Blasphemy!
Steven den Beste invokes the Great Litmus Test of Rock Appreciation, and writes of the Rolling Stones that
[t]hey didn't really succeed based on their alleged musical talent; rather, it was the sassiness, the irreverence which helped make them popular. Their music as music was never remotely as good or creative as the stuff that Lennon and McCartney turned out, but that didn't matter.
I can't totally disagree with the first part of that statement. Their sass and sleazy reputation counted for a lot. But the Stones did just as much as the Beatles to advance the state of the art of rock songwriting. Moreover, the Beatles always had a little stench of the studio about them-- you could hear the craftwork and care that went into the recordings. The Stones on the other hand adapted Chuck Berry and a thousand half-misremembered blues songs and from it constructed the entire dirrty vocabulary of Rock music. The Beatles always seemed to be trying. The Stones were cooler-- they didn't have to try. The Beatles were Pop incarnate, John's bitterness notwithstanding; the Stones were Rock incarnate, Charlie's awful drumming notwithstanding.
It's a matter of taste, yeah, but... The Stones... never remotely as good or creative...?!? *sputter*.. . . .. . *gasp*...
There's no accounting for taste is all I can say.
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His statement certainly does
His statement certainly does apply to almost everything the stones did after exile on main street, though.
Partly true.
Partly true.
It applies after Tattoo You, but after Exile came such worthy albums as Some Girls, Goats Head Soup, and the aforementioned Tattoo You, which features "Waiting On A Friend," their last truly great song. Exile was undoubtedly a high water mark, but there are other bright spots. Even Bridges to Babylon is sorely underrated.
Of course, if Undercover and Dirty Work fell into a black hole forever, the world would be a better place, and you can say that about exactly none of the ex-Beatles' material.