Stones Roll Rare Tracks

10/26/2005 1:57 PM, E! Online
Sarah Hall

It seems the Rolling Stones have learned their lesson when it comes to exclusivity.

The rock legends are preparing to release an album of rare tracks via a partnership between Starbucks and Virgin Records next month.

Rather than giving any outlet first dibs on the release, Rarities 1971-2003 will hit coffee shops and traditional record stores simultaneously on Nov. 22, thereby avoiding any backlash towards the band from slighted retailers.

The Stones previously saw sales suffer in 2003 when they cut an exclusive deal with Best Buy, giving the electronics distributor a four-month sales window for the DVD release, Four Flicks.

The move sparked an uproar from independent music retailers and caused some stores to pull the Stones catalogue from their shelves.

Last summer, Alanis Morissette caused a similar controversy when she made her latest album, a 10th anniversary acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill, available exclusively through Starbucks for the first six weeks of its release.

In response, HMV, the largest music retailer in Morissette's native Canada, nixed all of her music from its stores. HMV repeated the move when Starbucks signed a similar deal to exclusively sell Bob Dylan's Live at the Gaslight 1962 CD.

As far as the Stones are concerned, they're hoping to skip the drama this time around and simply provide their fans with some lesser-known tunes.

"With every studio session, there are always songs that never appear on the final album and at the time you think, what a shame that song did not make it," Mick Jagger said in a statement.

Starbucks was involved in the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of Rarities, but declined to reveal how much capital the company sank into the project.

"We felt this was an exciting project and a perfect fit for what we're trying to provide to our customers," Starbucks Entertainment President Ken Lombard told Reuters in an interview.

The new disc contains 16 tracks, including live versions of "Tumbling Dice" and "Beast of Burden," dance party remixes of "Miss You" and "Harlem Shuffle" and B-sides, such as their live 1971 cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock."

All of the songs have been released previously; however, some of them are difficult to find, as the band tends to focus on its latest material, as opposed to reverting to its nostalgic classics.

The album will hit stores just in time for the holiday shopping rush, a scant 11 weeks after the Stones released their most recent album, A Bigger Bang.

Despite critical acclaim and cross-promotional strategies, sales figures for A Bigger Bang have been less than stellar. The album debuted at number three on the charts in September and slid to number 63 in its sixth week of release. To date, a mere 295,000 copies have been sold, per Nielsen SoundScan data.

The veteran Brit rockers are currently traversing North America on their Bigger Bang tour which kicked off at Boston's Fenway Park in August. The tour wraps Mar. 3 in Fort Lauderdale, after stops in Buenos Aires and Mexico.