Looks like the majority rules: the Stones are NOT "overrated". I listened to Sticky Fingers last night. Great album.

Timmy84 said:

Looks like the majority rules: the Stones are NOT "overrated". I listened to Sticky Fingers last night. Great album.

The 'majority' has been wrong before.

Brendan said:

The heaps of overpraising that has been cocked upon The Beatles and The Rolling Stones has created a legend that so far exceeds anything that happened or ever will that you sometimes feel like leaving the room to get sick when people start applauding. It's particularly distasteful (and sometimes perhaps even a little obvious) when even their early albums -- those heavily constructed with covers of black artists -- are spoken of as if they were the greatest thing since sliced "Wonder" bread. Really? Just like so many professed intellectuals. They've memorized the textbooks and know how to mimic an unmistakable pattern, but can they actually think? I admire people who keep an open mind to possibilities without resorting to regurgitating answers that they feel are most likely attributable to the "right" side. In that vein, it might be the majority who professes them, but how many actually know? So many things that became mega popular I feel were merely the right reflection at the right time. But discovering that some minority presence of it could possibly be truly great after all, despite the countless flaws in us all that in part placed it there, never stands in the company of fools.

I'm more of a Beatles fan than a Stones, and the Beatles later albums which are bursting with creativity and originality are unanimously considered their best work.

Not many people familiar with their catalogue would consider their early albums their greatest. When they went on their own tangent creatively, they produced their best material without a doubt.

How can you argue with greats like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson paying tribute to their output?

Even though I'm not a huge Stones fan, I do like many of their songs and it's obvious to me, that despite their early stuff closely imitating blues artists, they carved a sound of their own. Those guitars with those drums, and that Mick Jagger voice, it's all unmistakable and inimitable.

I actually think the reason the Beatles and Stones get criticized by some may have to do with them focusing on the EARLY YEARS when they would cover songs by blues and R&B artists. Even when they talk about later albums, it always go back to the early years. I chose not to focus on their early years pretty much. Past 1965, they definitely put out some great material. Comparing the 1962-1965 versions of both groups to their 1967-1970 (and in the case of the Stones, 1967-1981), would be like comparing chicken salad to steak.

nd33 said:

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I'm more of a Beatles fan than a Stones, and the Beatles later albums which are bursting with creativity and originality are unanimously considered their best work.

Not many people familiar with their catalogue would consider their early albums their greatest. When they went on their own tangent creatively, they produced their best material without a doubt.
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Absolutely. And well said.

Unfortunately a majority of the overestimating, in some cases damn near deification, obfuscates some from ever discovering more than contempt.

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How can you argue with greats like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson paying tribute to their output?
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Indeed. And that would be a billion times more powerful than any jerky thing I could spill.

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Even though I'm not a huge Stones fan, I do like many of their songs and it's obvious to me, that despite their early stuff closely imitating blues artists, they carved a sound of their own. Those guitars with those drums, and that Mick Jagger voice, it's all unmistakable and inimitable.
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Yes, they definitely found their own voice.

I'm certainly not the arbiter of taste and someone can be brilliantly happy without ever seeing what I would argue is more objective truth as enjoyment for their own personal stacks.

This term >overrated< is starting to get on me tits, both adorable mighty mounds are jelly twitching, dribbling the milk of ancient nations in their contempt. What qualitative assessment are we to glean from the public's response to music? Absolutle sod all! Every individual listener determines his or her meaning or multiple meanings from the music. Or they don't.

[Edited 7/4/11 16:23pm]