The Rolling Stones

[Versatile]

I have immense respect for them and really like a handful of their songs. But so many are misses to me. I gave Exile on Main Street yet another try today, and nothing. I've heard all of their pre-1980 studio albums. I love "Gimme Shelter" and "Paint It Black."

But mostly, I can't get into them. Mick Jagger toggles between boring and grating me. They sound dated in a way The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Neil Young and other contemporaries don't.

Anyone else in this boat? Anyone else feel this way about a universally adored and respected band?

 

[Dick Whitman]

No.

You suck.

 

[Big Circus]

No.

You suck.

This right here. The Stones are the GOAT.

 

[Versatile]

No.

You suck.

But maybe the Rolling Stones suck.

 

[Chef2]

How Keith Richards still walks this earth remains a mystery.

I also love The Rolling Stones.

Charlie Watts and Keith Richards have been the coolest guys in the room for over 40 years.

 

[Cosmo]

Can't You Hear Me Knocking ... one of my favorite songs ever. But I can get where you're coming from. I have a lot of Stones on my Spotify classic rock playlist, but I find myself skipping past them sometimes. Just not in the mood, I guess.

 

[heyabbott]

Is there an album after Some Girls you would listen to?

 

[dreunc1542]

I feel similarly, Verse. Gimme Shelter and Sympathy for the Devil are two of my favorite rock songs ever. But I've tried Exile quite a few times and it's never stuck with me.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

No.

You suck.

Least surprising response in the recent history of this board.

Next perhaps Mr. Whitman will again show how little he knows about the Stones' contemporaries.

 

[Versatile]

**** Whitman likes to dabble in music. Let him have his fun.

**** Whitman, I also am not a fan of Soundgarden.

 

[Gator]

I just had this conversation with my wife two nights ago. Out of the blue, I said, "I know I'm in the minority, but I would take the Rolling Stones 10 times out of 10 against the Beatles."

I'm a guitar player (albeit not a very good one), and Keith Richards is the master of the riff. Can't You Hear Me Knockin' is my ring tone, and for my money, the greatest riff that's ever been written. The list of songs that are great just go on and on: Gimme Shelter, Ruby Tuesday, Wild Horses, Brown Sugar, Under My Thumb, Start Me Up, Honky Tonk Women, Satisfaction, Paint it Black ... and I'm sure there's more, that's just off the top of my head.

And the best part of the Rolling Stones is that Keith Richards continued to play despite the fact he's actually been dead for two decades.

 

[Huggy]

Huge Stones mark here, Exile is probably my fave album by anybody.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Another style failure.

Kill Your Idols: The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger can't sing.

 

[heyabbott]

Another style failure.

Kill Your Idols: The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger can't sing.

neither can Dylan or Springsteen but they are 3 Faces on the Mt Rushmore of rock and roll

 

[Starman]

The Beatles are the greatest rock act/ artists ever.

The Stones are among the 3-4 contenders for No. 2.


Little they've done since 1980 stands up with the best stuff from their prime, but that's true of every group with a tenure of more than a decade.

Virtually every rock group of multi-decade tenure has a 5-7 year prime period which cements their fame -- the rest is usually something between ****, background noise and moderately interesting minor work.

The Stones, the Who, U2, REM, Dylan, Springsteen, Clapton, Pearl Jam -- virtually all of them have a readily identifiable 5-7 year-stretch of their "prime," and then they all churned on for decades longer.

Maybe the Beatles had some kind of artistic premonition of how things were going to work and decided to simply disappear before they entered the long slope to mediocrity.

It's certainly easy to 'Imagine' the Beatles, if the other 3 had decided to fire Allen Klein sometime in 1969, working out a bumpy and uneasy truce (much as the Stones did in the 80s/90s) and continuing to churn out records every 3-5 years or so for the next 30 years (presuming Lennon isn't coming home from the Record Plant that night in 1980).

Led Zeppelin had a similar career evolution, although their decision to end it was less voluntary than the Beatles.

 

[exmediahack]

Probably the only person who has downloaded 14 different covers of "Emotional Rescue". It works for me.

That being said, Exile - and I've tried to get into it - doesn't do much for me, either. For Rolling Stones, I like either the late 60's "Hot Rocks" era or the disco-era of "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue".

From the 80's, "She Was Hot" and "Almost Hear You Sigh" are in a heavy rotation but, after 1980, I don't think much of their work.

 

[Versatile]

The disco stuff is good, though Mick Jagger didn't have the voice for that genre.

 

[I Should Coco]

The disco stuff is good, though Mick Jagger didn't have the voice for that genre.

Yes. I always thought he sounds like Grover (the muppet) on those disco songs.

That's where I fall off the Stones bandwagon. But their 1960s and early 1970s stuff is very strong.

Among their 1960s stuff, "Paint it Black" is my favorite, with "19th Nervous Breakdown" and (obviously) "Satisfaction" all-time classics, too.

A song that got ruined by an overwhelmingly lame ad campaign: "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I change the radio station when I hear it now.

 

[Big Circus]

I just had this conversation with my wife two nights ago. Out of the blue, I said, "I know I'm in the minority, but I would take the Rolling Stones 10 times out of 10 against the Beatles."

I'm a guitar player (albeit not a very good one), and Keith Richards is the master of the riff. Can't You Hear Me Knockin' is my ring tone, and for my money, the greatest riff that's ever been written. The list of songs that are great just go on and on: Gimme Shelter, Ruby Tuesday, Wild Horses, Brown Sugar, Under My Thumb, Start Me Up, Honky Tonk Women, Satisfaction, Paint it Black ... and I'm sure there's more, that's just off the top of my head.

And the best part of the Rolling Stones is that Keith Richards continued to play despite the fact he's actually been dead for two decades.

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
Tumbling Dice
Loving Cup
Let It Bleed
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Dead Flowers
She's a Rainbow

60s and (especially) 70s Stones is unimpeachable. If I could only listen to one group's discography for the rest of my life, I'd probably take the Stones. They could play blues, they could get funky, they were really damn good at country, but underpinning it all was the groove. Nobody could groove like the Stones.

The Beatles were incredible. There's never been a better songwriting pair than Lennon and McCartney. But they just didn't have the way with rhythm that the Stones had, and it comes from Keith Richards and Charlie Watts.

Also: Scott Sizemore, most recently of the A's, used Can't You Hear Me Knockin' as his his walk-up music when he played at VCU. One of the most random cool things I've seen an athlete do.

 

[Versatile]

Nobody could groove like the Stones.