CSotD: I know it’s zombie rock-and-roll …
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Mike Luckovich has (barely) standing to make this wisecrack, which is doubly appropriate in light of Matt Groening's recent decision to shut down "Life in Hell" while the Simpsons goes on, and on, and on, and on.
In any case, Luckovich was around when the Rolling Stones were formed, a half-century ago, though only just.
He was two, which wasn't exactly the prime demographic for the group. I was 12, and, by the time they had a hit in this country, I was 14. Pretty prime.
We embraced their music, they entered the pantheon of Great Bands, and they put out some great singles and some great albums.
After which, instead of breaking up, they began the slow, incredibly sad transition into the tiresome, toothless, gormless Abe Simpsons of Rock.
There were some dynamite groups that lost their edge before they broke up: Eric Burdon's inflated ego transformed the Animals into a band nobody wanted to hear, and the Yardbirds went through some great and some not-so-great personnel changes. It happens.
But, then again, sometimes it doesn't happen.
The Beatles did their thing, took a bow and walked off the stage. In retrospect, we learned that they had actually sort of broken up before the formal rift, and that parts of their later albums were cobbled together. "Abbey Road" was still quite a good album, but "Let It Be" was really just a collection of mediocre singles.
It's popular to blame Yoko, but the rifts were there and, if there's anything to blame her for, it's for forcing the decision to take the poor old much-loved-but-increasingly-pathetic dog to the vet when it was time.
Too bad Marianne Faithful or Anita Pallenberg didn't have that kind of influence on the Stones, because the band broke up when Brian Jones left, only nobody bothered to tell the rest of the gang. Like the Byrds, like the Kinks, like a headless catfish still flopping around in the sink, they kept going after the creative vitality was gone.
"Let It Bleed" became their "Let It Be," only they kept recording and touring anyway and became "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band."
In a world in which "Greatest" means "Most Popular." In a world in which a great rock-and-roll concert has come to mean giant blow-up dolls and lasers.
I have great respect for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and they proved that they had more than one arrow in the quiver: Jagger went off and did that "Ned Kelly" film and was pretty good in it, and Keith did a couple of cool musical projects.
But, for some reason, they were never able to cut the cord and let the Stones become a moment preserved in amber, like the Beatles, like "Calvin and Hobbes," like "Car 54, Where Are You?"
Has everything they've done since been horrible? Of course not. But John Lennon did some terrific work post-Beatles. McCartney is a bit too pop-oriented for my tastes, but he's certainly enjoyed success since then, and George Harrison carved out a creative and interesting niche without the aid of the mop-tops. And Ringo played a caveman.
At some point, the training wheels become more of an encumbrance than an aid.
Several New Year's Eves ago, I was doing something nonessential on the computer and thinking about going to bed when I realized that it was a quarter to twelve and, thought, after all, that I might as well watch the ball drop before I turned in.
So I shut down the computer, grabbed the remote and began surfing through the channels looking for Times Square.
Instead, I came across a bunch of old guys singing "Satisfaction" to a studio audience disguised as a party, and I thought, you know, if this were the first time the Stones had been together in 20 years, it would be really, really cool.
But it wasn't.
So, instead, it was just kind of sad.
Especially since, in 1968, Jagger had told the Rolling Stone, "I'd rather die than be 45 and still singing 'Satisfaction.'"
I guess what he needed turned out to be stronger than what he wanted.
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