Russ Smith wrote last week for Splice Today about John McMillian’s new book on the biggest rock & roll rivalry: the Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones. As Canadian new wave band Metric sings it, “Who’d you rather be/the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” Their own choice is hinted at in the song title “Gimme Sympathy”—a blending of the Stones songs “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil.”
As a declared Bob Dylan partisan, Smith is a conscientious objector in the Beatles-Stones fan feud. So it falls to me to weigh in. And I am a Stones fan, for good reason. The Beatles are better singers, but that’s about all they have going for them. In spite of very little training, the Stones managed to be better musicians, better lyricists and better rock & rollers. This is even more impressive when you consider what the Stones really wanted to be was a blues cover band.
During the years of their rivalry, roughly 1964 through 1970, the Stones are far and away better than the Beatles, because they rarely play it safe. “I want to hold your hand,” sing the Beatles. Oh come on. “Let’s spend the night together,” rejoin the Stones (a couple of years later), even if they agree to make nice for one night only on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Beatles bury cute drug references in their songs. The Stones sing about suburban moms popping pills just to get through the day and get busted for possession. The Beatles mess around with spirituality and Hindu chants. The Stones sing about violent revolution and the Devil.
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