LA, Sept: The Rolling Stones cast a satanic glow over the U.S. music industry on Wednesday as a reissue of their 1968 opus "Sympathy for the Devil" opened at No. 1 on the singles sales charts, a spokesman said. The six-minute song, in which singer Mick Jagger introduces his Luciferian alter ego as "a man of wealth and taste," was recently dusted off by the group's former record label, ABKCO Records, and remixed by a selection of hot-shot producers.
It replaces a song that is almost as old, a remixed version of Elvis Presley's "Rubberneckin'," which was originally released in 1969.
Sales data for the "Sympathy" single were not available, and the song bowed in the lower reaches of the benchmark Hot 100 singles chart, which combines both retail sales and radio airplay.

"Sympathy" was released in the United States last week as a CD single featuring seven versions of the song -- a pair of remixes each from producer duo the Neptunes, English DJ Fatboy Slim and another duo, Full Phatt, as well as the original recording. A slightly different configuration opened at No. 14 in the United Kingdom earlier this month.

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Written by Jagger, and inspired by Soviet author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and the Margarita," "Sympathy for the Devil" was originally featured on the Rolling Stones' 1968 album "Beggars Banquet." It also was the B-side of a reissue of "Honky Tonk Women" in 1976.

The Rolling Stones are currently in Europe, with four dates left on their "Licks" world tour, which began last September in Boston. New York-based ABKCO is owned by Allen Klein, an accountant who managed the Stones at the end of the 1960s and owns the copyrights to their 1960s recordings. Bureau Report