the rolling stones

sorry i botched it the first time around.

not sure about the waffling factor here. when they were (are? not likely) good, they were SOOOO good. worth all the bullshit for the riff in 'can't you hear me knockin' alone. and when they were (are? yup) bad, they were 'cringing at seeing your grandma's panties because she got drunk at noon and fell down trying to kiss your friends when you were 11,' embarassingly, bad.

so let's hear it. i say not crap.

The Rolling Stones are a terrible band. Their music is hack bar band crap. They think pouting and being jaded is cool. Fuck the Rolling Stones.

Wait, Charlie Watts is totally not crap. We like him. He is actually awesome.

But the Rolling Stones are crap.

I have never been more baffled by a band's popularity than by the Rolling Stones. The Doors: Okay they're crap, but I can at least imagine why girls or gay men would like them. And college students.

Same with the Smiths. It's crap, but I can understand the appeal to journal-writers and teenage closet cases. And the Chicano community.

But the Rolling Stones baffle me. What is there to like about this tepid, undistinguished lowbrow mediocria?

Crap crap crap.

best,

steve wrote:The Rolling Stones are a terrible band. Their music is hack bar band crap. They think pouting and being jaded is cool. Fuck the Rolling Stones.

How can you slight the Rolling Stones and then go on to say the John Spencer Blues Explosion is not crap? If Keith Richards had been in Pussy Galore would the Rolling Stones be not crap? Or is the problem that the latter’s white boy blues are ironic and the former’s try to be authentic?

As many times as I've gone back and tried to listen with a more critical ear as soon as "Stray Cat Blues" comes on I don't care how vacuous, poseurish or hack they are, if you have ears there's just no way that song won't kill you. Any crap rating would have to concede at LEAST that song.

alex wrote:

steve wrote:The Rolling Stones are a terrible band. Their music is hack bar band crap. They think pouting and being jaded is cool. Fuck the Rolling Stones.

Or is the problem that the latter’s white boy blues are ironic and the former’s try to be authentic?

The problem is that they simply fucking suck. Generic rock n roll. I'm glad I have finally found someone who agrees with me that they suck.

If you were on hard drugs and booze for almost 40 years you'd probably suck too. Unlike today's pussy rock bands, they never took time off to clean up and get straight. Keith still gets junked to the max and plows through a set. There is something rad about that.

Q. Who is the worst drummer? Charlie Watts, Meg White or Bobby Brady

Miko wrote:If you were on hard drugs and booze for almost 40 years you'd probably suck too. Unlike today's pussy rock bands, they never took time off to clean up and get straight. Keith still gets junked to the max and plows through a set. There is something rad about that.

Q. Who is the worst drummer? Charlie Watts, Meg White or Bobby Brady

Wow, that makes them much more cooler now! The Rolling Stones r0xX3rz d00d.

It took me a while to come to this - I used to think they were crap, too. But I realized that they really aren't a blues band, so it's a bit unfair to call them that. They play rock and roll, which is a derivative of the blues, but it is not blues. Keith has some great riffs under his belt, and just because he's damaged, doesn't mean he's great. That was a terrible sentence. Sorry. Anyway, I like them now.

i love the rolling stones despite:

their 'tude and posturing, sometimes at the expense of their music

their indiscriminate fans

their use of drugs and alcohol

smoking

bandana

their exercise regimens

their incessant bandwagon-jumping

many albums that are largely full of bilge

primarily badly-produced albums (almost everything before _beggars_ and after _sticky fingers_)

i love them b/c at their best they transformed rock and roll into a dark, roiling, biting, howling mass with hooks. the same reason i love ac/dc, the same reason i love the stooges, the same reason i love the sex pistols.

the stones have never been a good blues band, but they have been better than any other rock band at summoning up the true essence of the blues--not the gladhanding crap that people who hate the blues point at as alleged proof of its bankruptcy, but the aspects of the music that are both considered and primeval, downbeat and ecstatic, introspective and universal.

somehow they got from chuck berry to 'under my thumb,' from there to 'ruby tuesday' and 'citadel' and 'she's a rainbow,' through their high period into some kind of intermittently satisfying hard rock, all the while being able to conjure up the id with some frequency. no one else has ever done that, with as many great songs, and i doubt anybody ever will.

so i say not crap

I have never been more baffled by a band's popularity than by the Rolling Stones. The Doors: Okay they're crap, but I can at least imagine why girls or gay men would like them.

Try sitting near a girl or a gay man while watching Gimme Shelter. I forget which song they're playing - some bluesy thing I think. There's this very long scene where the camera shows nothing but Mick Jagger in profile, in slow motion. It's stunning. Many girls and gay men, and even some otherwise not so gay men, respond positively to this scene. You might find that Mick Jagger has even more sex appeal than Jim Morrison, if you can imagine such a thing.

lowbrow

You're right! Rock music is supposed to be smart music for smart people. Darn that lowbrow rock music, it is intolerable.

Anyway, right: for "can't you hear me knockin," for the lick that introduces Tumbling Dice, for practically all the drumming on those first many records, for loving cup, cocksucker blues, street fighting man, etc. I may be ignoring the majority of their catalog when I say not crap, but I'm happy and justified in doing so.