Music

It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll, Or Is It?

By Jon Tiede

November–December 2011

Historical November–December 2011 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

Who is the greatest rock band of all time? That’s the tall question that we debated late into the evening as the McPherson Block party wound down this past summer.

The answer is personal and tends to evolve based on the music you’re into at any given point in time. Asked this question in high school, I might have said Led Zeppelin or The Cult (yes, The Cult).

In college, my answer probably would have been U2.

But with the perspective of 41 years and a little objectivity, my final submission after going back and forth between The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, was the Stones.

I was a little surprised at the amount of enthusiasm for The Who emanating from the 6100 block of McPherson that night, but clearly my friends Sean McGroarty and Mark Banaszak have a deep passion for Townshend, Daltrey and Co. I’ve always admired The Who, and consider their epic album, Who’s Next, a classic that belongs in any discussion of top albums.

But with all due respect, I just can’t see putting The Who at the top of the rock & roll heap. Consider this.

In 1971, the year Who’s Next was released, the Rolling Stones began an amazing run of number one albums. Starting with Sticky Fingers and ending with Tattoo You in 1981 (which was my first official album purchase at eleven years of age at Camelot Music…remember that place!), the Stones put together a prolific, rock buffet featuring some of the most recognizable tracks of all time – Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Tumbling Dice, Angie, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It), Beast of Burden, Emotional Rescue and Start Me Up among others. And this ridiculous run was preceded by albums that brought us classics like Sympathy for the Devil, Gimme Shelter, Paint it Black, Let’s Spend the Night Together, Ruby Tuesday, and what many consider to be the greatest rock & roll song of all time – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. For a little further support, The Stones have had at least one album in the top five in each of the past five decades. That’s a fifty-year span for those who are counting making their longevity hard to match.

On a personal level, I have been fortunate enough to see the Stones twice, once in 1994 on their Voodoo Lounge Tour, and a second time in 1997 on their Bridges to Babylon Tour, which was extra special and possibly prescient. That’s because I saw it with my wife, Lynn in St. Louis, before she was my wife, and before we moved to St. Louis.

As I have amassed their music over the years (due in no small part to the influence of my brother-in-law, who is possibly the biggest Rolling Stones fan and a true music aficionado), their classic, gritty, bluesy-style of rock and roll has become an essential part of my music library, matched possibly only by one other band, The Beatles. Yes, The Beatles, who I would consider the only real, legitimate challenger to the Rolling Stones as the greatest rock & roll band of all time. How do you argue against them? It’s tough. Their influence as a band, and later as solo artists on the genre we loosely call rock is undeniable.

My only defense is that they really don’t strike me as rock anymore. Certainly at one time they were, but they now seem to fall into another loosely defined category called pop. Is Let It Be an amazing song? Yes. Does it rock? No not really, nor do countless other classic Beatles tracks. At the end of all of this, I am certain of at least two things.

The Who is definitely a band that has captivated the souls of many loyal followers including a couple great guys that reside on the 6100 Block of McPherson.

But for my money, as they were once introduced way back in 1969 by their stage manager, the Rolling Stones are “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.”