If there’s one way to spend a bank holiday in the sun then it’s getting down with The Rolling Stones. The band once famed for their debauched decadence may now be old age pensioners but that hasn’t stopped them dominating the live circuit and retain their title of kings of the road.
On disc, the band are just as whip-smart. The Rolling Stones discography charts all the way back to 1964 with their self-titled debut and tracks all the way to just last month as the band released their first new song in years with ‘Living In A Ghost Town’. Below we have a comprehensive playlist of over 51 hours of Rolling Stones releases to sink your teeth in to.
The band were often touted as the dangerous side of the British Invasion. Oozing sexuality and sordid behaviour Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts were quickly seized upon as the alternative to Beatlemania. It’s a rivalry which still rages on to this day.
Recently, Beatles bassist McCartney jovially claimed that at the height of their fame, when The Beatles appeared to be in direct competition with The Stones, the Liverpudlians had the edge.
“[The Rolling Stones] are rooted in the blues,” McCartney said on The Howard Stern Show. “When they are writing stuff, it has to do with the blues. We had a little more influences.” McCartney added: “There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but I’m with you. The Beatles were better.”
“The Rolling Stones is a big concert band in other decades and other areas, when the Beatles never even did an arena tour, Madison Square Garden with a decent sound system,” Jagger replied.
He added: “They broke up before that business started, the touring business for real. We started doing stadium gigs in the ’70s and [are] still doing them now. That’s the real big difference between these two bands. “One band is unbelievably luckily still playing in stadiums, and then the other band doesn’t exist.”
And checking back at this mammoth discography the assessment is pretty much spot on. The Rolling Stones began their journey in the murky backwaters of the delta blues and soon assimilated themselves at the top of the rock and roll pile.
Judging by the volume of live releases, after the band’s cutting edge began to blunt in the eighties The Rolling Stones turned their attention away from getting fans and towards pleasing the ones they have. It meant perfecting their live show and making sure everyone was always having a good time. After all, it’s only rock and roll.
It means listening back through this huge playlist of 723 tracks and over 51 hours of sonic joy, is capable of turning any house into a house party. No matter how many occupants.
