The Rolling Stones seemed very loose and wild, but when you read about them, you realize that everything they did is very deliberate.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Stones were nasty and ugly and doing songs I was familiar with.
Were the Rolling Stones good looking? Well, Jagger was, but the rest of the dudes? Maybe not so much.
The Stones were more dangerous than other bands of the Sixties. It looked like they had more fun than the Beatles - like they stayed up later.
The early Stones were adolescent rockers. They were self-conscious in an obvious and unpretentious way. And they were committed to a musical style that needed no justification because it came so naturally to them. As they grew musically the mere repetition of old rock and blues tunes became increasingly less satisfying.
Whether it's a blatant homage or unconscious mimicry, the Rolling Stones have permanently, indelibly influenced how rock stars look and behave.
The Rolling Stones are constantly changing, but beneath the changes they remain the most formal of rock bands. Their successive releases have been continuous extensions of their approach, not radical redefinitions, as has so often been the case with the Beatles.
The Rolling Stones are violence. Their music penetrates the raw nerve endings of their listeners and finds its way into the groove marked 'release of frustration.'
The Stones don't really need to do it for money, so they must get some kind of pleasure out of it. They're not like a group that's disbanded and gone away and made a comeback. They've always been there.
But, you know, the Stones were my opening act in the Sixties. I loved those British guys, the way they just stood there and shook their hair.
The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch.