{"id":405724,"date":"2026-02-03T14:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/405724\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:17:12","slug":"the-one-genre-keith-richards-never-enjoyed-listening-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/405724\/","title":{"rendered":"The one genre Keith Richards never enjoyed listening to"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Keith<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Tue 3 February 2026 11:42, UK <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s got a different way of telling a story \u2013 and has different stories to tell.\u201d \u2013 Keith Richards<\/a><\/p>\n

Keith Richards is undoubtedly a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll icon. In fact, I\u2019d go as far as to say that he is the walking, talking embodiment of the very spirit that permeated the 1960s and \u201870s golden age of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll music. But while the guitarist\u2019s revolutionary spirit can be heard throughout The Rolling Stones\u2019 back catalogue, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean he is always up for the hottest and newest music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, while he might have been a pioneer of a fresh take on the blues himself, he has always remained infatuated with the purity of the source. When it comes to heavy metal, he says it might have the rock, but it lacks the roll. Usually, he thinks pop lacks punch. And he even thought that The Beatles\u2019 psychedelic phase was a \u201cmishmash\u201d of \u201crubbish\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, there is one genre that has strayed so far from the sacred source that it is entirely lost on the rocker, and it gives him no satisfaction at all. While hip-hop<\/a> has been around for decades, it\u2019s a genre the guitarist has never got his head around. And his quotes about the art form are brutally dismissive.<\/p>\n

The guitarist is famed for having accepted a myriad of influences throughout his career. Richards spent a great deal of time in Jamaica, for example, and cultivated many influences from island living into the band\u2019s later work. He even proclaimed Gregory Isaacs\u2019 song \u2018Extra Classic\u2019 as the one song he couldn\u2019t live without when appearing on Desert Island Discs, but Richards doesn\u2019t feel the same way about rap or hip hop music.<\/p>\n

Now, just because Richards likes lots of different music doesn\u2019t mean he has to like hip hop. After all, about David Bowie, Richards once said: \u201cIt\u2019s all pose. It\u2019s all fucking posing. It\u2019s nothing to do with music. He knows it too.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Keith<\/a>Keith Richards, caught off guard. (Credits: Alamy)<\/p>\n

About Prince, one of the greatest musicians of modern music, Richards spitefully said: \u201cAn overrated midget\u2026 Prince has to find out what it means to be a prince. That\u2019s the trouble with conferring a title on yourself before you\u2019ve proved it.\u201d It\u2019s clear then that Richards has a scything silver tongue when he wants to.<\/p>\n

He makes a similar swipe at the most expansive music genre for the last three decades: hip hop and rap music. \u201cRap \u2013 so many words, so little said,\u201d quipped Richards. \u201cWhat rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,\u201d said Richards with a glint in his eye. \u201cAll they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it, and they\u2019re happy. There\u2019s an enormous market for people who can\u2019t tell one note from another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s the bitterness of being beaten in the charts so readily by hip-hop and rap artists or simply the guitarist stating his preference, it\u2019s difficult not to hear the sharpness in his tone. \u201cHip-hop leaves me cold. But there are some people out there who think it\u2019s the meaning of life,\u201d he told Rolling Stone magazine. \u201cI don\u2019t wanna be yelled at, I wanna be sung to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really understood why someone would want to have some gangster from LA poking his fingers in your face,\u201d he added. \u201cAs I say, it don\u2019t grab me. I mean the rhythms are boring \u2013 they\u2019re all done on computers.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may well be the crux of the Stones\u2019 man disdain. Richards is notably from a different era, not only in pop culture but in music-making too. When Richards was first in the studio, the only real studio tricks there were overdubbing and playing tapes backwards. Perhaps it makes sense that Richards would have a spark of jealousy when he sees a new generation using the tools that weren\u2019t afforded to him by technological evolution to make music he doesn\u2019t really understand.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone in this viewpoint either, with Gene Simmons, Dave Mustaine, and Quincy Jones also pouring scorn on the genre. Alas, it hasn\u2019t done it much harm. It is now one of the most listened to genres in the world, particularly in the States, where it accounts for a whopping 27% of all music consumption. And it has even amassed over two trillion streams on YouTube!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Tue 3 February 2026 11:42, UK \u201cEverybody\u2019s got a different way of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,25721,128,15747,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-405724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-keith-richards","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-rolling-stones","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}