The Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks

IT WOULD be nice to be able to call it something like The Rolling Stones' Golden Decade, for the Stones have been the most enduringly prolific highwire act of their time, both reflecting and surpassing the era with a deadly accuracy that can make them seem more dangerous than they really are. But somehow this album merely falls into that venerable Stones tradition of supra-throw-away albums, collections like December's Children and Flowers that by their very slapdash cynicism validate themselves and charm us into feeling that they're as sure a representation of the Stones ethos as brand-new and more unified efforts like Let It Bleed.