Over its six-decade existence, though, the outfit has had several distinct musical periods.

We think of the Rolling Stones as a blues-rock band. Was he a trend chaser? Yes, but he often caught worthwhile sounds.) (Mick was also the one who pushed the band toward new sounds and styles. Keith is the constant Mick is the variable. When he doesn’t, there’s not much Keith can do to help. When his singing is engaged and his lyrics have purpose, the results are strong. (Charlie Watts’s drumming is just as consistent.) So what really separates apex Stones from good Stones, and good Stones from bad Stones is Mick Jagger matching Keith’s excellence. Keith Richards knocks out solid melodies and guitar riffs like the rest of us breathe. A great Rolling Stones song, unlike a great Beatles song or a great Led Zeppelin song, is the result of the band’s leaders working at a peak at the same time. The problem with that dynamic is that it diminishes Mick’s contribution. In other words, he’s not cool and Keith is. If Jagger were even to deign to have a drink with a plebe, I suspect it’d entail something like his sipping a Peter Thiel vampire smoothie while peering at you through jeweled binoculars and having a Slovenian model smooth anti-aging unguents into his wrinkles. Keith Richards is the Rolling Stone everyone loves, the one with whom you could imagine sharing a beer. As the following 373 songs attest, it’s been an improbably long, wildly lucrative, bumpy, and very often brilliant rock-and-roll life. Before that though, let’s try and take account of what the Rolling Stones have achieved since they set out from London in 1962. At some point, time is going to do to them what time always does. Guitarist Ronnie Wood, who joined up in 1976, is the youngster at 69. It’d been 11 years since the previous one, and Mick, Keith, and Charlie are north of 70 years old. In all likelihood, the band’s most recent studio album, the all-blues cover effort Blue & Lonesome, is going to be its last. Either characterization, though, is inadequate. In 2017, it seems equally reasonable to think of the Rolling Stones as rock gods or greedy dinosaurs.

That leaves 45 ensuing years of gradually declining cultural relevance and, if we’re being honest, more mediocre music than good, and a seemingly ceaseless parade of product - compilation albums, concert films, live albums, and, recently, the traveling “Exhibitionism” display of band memorabilia. If you’re a fan of the Stones, it’s hard not to always compare them with their glorious 1968 to 1972 peak, when they fully assimilated all their blues, rock-and-roll, R&B, and country influences and turned it into something decadent, dark, ironic, sexy, and wholly their own. That staying power is an incredible achievement, and it also has a distorting effect. Fifty-five years! Founding members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts have been hitched to each other for far longer than the vast majority of marriages last - longer than a lot of lives last, too. Their longevity is staggering - this band has been around for 55 years. Time doesn’t apply to the Rolling Stones quite like it does to other rock bands.

Rolling stones paint it black bpm