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Mon 15 September 2025 16:00, UK
John Lennon never really cared about becoming too old to play rock and roll.
There’s usually a time limit on when everyone needs to stop trying to act like they’re eternally 25 years old, but Lennon felt that it was much easier to write music that reflected where he was at the time rather than going back to the same old playbook. But even when looking at his contemporaries, he knew that a handful of bands were never going to be past their prime in any respect.
But looking through the different bands that The Beatles came up with, not all of them necessarily survived the 1960s intact. The Byrds had gone through their fair share of turmoil with lineup changes, The Beach Boys had to deal with Brian Wilson’s mental struggles when making their new records, and even Jimi Hendrix had passed on long before people had a chance to realise the kind of genius he was. And even by the end of the 1960s, the new school was starting to be born.
Abbey Road is still a musical masterpiece in every sense, but it also came out the same year that bands like Led Zeppelin were beginning to make their mark. Music was about to get a lot heavier, but even if Lennon was moving inward on albums like Plastic Ono Band, his influence wasn’t going to suddenly stop after being in one of the biggest bands in the world. He made the perfect prototype for alternative rock with his debut, and he would get more raw and honest from there.
But Lennon wasn’t the only legacy act that was going through his fair share of shakeups, either. Despite Eric Clapton being considered a rock and roll god at the time, Cream had imploded and led him to move on to Blind Faith and eventually Derek and the Dominos, but whereas The Rolling Stones dealt with their fair share of hardship, they were about to enter the greatest phase of their career.
After drafting in Mick Taylor following Beggars Banquet, nearly every one of their albums up until 1975 could be considered masterpieces. Sticky Fingers is one of the best straight-ahead blues albums they ever made, Goats Head Soup is incredibly underrated for having some of their most beautiful tunes, and Exile on Main St took everything that made the band great at the start of their career and put each of their styles under one roof.
Although Lennon usually had a lot to say about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards lifting a bit too much from The Beatles, he had to admit that there was no way that anyone could knock what they were doing at the time, saying, “People are saying The Stones are getting too old to appear now, but that’s bullshit. Mick’ll never be past it. I saw the TV show they did over here, and it was fantastic. It was a master’s performance, and that’s what Mick is, a master performer.”
While that reputation would eventually have a few dents in it following Lennon’s death, it’s not like the shows ever suffered as a result. Jagger always knew how to entertain a crowd, and even if he was singing the most lacklustre songs of his career, his dance moves more than made up for any type of cheesy schlock that they were working with.
Because when you think about it, Jagger could have quickly shifted any crowd towards him whenever the time called for it. The Stones might be considered the dinosaurs of rock today and aren’t necessarily the most relevant band in the world, but there’s no one who isn’t paying attention to him shimmying up and down the stage whenever a song like ‘Street Fighting Man’ or ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ comes on.
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