perfidy

Keith Richards is pretty annoyed that Mick Jagger has accepted a knighthood from the Queen.

His objections, stripped of mumbling and pretense, are this: " it's a paltry honor ... It's not what the Stones is about, is it?" I'm with Keith on this one, except for one thing-- Mick was destined for knighthood, just as Keith was destined for contempt of Mick for accepting it.

This rift exposes what has always been a source of greateness for the Stones-- the tension between Mick's calculated posing and Keith's elemental directness, between Mick's London School of Economics schoolboyish naughtiness and Keith's taciturn, stoned badness. Few other bands have two such singular and powerful personalities to draw upon, and Keith's exasperation with Mick's knighting might have something to do the fact that the Stones' last vital music was made twenty-five years ago, and their last great music almost twenty. When they were at their creative peak, these differences were assets, but now that their powers have diminished while their stature has not, they're just... differences.

I'm amused that CNN has bought into the tired myth of Mick's "near spotless rebel credentials," as if those credentials aren't 50% marketing and 50% opportunity.

[wik] Also posted to blogcritics.org