Stone Age is a compilation album of songs by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released in 1971 by Decca Records. Featuring songs that had never appeared on a UK album, it was the first compilation issued by Decca after the Stones had left the label and set up their own record label, and was adamantly opposed by the band. It reached No. 4 on the UK charts.
The 12 songs on Stone Age, all dating from the mid-1960s, were chosen because they had never before appeared on a UK studio album, having been originally released only on singles or on US studio albums up to that point. Four songs made their overall UK debut here: "Blue Turns to Grey", "One More Try", "My Girl" and "Look What You've Done".
This is the first compilation album released by Decca after the Rolling Stones left the label, stemming from dissatisfaction with the amount of royalties they were receiving. The band and label had been feuding since 1968, after Decca rejected the band's original cover for their album Beggars Banquet, which featured an image of a restroom covered in graffiti. This culminated in 1970 when the band recorded the song "Schoolboy Blues", which featured lurid lyrics intended to thwart Decca from releasing it. Stone Age was released by Decca just before the band's new studio album, Sticky Fingers, was to be released by their own new label. Additionally, Decca released Stone Age with a graffiti cover, alluding to the feud over Beggars Banquet.
The band published an ad in several different UK newspapers as a disclaimer for the album:
Decca continued to issue further Rolling Stones releases: Gimme Shelter (1971), Milestones (1972), Rock 'n' Rolling Stones (1972), No Stone Unturned (1973), ' (1975), Solid Rock (1980) and Slow Rollers (1981). With the exception of a special version of ' in 2007, none of these albums were released on compact disc.
All tracks composed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.