December's Children (And Everybody's) [Remaster] by Rolling Stones (The) (CD, Aug-2002, ABKCO Records)

What I really like about old Stones albums is that when you buy one, you don't get tunes that you've heard before. Don't get me wrong, I love their big hits just like anyone else. But I like hearing the ones that are under the radar as well. I like hearing the ones that aren't anthems, the hidden gems that aren't on every best of collection.

This is a great album. Their early albums usually contain mostly blues rock covers and a couple of their own songs. This one has 12 songs with Mick and Keith writing 6 of them, so they're starting to come into their own on this album. The Singer Not The Song sounds a lot like The Byrds, As Tears Go By is one of their early ballads in which they tinker with other instruments, and Get Off Of My Cloud is an early rocking tune that shows the Stones growing and it actually sounds like they're enjoying themselves on this one. The same can be said to lesser degree on I'm Free.

I enjoy this album a lot, not just because of the fact that half the songs are their own original material, but because their cover tunes are ones that aren't mainstream either but they're still very listenable, and they add enough of a twist to make them their own. Keith Richards shows why he was such a valuable commodity on this album, not only for his songwriting contributions, but his great guitar playing on the short but sweet She Said Yeah and I'm Moving On. This is cool album that sounds a little dated, but the way that the Stones do their older tunes shows why old music never goes out of style if it's good.