Rolling Stones in the U.S.

When we talk about the Rolling Stones in America and look back at the charts, the first thing to notice is that their foothold was harder than the Beatles’. In the Beatles story we said that on 9 February 1964 they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and suddenly exploded—many songs charting at once; they once held the top five singles slots. That is enormous—not only in America but worldwide.

The Stones were not like that at first. In big cities like New York or Los Angeles, audiences were still large. But on package tours through the American Midwest, crowds thinned. They had to work harder for opportunities. Eventually they had unprecedented success and could play anywhere they wanted to packed stadiums—but for the Stones that came a bit slowly.

Interestingly, manager Andrew Loog Oldham first advised packaging them as the opposite of the Beatles: the Stones should be the bad boys. The Beatles had built a good-boy image—charming, sunny, witty, appealing. American parents would not mind their daughters dating such boys. The Stones were whom parents forbade—smoking, drinking, scruffy, seeming dissolute: bad boys for sure. Amusingly, this good-boy / bad-boy market strategy recurs in pop. From 1956 to 1958 Pat Boone was the good boy, Elvis the bad boy. In fact Elvis’s army service was partly to soften the bad-boy image and enter mainstream pop more fully. From 1960 to 1963 Elvis made films in which he was as well-behaved as could be. Here the Stones stand for the bad kids, the Beatles for the good boys.

The Stones did not succeed at once, but in 1965 “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” hit No. 1 in Britain and America and made them stars. Some say the lyrics are about sexual frustration—as “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” suggests. Actually the song is about dissatisfaction in many areas of life; only one line can be read as sexual. I recall that not long before—’63 or ’64—everyone hunted for possible offense in songs. Take “Louie Louie”: the FBI once investigated the tape with advanced gear to find dirty words and concluded they could not be sure. Anyway, one dirty word could kill a playlist slot. The Stones did not bother denying sexual dissatisfaction in the song; that solidified the bad-boy image, yet it was not blatant enough to get banned. Excellent promotion—slotting them as the layabout wing of the British Invasion.

Other 1965–66 hits: “Get Off of My Cloud,” No. 1 in both countries in 1965; “Paint It Black,” No. 1 in both in 1966; plus other strong charting songs.

Many Stones fans may disagree, but my view is: in the 1960s the Stones stood in the Beatles’ shadow. In 1963–64 they were still the Beatles’ little brothers; Beatles achievements overshadowed them, and often the Stones were imitating what the Beatles had already done—until after Abbey Road in 1969, when the Beatles struggled toward breakup.

After the Beatles broke up, the Stones seemed to drop a heavy load. In the early 1970s they bloomed, returning to themselves with 1970s rock. Think of albums like Sticky Fingers—from then on the Stones became truly themselves. Looking back at their success after they shone so brightly, we may unconsciously inflate how strong they were at the start. They were great—but perhaps the Beatles were always a bit greater. Again, many views and explanations exist. Next we continue with other British Invasion bands and their styles.