Since their inception in late 1967, Rolling Stone has never been afraid to entice new subscribers with a free album, book or calendar. In 2008, the magazine teamed up with Compass Productions for a series of at least 11 albums to be exclusively sold at Best Buy locations.
Each budget-priced compact disc came with the magazine's iconic logo prominently featured on the cover art, contained sixteen songs, a "Vintage Rolling Stone cover collage" instead of liner notes and a postcard good for a FREE 12-issue subscription to the magazine. In other words, they were giving buyers a FREE CD for their $9.99 subscription.
Compass Productions licensed the discs from Universal Music Special Markets, Sony/BMG Custom Marketing Group, Rhino Custom Products and EMI Special Markets. Other albums from the series not pictured above are Legends Of The Blues and The Masters of Hip Hop. Compass Productions was owned by Somerset Entertainment which was purchased by Mood Media Entertainment in November 2009.
In 2012, Mood Media renewed and expanded the deal with Rolling Stone that saw them issue more than 30 titles total at two different price points: $9.99 single discs with a 12-issue subscription and $14.99 multiple-disc Retrospectives with a 24-issue full year subscription offer. Besides the pricing, the two series are easily distinguishable by the primary color of the cover art; the Retrospective series feature black and the single discs have mostly white covers.
Each of the Retrospective albums contains two discs except Early Rock & Roll which is a triple-disc forty song set. The single discs contain "extensive" liner notes this time around and each disc has 15-18 tracks. Here's the list of single-disc titles:
- '60s Girl Groups
- '60s Psychedelic Sounds
- '70s FM
- '70s Love
- '80s Alternative
- '80s Club Hits
- '80s Hard Rock
- '80s New Wave
- '80s Video Rock
- '90s Dance Party
- '90s Love Songs
- '90s R&B Jams
- Arena Rock
- Classic Country Radio
- Classic Rock
- Classic Rock n Roll Love Songs
- Country Roots
- Disco
- Funk
- Legends Of Motown
- Old School Hip Hop
- Pioneers Of Early Rock & Roll
- Pop In The '80s
- Power Ballads
- Soft Rock
- Soul Of The '70s
- Southern Rock
- Voices Of The '70s
In 2013, Mood Media was purchased by Allegro Media Group and the Somerset brand was reactivated so the 2012 albums have Mood Media on the back while some of the 2013 releases have Somerset listed instead. Several of the compilations have been marketed under different titles without the Rolling Stone branding.
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