Music is incredibly subjective. What sounds fantastic to one person might not resonate with someone else. The Rolling Stones are no exception. The band saw several albums reach No. 1 on the charts, but some listeners favor the more obscure. Like Frank Zappa, who once said he felt the Stones’ Between the Buttons was better than The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Frank Zappa liked The Rolling Stones’ album ‘Between the Buttons’ better than ‘Sgt. Pepper’
Zappa was never one for floating in the mainstream. Whether it was his music, opinions, or the names of his children (especially Moon Unit and Dweezil), the individualistic guitarist marched to the beat of his own drum.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that Zappa once said he preferred The Rolling Stones’ 1967 album Between the Buttons to The Beatles’ magnum opus, Sgt. Pepper, from later that year. His opinion probably shocked Mick Jagger, who didn’t like the record when it came out.
“I understand that they don’t like the album very much, but I thought it was an important piece of social comment at the time,” Zappa said in a 1975 interview with Let It Rock (via Far Out). “I remember seeing Brian Jones very drunk in the speakeasy one night and telling him I liked it and thought it superior to Sgt. Pepper. [He] belched discreetly and turned around.”
Jones’ reaction sums up how the Stones felt about Between the Buttons, but something was probably lost in translation. Zappa held a high opinion of the U.S. version of the album, which was slightly but significantly different from the U.K. edition.
The version Zappa heard included the insistent rocker “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday,” a No. 1 hit that became one of The Rolling Stones’ best ballads. Adding those two songs to the U.S. copy of Between the Buttons completely changed the album’s makeup. (The Stones — or more likely the record company — left “Back Street Girl” off the U.S. version for some reason).
Zappa didn’t elaborate on the social commentary he found on Between the Buttons. Still, we can understand where he was coming from. The song “Cool, Calm, and Collected” clearly explored wealth inequality and class divisions. Meanwhile, tunes such as “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Who’s Been Sleeping Here?” “Complicated,” and “Miss Amanda Jones” quite openly discussed sexuality at a time when that was still considered taboo.
How did ‘Between the Buttons’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ perform on the charts?
While Jagger wasn’t the biggest fan of Between the Buttons, the album succeeded anyway.
It was one of several Stones albums that peaked at No. 2 and remained on the chart for 47 weeks. “Ruby Tuesday” was the double A-side for “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” It topped the Billboard singles chart for a week during a 12-week stay on the charts. In England, Between the Buttons reached No. 3 and spent 22 weeks on the charts (per the Official Charts Company).
Despite Zappa’s preference for Between the Buttons over Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles’ landmark album left a much larger impact socially and commercially. It remains perhaps the definitive Fab Four record, and one of their most successful. Sgt. Pepper spent 15 weeks at No. 1 and lasted 233 weeks on the Billboard chart. It was even more successful in England, spending 23 consecutive weeks at No. 1 (it held the top spot for 28 weeks total) and 277 total weeks on the chart.
