The Rolling Stones 3

THE LAST TIME?

By this point, the Rolling Stones had fallen into an familiar (if undeniably
profi table) pattern: release an album that’s routinely hyped as a return to
form, followed by an epic stadium tour, with both accompanied by intimations
that they might be the band’s last. The fact that the Stones can continue
to reap massive rewards from this strategy every few years is powerful evidence
of their bigger-than-life status as one of rock’s few living legends.

The Rolling Stones 2

ONLY ROCK AND ROLL
The Rolling Stones had made some of their best, most original music in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. But following the ragged tour de force of Exile on
Main St. , the Stones quickly lost focus, resulting in a series of competent but
uninspired releases that maintained the band’s crowd-pleasing sound, while
adding little of substance to their recorded legacy. Many of their post- Exile
albums would be recorded in bits and pieces rather than as concerted creative
efforts, with various band members working in various combinations when
schedules permitted.

The Rolling Stones

ALL BOW TO THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES
The Rolling Stones may have demonstrated a certain lack of modesty when
they anointed themselves the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the late
1960s. But the title was no idle boast. In their early days as the British Invasion’s
foremost exponents of bad attitude, the scruffy quintet embodied all
that was dangerous and transgressive about rock and roll. In the decades that followed, they managed to maintain their defi ant aura, even after they became
a stadium-fi lling, profi t-spinning institution.

Bob Dylan

ROCK AND ROLL POET
It is impossible to conceive of rock and roll’s maturation from teenage recreation
into intellectually expressive music without Bob Dylan. Comparable
only to the Beatles in infl uence, Dylan brought poetry to rock. More impressive,
though, is the massive body of music Dylan has written, performed, and
recorded over his unparalleled half-century career.
Often called “the voice of his generation,” Dylan’s actual voice was instantly
identifi able for its nasal qualities. With it, he created and shed a half-dozen
musical identities, each a phase in a relentless artistic development. Dylan was
a hard-core folkie who imitated Woody Guthrie and learned songs from ancient
records, a protest singer who sang against injustice, a confessional songwriter
who poured his heart out onstage, a confrontational rock icon in dark sunglasses
who played stinging blues, a country crooner, a mysterious fi gure in
white makeup, a born-again Christian who testifi ed for Jesus, and an old-time
bandleader in a suit and cowboy hat. In nearly every capacity, Dylan broke
new ground. Rock and roll, in a sense, transformed around him, and Dylan’s
sometimes confounding actions gained praise and acceptance years later.

The Beatles

THE FOUR AND ONLY
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the magnitude of the Beatles’ infl uence—
not just on music, but upon virtually every aspect of popular culture in the
years since the band’s worldwide breakthrough in 1964. In their initial incarnation
as cheerful, wisecracking moptops, the Fab Four revolutionized the
sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll’s doors
to a tidal wave of British rock acts.