Anti-Climacus

I am otherwise distracted today, but this is a pretty good reflection on Tattoo You, the last good-bad Stones album. I particularly liked:

What makes the less-inspired Stones records of the ’70s great is their honesty; right or wrong, they show a band living with their self-imposed failings. Sometimes they fight through them, other times they sail through like dead-eyed sharks—but they’re always moving. That’s why I love them. While I’m enough of a Stones apologist to muster up a defense of latter-day efforts Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, and A Bigger Bang, there is a phoniness to those records that can’t be denied. They’re all about proving that the Stones (and Mick specifically) “still have it.” The Stones remain a very capable of live unit, but their post-Tattoo You albums consciously tried to re-create past glories that seem to have very little to do with their present lives as millionaire British geriatrics.

Sometimes I wonder about the other Rolling Stones, the one that exists in my imagination, the one that took the other path in the fork in the road. What if the Stones had made records that dealt candidly with growing old in rock ’n’ roll and apart from your former friends in the band? Would that have been preferable? Would the Stones still even be a band? My feeling is probably not. Because the Stones are still here, I’m still hoping that they’ll make a record like that some day. Even if it ends up being only great in a “bad” way, that’s preferable to cold competence any day.