On Air

You hear the sound of songwriters flush with discovery, a dazzling glimmer of what lay ahead.

A bigger soundstage doesn't necessarily suit the BBC sessions, where the primitive production suits the raw performances--for proof, listen to the second disc in the deluxe set, which wasn't de-mixed--but it's ultimately a minor flaw in what's otherwise an essential set.

If the trappings are lovably stiff and arthritic, the songs are zeitgeist thunderbolts--especially so when a baying, screaming audience charges the very air with O-face abandon.

It moves like a Best Of, stacking the hits up top. [Jan 2018, p.40]

This is a hugely enjoyable landmark release. [Jan 2018, p.103]

This collection of early 1960s Stones sessions vibrates with youthful revolutionary fervour--though sadly, there’s none of the witty, whimsical mini-interviews with which the Fabs’ performances were punctuated.

As a compilation of recordings for the BBC, the album carries the momentum of the Rolling Stones over three years effectively, documenting their growth as performers as well as the songwriting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But, while that energy is present in the recordings, the sequencing and lack of radio-style distribution remove the real joy there must have been to hear this music in the mid-'60s.

On Air feels like the other bookend [to Blue & Lonesome], with the track listing dominated as it is by similar covers; it’s just that, this time, they crackle with youthful energy, rather than glow in the warm gaze of riper eyes.