The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World

[poliphilo]

Like most people I've come full circle with the Stones- from admiration to jokes about steel wheelchairs to admiration again. When they were in their forties and fifties it seemed silly that they were still prancing about like teens but now  they're in their sixties it seems magnificent.  

Back at the beginning there was this manufactured rivalry between the Stones and the Beatles and you were supposed to take sides. I liked them both. Because really they're not competing for the same plinth. The Stones are this great, chugging, coarse-grained rock 'n' roll band and the Beatles are unclassifiable. The Beatles were always trying something new while the Stones have carried on doing the same damn thing for over forty years.

Have Keith and Mick ever received nuff respec for their songwriting? I've been listening to this compliation album called 40 Licks.  40 classic songs- how many songwriters score that high? It puts them right up there with Cole Porter, Stephen Foster, Schubert....

At a recent concert that was this guy sporting a placard which read  "Charlie Watts and His Amazing Rolling Stones". That cracked me up.

Mick is a bit of a plank, isn't he?

My five favourite Stones tracks (in no particular order)

1. Ruby Tuesday
2. Mother's little Helper
3. Paint it Black
4. Beast of Burden
5. Angie

Comments

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

I applaud their powers of endurance. Dylan has done an even better job of filling out the pensioner rock-star model, since he's putting out albums as good (or nearly as good as) the work that made him famous and his stage act doesn't depend on him strutting around as if he was still 25.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but then Dylan was always a fairly grown-up sort of an artist. He's been able to constantly reinvent himself while preserving his core identity (or mystery) intact.