Quote
Natlanta
dread the threads?
I dread the dread threads!
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If "quit" meant no more concerts or recording in this current incarnation--if it would mean more of what they've been doing the past dozen+ years--I'd respect their decision to quit.
I don't feel my youth would end with their ending. I've felt their youth ended so long ago. I love Keith, Mick, and Charlie. But Mick physically is beautiful and youthful esp for his age, but to me seems wizened and bitter, persnicketty, greedy, and brittle. Which supercedes his being able to gallop around the stage mugging and bellowing. Keith with his continued drunkenness and daffy clown bit seems more immature than youthful or exuberant. Charlie alone seems ageless to me---like age is irrelevant to his being who he is and doing what he loves.
If quit meant that they were dialing back, and figuring out who they are now as individuals and artists. And if that meant they would continue creating on their own or in projects together, I would be ecstatic for them, and for us.
The institution of the Rolling Stones has lived long and given us much. The artists themselves as individuals have been becoming dessicated and self-deriviative for many years. In terms of creativity--without those sparks of intensity and life, wandering in unknown domains creatively--these guys are just not that compelling as a band to me.
I would rather hear Mick Jagger really be
into something, and I don't care what it is. It could well be a gospel album. Or a rap album. Or medieval ballads. Anything that Mick Jagger, or Keith for that matter, were overbrimming with fire and passion about. Anything they would be willing to try -- without self-consciousness, ego, or fear. Anything.
If they aren't able to do that...I left them waaaay in the dust as far as my "youth." And I know many OLD people who are still pushing boundaries, taking risks, embracing that terrifying/wonderful stuff called their own creativity. And you see it in the spark of life in their eyes.
The comment above about the Stones know how to mass market and therefore will come up with something good is 100% opposite of how I think. The Stones Corporation (and Mick) knows how to mass market---and the Stones have become victimized, thwarted, by their own success. They are serving the mass market at the expense of being authentic, creative, and taking risks.