Some Girls, considered by some the last great Rolling Stones album, is now the last two great Stones albums. The 12 previously unreleased tracks on a second disc reaffirm that in 1978, the Stones had something to prove. Outflanked by punk, disco, shifting tastes (the mega-selling melodic rock of the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Boston), and “cock-rock” upstarts like Aerosmith, the Stones were starting to sound irrelevant. “We were more focused and had to work,” Keith Richards wrote in his 2010 autobiography. It was partly out of professional pride, and partly desperation: Richards, bottoming out in his heroin addiction, was also facing the possibility of a long stretch in a Canadian jail. “Before They Make Me Run,” in this context, was Richards’s bold statement of defiance and hope.

The Chuck Berry-meets-rockabilly track “Claudine” leads the pack of outstanding outtakes finally seeing official release. It’s about the controversial actress/socialite Claudine Longet, who served 30 days in an Aspen jail for shooting and killing her ski star boyfriend. “So Young” is Mick Jagger’s jocular jailbait song, performed with a bit of Leiber-Stoller sass. “When You’re Gone” is a Chicago blues harkening to “12 X 5,” though Jagger’s exaggerated enunciation sounds like… read more »