WHEN DID THE STONES JUMP THE SHARK? A HOT TAKE

 

Some bands don't know when to quit, with the Rolling Stones at the top of that list. I believe Some Girls is the band's last great album—an obvious response to the punk rockers who rejected the Stones and their generational peers as old and in the way, utterly useless to the current cultural grimness. It seems the band knew they had something to prove, and did so powerfully here; the songs are solid, tight but bursting with gang fight aggression, jaded but hardly retiring, momentarily reflective and even sentimental, yet kicking aside the respite for a crazed, speed-freak delirium that's both exciting and suggests complete and total collapse. "Beast of Burden," "Miss You," "When the Whip Comes Down," "Shattered"—peak songwriting throughout from Jagger and Richards in their last important album. This was the last time they could get away with being purely the Rolling Stones of legend without being accused of being a parody of their former greatness. They had two resolutely mediocre albums following Exile: Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock and Roll—and it was my hope that the unexpected vitality and verve of Some Girls would be a long-lasting return to form. But alas, that was not the case. Still, it is, in my view, among their best work, and is the last important record they made. What followed were discs that were good to fair to middling at best, none of which generated lasting heat and little of which could escape the feeling that this was a band that replaced inspiration with corporate-style professionalism. Their occupation became to sound like the Rolling Stones.