The Rolling Stones Release 'Sucking in the Seventies'

Sucking in the Seventies is the fourth official compilation album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981.

As the successor to 1975's Made in the Shade, it covers material from 1974's It's Only Rock 'n' Roll to 1980's Emotional Rescue.

All of the album tracks except "Shattered" were remixed or re-edited for this release, and some rarer material was also included. "Everything Is Turning to Gold" was previously released as "Shattered"'s B-side in late 1978 in the U.S. only; "If I Was A Dancer (Dance Pt. 2)" is a longer and different mix and containing different lyrics than "Dance (Pt. 1)", the opening track on Emotional Rescue, which, despite this compilation's title, was released in 1980; and "When the Whip Comes Down" is presented in an otherwise unreleased live version, recorded in Detroit on the 1978 tour.

Released in the spring of 1981, as Tattoo You was nearing its completion, Sucking in the Seventies reached #15 in the U.S.,[citation needed] going gold, but failed to chart in the UK.

In 2005, Sucking in the Seventies was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records.

C'mon fellas, it's not that bad--you didn't really suck in the '70s. Made a number of, er, classic albums, in fact. Sucking them dry for this hodgepodge is what sucks. As I'm sure you know as your lackeys laugh all the way to your Bahamian tax shelters.

There's a certain smarmy charm in the Rolling Stones titling a compilation of their work from the second half of the '70s Sucking in the Seventies -- it seems a tacit admission that neither the decade nor the music they made in the '70s was all that good, something that many critics and fans dismayed by the group's infatuation with glitzy disco and tabloid grime would no doubt argue.