My relationship with The Rolling Stones has been complicated. So often with music, we allow ourselves to get an innocent band ensnared in the maelstrom of emotions that surround a certain time, a certain place, or a certain person. That's ok, because I think the one thing the Rolling Stones have never been is innocent. So if they pick up some unnecessary guilt by association, it's okay. They are probably guilty of something else just as bad.
I remember watching "Start Me Up" on MTV when I was a little girl, and listening to my mother (or one of my grandmothers) make a comment on how Mick Jagger's lips looked completely obscene. And the moves he made! Oh my! But despite Mick's propensity to throw himself into performing like a demented man-pixie on cocaine, the music stuck. Do you know anyone who can't hum at least a few bars of a Rolling Stone song? Do they currently have a pulse? Exactly.
This is the Rolling Stones that I grew up with. Hypersexualized, brutally masculine, oversized caricatures of themselves. Listening to their greatest hits albums (conveniently packaged for mass consumption with a minimum of thought) I would get disturbed listening to their music after about twenty minutes, no matter what era it was from. I had heard the early hits. And the late hits. I had a passing awareness that when Mick and Keef had started this crazy band that they were both lovers of the blues. But the product that I was exposed to left none of that in view... just some killer hooks and "come on baby, let's *fill in the blank*" I could see why my riotgrrl heroines had such problems with their music. I could understand why Liz Phair (back before the masses turned on her) wrote a song by song rebuttal of "Exile on Main Street."
But then tonight I sat myself down and listened to "Exile on Main Street" in its entirety. And tonight, I finally got it. Finally, I heard the magic that the true believers of the Stones cling on to so desperately, tour after tour, transparent grab for money after transparent grab for money. Those boys are playing with dynamite, and they did it in much cooler ways, many many years before I was born. Listening to "Shine a Light" stream through my speakers changed the way that I understand their music as a whole, and that music is much better than what is when it's crammed down into those greatest hits collections. Obviously. I still don't know if I've managed to reconcile myself with the image that they project, but I am interested to learn more. But only with the good albums, of course :)
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