My Side". For all these years, I'd wrongly thought that the "12
X 5" CD was the only U.S. CD where the organ version had been included -
great stuff. And thanks as well to all the others who've also kindly
contributed to this thread.

There are only a couple CDs I would've had with "Satisfaction": Hot Rocks and possibly a CD-R dub from the TM Century GoldDisc library. At the time, I worked for a radio group that had an oldies format and a ton of GoldDiscs. Although I no longer have any of those old CD-Rs, I think my old station had the 500 series, and GoldDisc 501 contains the stereo "Satisfaction." Perhaps that is what I was thinking in regards to that song.

Even if I'm wrong about "Satisfaction," I am glad that we confirmed that at least one pressing of Hot Rocks has the original version of "Time Is On My Side," as I'm sure Pat will want to include the details in the database.

This may be old news to everyone here, but the guitar-intro version of "Time Is On My Side," which was recorded at Chess studios in November 1964, is the UK LP version. In the US, 12 X 5 was released as the Stones' second album in May 1964. In England, their second album didn't get released until January 1965, which was The Rolling Stones No. 2.

The database currently says that the guitar-intro version first appeared on the Big Hits (High Tides and Green Grass) vinyl LP, which came out in March 1966. That's probably true for the US market, and it's not necessarily an inaccurate statement. I did, however, find it interesting that it was released more than a year earlier in England as the official album version.

Pat Downey wrote: With regards to the "Time Is On My Side" issue it would certainly help if someone would pass along the running time on the Hot Rocks cd that includes the organ introduction so I can enter it in the database.

It would also be helpful to know if other tracks differ. Since they went to the trouble of swapping "Time Is On My Side," perhaps they used different masters for more than just that one song.

I suppose we should create a fresh string for "Hot Rocks". On "Time is on My Side", my 1986 copy of Hot Rocks features the organ intro, and it's
at 2:49 on my copy, listed at 2:50.

As far as the rest of the double CD is concerned, the only differences not noted in the database are that "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" seem to have
worse stereo separation than other releases (not sure it's worth noting), and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is in mono. Not much to like about this CD set,
sound quality is not great.

Edited by Bill Cahill

PopArchivist, the first stereo issue of "Satisfaction" was in 1985 on "Hot Rocks
1" CD (issued only in certain countries - mine was a W-Germany pressing). I
tracked that down after Dick Bartley played it in stereo on his "Solid Gold
Saturday Night" show back in 1987 (it took me a while of going thru various US
and Canada pressed CDs only to find them all in mono). It is wide stereo,
features the acoustic guitar which is all but buried in the mono mix, and
generally lacks the punch of the mono. It is what it is. Collector's have
"processed" that track so it doesn't sound as "extreme". So, there IS a true
stereo version of it. And, there is no LP vs. 45 version for this track.

Edited by davidclark