The Rolling Stones, Now!

Although it contains two previously unissued songs and an alternative version, the album mostly consists of songs released earlier in the United Kingdom, as well as the group's recent single in the United States, "Heart of Stone" backed with "What a Shame". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote four of the songs on the album (including the US single), with the balance composed by American rhythm and blues and rock and roll artists.

The Rolling Stones, Now!
Studio album by the Rolling Stones
Released	March 1965 (1965-03)
Recorded	3 January – 8 November 1964
Genre	Rock and roll R&B blues rock
Length	35:58
Label	London
Producer	Andrew Loog Oldham
The Rolling Stones US album chronology
12 X 5 (1964) The Rolling Stones, Now! (1965) Out of Our Heads (1965)
Singles from The Rolling Stones, Now!
"Heart of Stone" Released: December 1964

The album reached number five on the Billboard 200 album chart and was certified "gold" by the Recording Industry Association of America. The liner notes on initial pressings contained producer Andrew Loog Oldham's advice to the record buying public, which was quickly temporarily removed from some subsequent pressings:

This is THE STONES new disc within. Cast deep in your pockets for the loot to buy this disc of groovies and fancy words. If you don't have the bread, see that blind man knock him on the head, steal his wallet and low [sic] and behold you have the loot, if you put in the boot, good, another one sold!

This quote also appeared on some issues of the UK Rolling Stones No. 2 LP.

In August 2002, The Rolling Stones, Now! was reissued in a new remastered CD and SACD digipak by ABKCO Records. This version included stereo mixes of "Heart of Stone", "What a Shame", and "Down the Road Apiece".

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[citation needed]
The Great Rock Discography	8/10[citation needed]
MusicHound Rock	[citation needed]
Music Story	[citation needed]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Tom Hull	A−

In a retrospective review, music critic Richie Unterberger gave the album AllMusic's highest rating (5 out of 5 stars). He commented "Now! is almost uniformly strong start-to-finish, the emphasis on some of their blackest material. The covers of "Down Home Girl," Bo Diddley's vibrating "Mona," Otis Redding's "Pain in My Heart," and Barbara Lynn's "Oh Baby" are all among the group's best R&B interpretations."

The Rolling Stone Album Guide also gave the album 5 out of 5 stars, the highest rating for a pre-Aftermath album by the group. It noted "The Rolling Stones, Now! is their first consistently great LP, with the mean 'Heart of Stone,' the funky 'Off the Hook,' and the Leiber-Stoller oldie 'Down Home Girl'". The magazine also ranked it at number 180 on the list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Now! was one of the first four rock albums purchased by future music critic Robert Christgau. For Paul Gambaccini's 1978 book Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums, he included it in his top-10 albums submission at number nine. He also listed it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). In commentaries on the album, he has called it "classic", "passionate and urgent", and "easily the sharpest of the pre-Aftermath Stones LPs".

The songs were recorded between 10 June and 8 November 1964 at the Chess Records studio in Chicago, and RCA Records studio in Hollywood, California; except "Mona (I Need You Baby)", 3–4 January 1964, Regent Sound Studios, London.

The Rolling Stones

• Mick Jagger – lead vocals, harmonica, tambourine, percussion
• Keith Richards – electric guitar, backing vocals
• Brian Jones – electric and slide guitars, harmonica, backing vocals
• Charlie Watts – drums, percussion
• Bill Wyman – bass guitar, backing vocals

Additional personnel

• Jack Nitzsche – piano (2, 4), "Nitzsche phone" (sound effects on 9)
• Ian Stewart – piano (1, 5, 7)