Word: rocked
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Jagger and Richards have spent a fair part of the '80s separately pursuing extra-Stones interests, playing the Bickersons in the rock press whenever they were queried about the plentiful tensions within the band. It was tough to pin down, even when the sniping drew a little blood, precisely what the boys were bitching about. Keith wanted to tour, Mick wanted to cruise the night life; individual ambitions ran contrary to the good of the band. Whatever it was, it seemed likely that they had been together too long -- 27 years, to be exact. So when Slipping Away begins...
What will save them is that in a positive way, in a way that rock was never expected to tolerate, they are acting their age. The fan keeps coming back to Slipping Away and thinks about the deaths in the band family. There was, famously, the passing of Brian Jones, one of the formative members and chief sybarites, overdosed in 1969, found dead floating in his swimming pool. And more recently and just as crucially, there was Ian Stewart, the keyboard player, who died of a heart attack...
Even Jagger, when pressed, can come out with an observation, characteristically jaded and spoken like rock's foremost mandarin. "There's not a lot in rock that is new," he says. "It's the same kind of chord sequences and the same kind of rhythm references and the same recycling of subject matter. But I don't think it's a problem. I mean, traditional musical forms like folk music in three chords or blues are endearing to Americans. They find some comfort in them...
Neil Young, who has a new album coming out in October, isn't bothered about restrictions of form, or of age. "Rock 'n' roll is about life, and age is a state of mind," he says. "The music's still wide open. All you need is the nerve, the nerve to do what you want to do." It takes more than nerve, though, to get played on the radio. Ken Barnes, editor of the industry trade magazine Radio & Records, figures that at least 40% of what is available to the whole American radio audience is "classic" or "oldies" rock. Demographics...
...Rock's been a megabusiness for much of its adult life. In 1973 there was $2 billion worth of record and tape sales in the U.S.; in 1988 total sales (including CDs) were $6.2 billion. Bucks like that encourage uncivil marriages of commerce and creativity such as tour sponsorship (the Stones are going out under the aegis of MTV and Budweiser -- careful driving home from the show, now) while discouraging the innovation, the sheer recklessness, that rock music needs in abundance...