Grace Slick thinks The Rolling Stones should’ve called it a day years ago
With their most recent comeback having caused something of a stir amongst fans and casual onlookers, with many of the most ardent critics arguing that they’re far past their best, The Rolling Stones are probably under more scrutiny than they have been for some time.
Admittedly, with less than three years having passed since the release of their last album, Hackney Diamonds, the rather laboured rollout of their 2026 return provided a proverbial nail in the coffin for many people when the limp lead single from Foreign Tongues, ‘In The Stars’, was eventually accompanied by an AI-assisted video that sparked significant backlash.
Large amounts of the vitriol came in the form of comments stating that the octogenarian duo of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, alongside their slightly junior Ronnie Wood, were trying too hard to embrace modern technology and failing to understand how they were simultaneously displaying how out of touch they were with their fanbase’s values. On top of that, the song itself felt like a flaccid rehash of old ideas, and that they’ve finally reached a point of being the creatively bereft geriatrics that they’d previously avoided being categorised as.
Of course, some fans will argue that they’re still enjoying themselves and paying service to them by stoically continuing to fight the good fight, and that any slight misstep, whether in terms of the music or other creative decisions, ought to be both expected and dismissed. If they want to keep making music that helps them feel in touch with their younger selves, then why should you stop them?
The thing is, The Stones have been on the receiving end of this sort of criticism for decades at this point, and while contemporaries of theirs have proudly called it a day and are content with looking back on their careers, still respectably untarnished, Mick, Keith and Ronnie’s refusal to retire feels increasingly less like a ‘fuck you’ to those who doubt them, and more of a misguided arrogance that has caused them to believe they’ve still got the same pizazz they had in their heyday.
Now, not every band has successfully managed to hang up their instruments before a downfall of epic proportions, and Grace Slick, once of ‘60s counterculture icons Jefferson Airplane and later of the rebranded Jefferson Starship and Starship outfits, certainly knows a thing or two about failing to recognise when you’re beating a dead horse.
Tumbling from the highs of ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody To Love’ at the start of their career and catastrophically winding up at the universally reviled ‘We Built This City’ only 20 years later, Slick realised that she’d allowed her glory days to fall by the wayside and was releasing hot turds that did nothing to uphold the integrity of her career. As a consequence, her departure from Starship in 1988 and subsequent retirement from music altogether in 1990 was a line in the sand that she felt she needed to draw before the artistic self-flagellation worsened.
If she was able to reflect and realise that enough was enough at a reasonable point, then why haven’t The Rolling Stones been able to do the same? As a matter of fact, when interviewed in 2007 by Bill DeYoung, she had some hard truths to impart on the British rockers as they entered their 45th year as a band.
“Now, The Rolling Stones are still pretty good,” she conceded, willing to realise that there were still flashes of brilliance to be found in their elderly incarnation before swiftly caveating her praise with a harsh call for their retirement.
Adding, “But you’re listening to somebody singing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ who’s got lines all over his face, and the wattles under the chin are wagging back and forth. As soon as your chin doesn’t go with your face, when you turn it real fast, it’s time to get out of rock ‘n’ roll.”
The Stones have been plagued by wrinkles and sagging for many years now, so by Slick’s estimation, their curtain call should have come long before 2007, let alone now. Their determination to soldier on should be commended in some respects, but at the same time, there’s a point where this belligerent desire to continue in spite of their faltering faculties can turn into a source of second-hand embarrassment.
As hard as it might be to accept that your deserved time in the spotlight has come to an end, to quote one of the band’s finest moments, “You can’t always get what you want.”
