Before mesmerizing the music world with their songs, The Rolling Stones was a cover band of the Beatles’ songs. They first established their name, style, and image before they focused on creating original songs with the force of their manager. They have influenced both their contemporaries and many 21st century acts who try to follow in their footsteps.
Especially Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s songwriting capabilities are a great source of inspiration in today’s music industry. While it’s not easy to be a rockstar and especially hard to keep a band together for a long time, the Stones have been active since their formation in 1962. They have been going strong for 60 years and are still performing despite the saddening death of their iconic drummer Charlie Watts.
They reached fame with their iconic albums like ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘Gimme Shelter.’ However, according to KISS’ Gene Simmons, they proved their skills in an album they released before these two. In an interview in 2015, Simmons talked about The Stones and gave an example of an underrated album.
Which One Is The Underrated Album Of The Stones?
Gene Simmons believes that his favorite Stones album is also one of the band’s most underrated works. When they started as a cover band of the Beatles, they didn’t have a unique sound. However, when their manager told them they should start producing their own stuff, they created ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ in 1967. Even though that album was not the product of the time band members became professional composers and lyricists, to Simmons, it was their first work out of their comfort zones.
There is some ‘bad, out-of-key singing’ in the album, as the Roling Stones were never the best singers and didn’t have harmonies like the Beatles. They were in their amateur era, but this made the album so special. Aside from this, Gene Simmons found the lyrics and the sound very different and stated that they signify the depth of The Stones, although it was criticized for being similar to the Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’
Here is what he said about ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ in 2015:
“An underrated Stones record. You know, they had a sound. They originally started and covered the Beatles’ songs and other covers because they didn’t know how to write songs. Everybody hung out in the same clubs back then, and they’d see each other socially. So, early on, the Beatles gave them ‘I Wanna Be Your Man,’ which the Beatles recorded, but the Stones did as a single.
Their manager Andrew Loog Oldham told them that they had to write their own songs, so they went down and developed that sound. Then eventually they saw the Beatles doing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s and all this experimental stuff and the Stones decided to go outside of their comfort zone. That’s what I find interesting. Whether ‘Satanic Majesties’ is the Stones trying to do ‘Sgt. Pepper’s and ripping off the Beatles or not, it has production value and songwriting that isn’t found on any other Stones records. ‘2000 Light Years From Home’, ‘2000 Man’; I mean, we covered ‘2000 Man’. It’s talking about computers and the year 2000; it’s so interesting.”
He continued by saying:
“I can remember being at school in the ’60s and reading ‘1984’ by George Orwell, which is all about how in the future the government would be spying on us. Of course, this was written well before 1984, which now sounds like a long time has passed. So it’s all relative. With the Stones’ music, the strings, and backward stuff, there is some very very good material on that record. They happen not to like the record. I think it’s a unique record that shows that the Stones have some depth.
There is some bad, out-of-key background singing because they were never the best singers. They didn’t have harmonies like the Beatles. The thing about it is that they were blues-based, and they veered away from it on that record and went into almost Celtic and classical areas. It was a pastiche, a multi-colored quilt! You can look at a band like a coin and say, ‘I see everything, I don’t need to see anything more,’ but there is that other side. That other side is what I think is more interesting. The depth.“
You can listen to the album through Spotify below.
