First popular in Europe, The Rolling Stones quickly became successful in North America during the British Invasion of the mid 1960s. Having released 22 studio albums in the United Kingdom (24 in the United States), eleven live albums (twelve in the US), and numerous compilations, their worldwide sales are estimated at more than 200 million albums. Sticky Fingers (1971) began a string of eight consecutive studio albums reaching number one in the United States. Their most recent album of new material, A Bigger Bang, was released in 2005. In 1989, the Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004, they ranked number 4 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked the Rolling Stones at number ten on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists", and as the second most successful group in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The emergence of The Rolling Stones has been credited for the greater international popularity of the primitive urban blues typified by Chess Records' artists such as Muddy Waters, who wrote "Rollin' Stone", the song from which the band drew its name. The Rolling Stones' endurance and relevance, critic and musicologist Robert Palmer said, is due to their being "rooted in traditional verities, in rhythm-and-blues and soul music" while "more ephemeral pop fashions have come and gone". Though R&B and blues cover songs dominated the Rolling Stones' early material, their repertoire has always included rock and roll.
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