The Rolling Stones Sees More Than 'Doom and Gloom'

And it works. A couple of nights ago, I bought Exile on Main Street from iTunes. The "Deluxe Remastered" edition. Twenty bucks.

Go ahead and laugh. What a sucker I am.

But I wonder how many more like me are out there right now, trolling for a Stones album they used to love, or are discovering the band for the first time?

Delivering the Goods

This group has recorded more than two dozen studio albums of material, not to mention more than a dozen compilations and about that many live albums.

Of the original studio albums, a few prior to 1968 sold 500,000 copies in the U.S., earning a gold record each, and one or two, including the 1966 breakthrough Aftermath -- containing the megahit singles Mother's Little Helper and Under My Thumb -- sold more than a million copies, earning a platinum record.

But since 1968, every album the band has released has gone platinum or multiplatinum -- a million copies several times over. Sixteen total since 1968 -- and that's not counting the compilations and live albums.

That's a lot of very popular product floating around out there. Every time the band stages a public event articles get written, old fans are reminded, airplay increases, teenage girls get the history lecture from their uncles and sales of that product ramp up.

According to London's Sunday Times' "UK Rich List," Jagger had a net worth of over $300 million in April 2012. That means if he dropped everything he was doing professionally right now, stuffed all that money under a collection of super-king-sized mattresses, he could live comfortably for the rest of his life, no problem.

Not that I would waste time drawing up a budget for his golden years if I were him.

The Stones' revenue stream is a fire hose that shows no sign of shutting off any time soon, even if the band stops touring completely, as it was rumored to be considering last year. (The band later denied the rumor, but not before the publicity had landed it in the headlines again for a few weeks.)

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