If it feels as if
Honk treads familiar ground, it's because it does. Arriving seven years after the career-spanning Grrr! -- a compilation available in a variety of iterations, all spanning from the earliest years to the 2010s --
Honk focuses squarely on the music
the Rolling Stones made after leaving
London/Decca, a catalog that now resides with Abkco. In other words, its ground zero is "Brown Sugar," a staple that arrives just after "Start Me Up" kicks off the double-disc set. Such sequencing indicates how
Honk bounces through the years, letting the '70s sit next to the '80s, finding space for latter-day songs that only showed up on previous greatest-hits albums (there have been five since 1984), and shining the spotlight on such excellent latter-day cuts as "Rough Justice." The enticement for fans is the live disc that concludes the triple-disc edition, a collection of ten concert cuts from the 2010s, some featuring such stars as
Dave Grohl,
Ed Sheeran,
Florence Welch, and
Brad Paisley. Throughout it all,
the Stones sound both sinewy and nimble -- it's fun to hear them spend time with the psych-pop of "She's a Rainbow" and get into the murk with "Dancing with Mr. D" -- but it's not quite enough to justify a purchase for fans who already have these hits elsewhere. But for those who somehow don't have this music or are looking for a basic overview of
the Stones' reign on album rock, MTV and beyond, this does the job. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine