With the exception of the expanded versions of Exile On Main Street (UME, 2010), Sticky Fingers (UME, 2011) and Some Girls (UME, 2015), the arguable essentials of their discography, the Rolling Stones have confined the archiving of their vault to unreleased concert material on audio and video rather than plumbing the depths for unreleased outtakes, demos and alternate arrangements. So it's little surprise that, while have been SACD releases of Rolling Stones catalog in the past, this Beggars Banquet 50th Anniversary Edition is as much (or more?) about cosmetics and collectability as music.

Both CD and vinyl limited editions come adorned with vintage label graphics, wrapped in the deliberately bland cover art that hides the tawdry initial design, otherwise on full-display in foldout form on the square 8" by 8" package. Various picture sleeve reproductions accompany a mono mix of "Sympathy For the Devil" as well as a Flexi-Disc of a meandering near-nine minutes interview with vocalist Mick Jagger from 1968. And in a marked exception to the otherwise all-Japanese text, the inclusion of lyrics to all the album's songs in English marks a decidedly novel addition: such authorized usage on records or otherwise is rare to say the least.

The preponderance of memorabilia somewhat camouflages Beggars' Banquet reappearance on SACD at a time the compact disc configuration becomes increasingly obsolescent in the market place. The increased clarity and depth of sound offered by 'super audio' certainly might've found a different fate than it did, but regardless, this version sounds different than its previously-released counterpart, if only slightly: while not remixed, the new mastering by Bob Ludwig from the same source used in 2002, an analog to digital DSD transfer, is noticeably brighter.

In addition this latest enhancement opens up additional space that, on "Street Fighting Man," for instances, magnifies the detailed presence of piano and sitar just below the foundation of guitars. These heightened sonics also bring the same realism to the acoustic guitars, as well as the vocals, on what is perhaps Mick Jagger and