999,912: The Rolling Stones — Don't Stop

I'm loath to say that anything in this world should not exist. If not for rain, we would not have flowers. If not for terrorists, Jeff Dunham would not have an act. Are you willing to live in a world without laughter? But if I WERE to pick one single thing to be wiped by the pitiless hand of God off the face of this earth it would be the one new track that bands tack on to their greatest hits package. Who is this track for? Dedicated fans don't appreciate finding themselves compelled by the completist urge to buy 12 songs they already own to get at the one shitty new one. The newbie has purchased an album of greatest HITS, and resents the inclusion of this pathetic pretender.

However, the fact that this practice persists into the age of a la carte digital music buying shows that a naked money grab isn't always what inspires this behavior. The truth can be much much sadder. Most often this track is stuck on at the end of the hits compilation, as if to say, "Yeah, we know that this is lame, but the label made us do it. You can just hit stop now." That's sad enough. Sadder is when the track comes first, often as a sneak peak at the band's cutting edge new sound. "Yeah! We're back!" is what the band is trying to say. "No! You aren't!" is usually the reply. Saddest of all is when the new track is snuck into the middle of the album. In this case the band is so convinced that they've still got it, they imagine you won't even notice. They don't just think they're back, they think they never left. That's the case with the song "Don't Stop" by the Rolling Stones, the band that epitomizes never leaving.

It's regrettable that this song is on their "Forty Licks" compilation. While no greatest hits album needs a fresh lump of stinking filler, this one needs it even less. The band had more than enough hits to fill out even this outsized collection. Also, unlike most has-been rock acts, the Stones actually have a place to put their shitty new songs, and that's on their shitty new albums. We listen to the old stuff in order to Forget that the current stuff even exists. That alone should rate this song an automatic skip. But a funny think happened when I got this album a couple years ago. I didn't skip the song. I found I quite enjoyed it.

Granted, "enjoyable" is about as far as I'm willing to go with this one, but enjoyable it is. Will you find it as enjoyable? Well ask yourself this: Do you like the movie "The Godfather? Do you like the movie Devil's Advocate? If you answer to both is yes, then you might like this song. Because just as Pachino's hammy self- caricature in the Devil's Advocate provides it's own campy thrills which in no way takes away from his great older work, so too does this collection of amped up "Jaggeresque" vocal tics also thrill.

Every indulgent warble of Jagger's fake down home country boy accent is captured in pristine digital quality, then placed right on top of the mix, not buried at the bottom of a lo-fi murk like on that "Exile on Whatever" album. This is more than just singing, it's an over the top dramatic performance with every flap of his Jagger lips and the comic glory of the Jagger chicken dance distilled down into a sound and pumped into your ears. It never fails to put a smile on my face. Forget the music. This is just wedding band Stones, but strutting around on stage is the world's greatest Mick Jagger impersonator, and he's having a blast.