The Rolling Stones of today are like Ole Blue Eyes in his waning years. People want to see the dinosaur before it's extinct. (I don't blame them) Like Sinatra (who's voice had deteriorated and who often forgot lyrics) the Stones charge much more money than ever before for performances of much less quality than when they were in their prime, they play less adventurous set lists and settle into the greatest hits to appease the masses. And, like Frank, the Stones intend to suck up every last dollar they can before the end it. I'm not complaining , I'm just bringing up an obvious comparison that I've not seen here before.

I love classic Sinatra, especially the Capitol years, but no Stones album has imo ever been as feeble as late Sinatra's "Cycles", "A Man Alone/Songs of Rod McKuen," "Watertown," "Old Blue Eyes Is Back," "LA Is My Lady,"the 3-record "Trilogy" or the phoned in "Duets."

I wonder, when the Stones are finally gone, if anyone will give them credit for the level of ageist bullshit they had to put up with? Or will most music writers be too dense to make a connection between the Stones and some sort of age pioneering? It's pretty safe to say that those bands that grow older after the Stones won't get nearly so much bull.

-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-05-06 23:49 by Erik_Snow.

Comparison of the Stones with Elvis Presley yields that the Stones are better than Elvis! Whereas they performed 32 (!) different songs so far on their ABB tour, Elvis performed only 30 songs on his last tour (June 17-26 1977).

Well, Duane; I can see similarities, but yet again
the difference is HUGE. Because Blue Eyes was a reactionary,
that played non-edgy music.
Stones are still, at least in some senses, rebels.

Keith would have been cool in The Man With The Golden Arm...!!!



ROCKMAN

Does anybody know what Frank said when he was dying? "I'm losing it baby, I'm losing it" This is no bull shit, 100% true.....those were his last words

Good points up to a point, Duane. I love Frank as well as the Stones, but they're like apples and bananas - good, but very different.

they're both kings of their genres...........period

I wish I could have seen Frankie once, even in his later years. I wish I could have seen Elvis once. I wish I could have seen Lennon They are all great. What's the point of this thread again?

Some people here say Stones are too old, getting a bit senile, forgetting things here and there......

I would rather turn it around and say some people here on the board are getting senile saying things without making sense, taling nonsens about the Stones....

Should all bands stop playing because they have passed their 50'ies because they play in a different way, sing in a diffrent way, use less energy on stage etc...

Stones don't make many more mistakes than they used to do...

Imagine one of us human beings on this board having the same job as Mick night after night constantly moving around on a stage being completely in control of everything not missing a note, a word, a tune etc.... it is too much to ask for.......

Isn't it nice to see people growing old in a nice way....

Should regular people stop working because they are getting older and therefore not as active as a 20 year old....

Should composers, authors, painters etc. stop creating new things because of age.....

it's a reasonable comparison. I'm a huge Sinatra buff - probably listen to him as much as the Stones. And the point about how he "deteriorated" is apt...he was still great and listenable even into his late 70's - but no serious fan of his would argue that he still "had it" the way he did in his various peak eras.

I was at the Grammy's the year they gave Sinatra an award (Lifetime Achievement?). Anyway, Bono introduced him (so of course he went on forever), then Frank comes out and in the middle of Frank's speech, the band starts playing the "Get the F off the Stage" music.

Does anyone remember that? It was so rude! Frank didn't leave though. He don't swing that way, baby.

Frank was the coolest mofo in town until Keef arrived.

I'll never forget the look on Frank's face when Dylan sang "Restless Farewell" (kind of a Dylan "My Way" song) to him at his 80th birthday bash - absolutely priceless. Might have been Bob's single best performance of any song in the 90's.

john r Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I love classic Sinatra, especially the Capitol
> years, but no Stones album has imo ever been as
> feeble as late Sinatra's "Cycles", "A Man
> Alone/Songs of Rod McKuen," "Watertown," "Old Blue
> Eyes Is Back," "LA Is My Lady,"the 3-record
> "Trilogy" or the phoned in "Duets."



Mate, Watertown is the NUTS! His penultimate great album - the last being She Shot Me Down. Everything else is iffy though. And Duets is Frankensinatra.
F-ing Bono!

You think the bands old, you ought to see the people going to the shows. I was at Ftlauderdale last night and I think a few of the old folks homes had an outing!!

old people in Florida, eh? Who'd a-thunk it.....

Some Girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder, when the Stones are finally gone, if
> anyone will give them credit for the level of
> ageist bullshit they had to put up with? Or will
> most music writers be too dense to make a
> connection between the Stones and some sort of age
> pioneering? It's pretty safe to say that those
> bands that grow older after the Stones won't get
> nearly so much bull.


Good point. When they started out, people said they were too young to do certain things (criticize the government, etc.), and now that they're old they are getting criticized for being too old to do certain things. When the Stones announced Steel Wheels in '89, you heard a lot of Steel Wheelchairs jokes. Now U2 are the same age the Stones were then, and you don't hear many people calling them old. U2 is mostly still considered a modern act, rather than an oldies act. Once again, the Stones have blazed the trail.

To address the topic of this thread, the Stones have lost some of their edge to age, but not near as much as Sinatra had by the end. Then again, Sinatra was 80-something when he died and the Stones are only in their early 60s, so who knows what will happen from here. But right now I'd say the Stones are doing far better than Sinatra did at the end.

Here's a cooool read from 2Stoned about Andrew Loog & Keith meeting Franky...








ROCKMAN

Cool, Rockman, thanks for sharing!

nice post, Rockman....

Yeah just to read Sinatra's recording style, the way he drove away from the studio and that one line........And To Marion



ROCKMAN

Rockman,

That was a great story, thanks for sharing.

I had the privilege of meeting Joe Smith on my first day at EMI. I didn't know who he was though, but he sat there joking around with me and my boss. Later I found out who he was and was glad that I didn't know, otherwise, I would have been too nervous to have been so casual.

Nice guy, I think he also wrote a book.

CindyC....EMI...!!! Please what ya do there?...What year ya talkng about?
That's if ya dont mind sharing.





ROCKMAN

Hey Rockman,

It was 1991. I didn't do anything really music related though, I worked in the Strategy & Planning group of the WW headquarters, so all the smaller labels reported into us. All the real artistic stuff actually happened at the label-level. My team mostly worked on acquisitions of smaller record labels My first year was spent almost entirely on the purchase of Virgin Records. I loved working there.

My Stones knowledge came into play one day. The CEO and my boss were trying to come up with a value for Virgin, so they were trying to figure out total record sales for the labels' big artists. They had record sale data for Talk is Cheap beginning January 1989. I got a call from the CEO's line (and he was a scary guy, so I nearly crapped my pants when I saw his extension come through). So I'm on speakerphone and my boss says "Cindy, when did TIC come out, January 1989 right?" and I said "No, actually it was a few months earlier because I saw Keith play in November 1988, and the record was already out by then". So they had to go back and recalculate the value.

I like that story.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-05-08 20:52 by CindyC.

I don't agree. The Stones are still a great band!! They improve every time I see them!!

....on your video?