Guitar Hero: The Rolling Stones edition has a nice ring to it.
It's the last frontier for the band that has seemingly saturated the world with its music and live performances, but seems to be on its last legs when it comes to making new recordings, which will now be handled by Universal. And catalog, perhaps the most vital part of the Stones' revenue stream, is sputtering at the moment: only 200 copies of their career-spanning hits package "40 Licks" have been sold in the U.S. this year. Album's cume is at 300,000 - after six years of being on shelves - suggesting that licensing for film, TV and games is the light that shines brightest for the band's true future.
A producer told me quite some time ago that a new Stones album needs to sell 2 million copies to break even due to the cost involved in recording, marketing and production. They need territories beyond the U.S. to cover their nut.
“Voodoo Lounge,” from 1994, has sold 1.9 million copies in the U.S.; “Bridges to Babylon” has moved 1.2 million copies in its 11 years; and 2005’s “A Bigger Bang” has sold only 545,000 copies.
Details were not released Friday in London where the signing was announced, but the truly good news for anyone in the Stones camp comes once an album is released - the band then usually tours for a year and a half. The question is, has Universal structured the deal so they participate in that income?

Richard Kerris, the chief technical officer of Lucasfilm,  was also technical adviser to the last two Rolling Stones tours and in a recent interview with Variety's David Cohen he touted the Stones' technical adventurousness.
Kerris was the first person to show Keith Richards an iPod."I said ‘This can hold 4,000 songs.’ He looked at it and looked up and said ‘I better start writing.’"
Kerris says: "On the 40 Licks tour, which is where it started, they’d record every single show. They’ve done that for years, but what they’d do with the Licks tour, they would actually record it to a laptop. If you look at any of the old videos from that tour you’ll see a laptop, a Mac laptop sitting behind Charlie, everything’s recorded with these two stereo mics, so they have a rough, they have a full 48-track underneath, but everything goes into that laptop. Everything’s connected to a little distribution amp with five Firewire cables hanging off of it. So while the band was doing their bows and the fireworks were going at the very end, the backline crew would plug in their iPods, synchronize the thing, and put in their bathrobes an iPod that had that night’s show, so when they came offstage, they’d grab their stuff, get in their car and they would have the show with them right then and there. No one had done anything like that at all."
Soon after the iPod came out, "Mick was right on it. He was like, 'I want to get every night’s show so I can listen to it that night and know what was good and what didn’t work, etc.' So they established this whole thing working with the background crew, I showed them where you could daisy-chain the iPods and synchronize them at once. So it was really fun. From there they used GarageBand for their last album as they did all their demos. That was mainly Mick and Keith. Keith doesn’t use the computer as much, he just recognizes what part it plays."
There are two shots of Kerris in "Shine a Light" - he's stage left about 20 rows back. "Having seen the band as many times as I did, aside from rehearsals and backstage jamming, that was the best show they’ve ever done that I’ve seen. They were on fire."
On a  personal note, a few quick thoughts on the superb Imax version of the film "Shine a Light." Great version of "Some Girls"; using the sound mix to emphasize the musician on the screen is a risky choice that works almost every time; camerawork is so tight and steady one could count Mick's noticeable number of fillings; intimacy within a performance is impossible for Mick and Keith; "Sympathy for the Devil" is the best shot tune in the pic; Christina Aguilera should record "Live With Me" on her next album; and it's time to retire "Far Away Eyes."   

The Rolling Stones, who have set up home bases with London, Atlantic, Columbia and Virgin over the years, are now examining the possibility of moving their catalog of recordings since 1971 to Warner Music from EMI. Universal and Sony are also bidding. Apparently Mick, Keith and Charlie are the latest to find fault with new chief Guy Hands and his management style.
Some reports regarding the placement of their soundtrack to "Shine a Light" to Universal Music incorrectly reported  that the Stones' pre-"Sticky Fingers" music resides  with  Universal. It does not. It is part - actually the cornerstone - of the ABKCO empire.

The Rolling Stones will be attending the Berlin Film Festval with Martin Scorsese where their concert movie “Shine a Light” will open the fest on Feb.7. Fest director Dieter Kosslick said “Martin Scorsese has captured the pure essence of an iconic band on the big screen.”

Apple has posted the first trailer for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones' docu, "Shine a Light." The movie also has an official website.

Mick Jagger will appear on Tuesday's "Today" show to talk about "Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup)," a previously unreleased collaboration with John Lennon.
It was during Lennon's "Lost Weekend" period and he and Jagger were hanging out, getting stoned and jamming with other musicians on blues changes.
"Nothing would really come out of it," Mick tells Matt about the sessions.
Then John pulls out the tune.
"We were very happy to have something to focus on.  And then we all learned it very, very quickly.  And John was so impressed we all could learn it. And I always thought when I went back to these sessions that John was playing guitar on this.  But  the engineer said 'He wasn't playing guitar.  He was producing.'"
Track is on "The Very Best of Mick Jagger" (Atlantic/Rhino), which  will be released Tuesday.

Q Magazine has polled 50 recording artists, among them Michael Stipe, John Legend and the leader of Travis, to create a list of "Perfect Songs." (Since Leonard Cohen wrote "Hallelujah," they actually mean perfect records).
The winners, in no particular order:

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Life On Mars - David Bowie
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles
Sympathy For The Devil - Rolling Stones

A few of the indidviduals provide their picks here while Q provides the videos.
Personally, I'll agree with Blowin' In The Wind, Born To Run, God Only Knows and Hallelujah and throw in Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, John Coltrane's Naima, Paul Simon's Graceland, Thelonious Monk's 1947 version of 'Round Midnight, R.E.M.'s Nightswimming, Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long, NRBQ's Riding in My Car and Junior Murvin's Police and Thieves. Naturally, the list changes depending on the day.

It takes a few clicks but rollingstones.com has posted a trailer for the Martin Scorsese-directed concert film "Shine a Light." Trailer captures Mick singing with Jack White and Buddy Guy and dancing dirty with Xtina. Pic opens in April.