Between the Buttons, UK Version

The Rolling Stones Best Album (1967) With No Hits

England swings like a pendulum do

Bobbies on bicycles two by two

--Roger Miller, 1965

There was a time when if you asked me to name my favorite Rolling Stones album and I was feeling slightly contrarian, I'd say, Between the Buttons. Paul Williams engaged with the album in the early Crawdaddy magazine, when I was in high school, and I admired the robust respect with which he led you through his thinking. Because it was a really different kind of Rolling Stones album, one whose British version, the one we are discussing here, had no hits.

Between the Buttons was both the fifth and the seventh album by the Rolling Stones. No sleight of hand here; it was just that even in early 1967, British and American divisions of the same record companies did business differently.

Both adhered to the 12 song, six tracks to a side LP format. But in England, singles remained their own distinctive revenue stream. In England, "Ruby Tuesday" and "Let's Spend the Night Together" was a stand-alone two-sided hit …