In defence of the 10 artists that Keith Richards brutally attacked
Keith Richards has never been one to shy away from saying it exactly how he sees it. While he might sit at the very top of the musical food chain as the guitarist and key songwriter in The Rolling Stones, he hasn’t always been very gracious to those below him or even to his peers. Sometimes, his delivery of his musical opinions veered into outright insults, and I can’t stand by them anymore. Someone has to be brave enough to say, “No Keef, you’re wrong.”
There is no denying that Richards is a powerful and exciting force in music. Back in The Stones’ heyday, he perfectly represented the wildest hedonism of rock and roll and still stands as the absolute epitome of a rock star. With every chaotic tale, every catchy riff and every timeless anthem, he’s given music fans so much.
But as a music fan himself, the seemingly jovial figure becomes a nasty character. There are reems and reems of vicious takedowns delivered by the guitarist to almost every act around him. Whether it was the other major bands at the time, the Stones’ support acts or young up-and-comers pioneering new sounds, no one was safe from his sharp tongue.
Some of them were fair enough. Chicago are “contrived”, and the Grateful Dead were a little “boring”. I might even stretch to agree with his thoughts on The Who being thrown together and messy. But when it comes to some other musical legends that felt his wrath, enough is enough. In these ten instances, Richards crossed a line.
10 artists that Keith Richards attacked:
Led Zeppelin
The Insult: “I just read in Sounds the poll for awards. (Shakes his head in disagreement) For best songwriter, it said Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, followed by Ritchie Blackmore and some amazing people I don’t know. England is very strange, as far as its music goes.”
The Defence: While this might be more of an attack on the British public’s tastes, Richards has gone after Led Zeppelin’s songwriting and sound a few times. It’s a strange and somewhat pathetic path he’s wandered down where he seems to throw out punches at almost all of the major bands that came up at around the same time as The Stones. But when it comes to Zeppelin, it almost feels like there’s a tinge of jealousy.
The bands’ trajectories were relatively similar as they were both born in England but made in America to a degree. But while the Stones quickly became a big and branded beast, Zeppelin ruled over the Laurel Canyon cool crowd, heralded as poetic rock gods for their rolling, lengthy tracks like ‘Dazed and Confused’ or ‘Stairway To Heaven’. I can’t help but wonder if a part of Richards wants to take them down for being somewhat cooler than the Stones because god knows no one needs me to tell them that Zeppelin were, in fact, really good and Richards’ argument that they weren’t is nonsense.
Black Sabbath
The Insult: “They’re thrown together, and you always feel it. You can always see the join.”
The Defence: Lumping Black Sabbath in with The Who and Zeppelin in an insult around the band’s authenticity or origins is a deliciously ironic call from Richards. He claims that the band feel “thrown together”, as if their relationships, both musical and personal, aren’t sturdy. Well, Keith, the call is coming from inside the house.
Wasn’t it the Stones who chucked out their founder, Brian Jones? Auditioned for a replacement? Brought in Ronnie Wood pretty late in the game in the 1970s? The Rolling Stones have had plenty of lineup chops and changes. So, while their origin might have been authentic as Richards and Jagger met at school, and the rest of the original lineup were gathered around the live scene, any self-righteous comments about the organisation of a lineup lost all credibility pretty quickly.
Elton John
The Insult: “Lovely bloke, but posing.”
The Defence: It’s true. By all accounts, Elton John is a lovely bloke. Especially in recent years, his support for and spotlighting of young, upcoming artists is inspiring and something that others (cough, cough, Keith Richards) could learn a lot from.
As for the second half of this statement, what is there to say but a silent eye-roll? Calling Elton John “posing” is a tired comment made by people who can’t look past aesthetics to see the substance in theatricality. Elton John is posing, and that’s part of the point. His career has always been totally and utterly tied to style, taking from the drag queens and London scenes that empowered him to be more than just a piano player. As a vital LGBT+ artist that made major moves in the mainstream, his outward theatricality and flare is a beautiful act of visible queer joy. He’s posing, but he’s also damn good, and if Richards can’t see past the glitter to hear that, then maybe he should stick to his tired old leather jackets, bandanas, and his own ages rockstar poses and shut up.
Bruce Springsteen
The Insult: “Bruce? Too contrived for me. Too overblown.”
The Defence: Richards seems to really love this word “contrived”. But what does that even mean? According to an online definition, it’s “having an unnatural or false appearance or quality”. But while Bruce Springsteen sings about the American blue-collar experience from the life and perspective of an American blue-collar man, surely the Stones are the contrived ones for constantly putting on those accents and stealing that country twang?
Look, I love The Stones. I love their merger of British edge with an American slickness. I love the way they melded American blues with distinctly English rock. But calling a pure Americana artist “contrived” when you’ve spent your whole career trying to emulate that is once again a hypocritical take that maybe should’ve been kept out of the press.
Prince
The Insult: “His attitude when he opened for us… was insulting to our audience. You don’t try to knock off the headline like that when you’re playing a Stones crowd. He’s a prince who thinks he’s a king already. Good luck to him.”
The Defence: There are some moments in musical history that mark the birth of a legend. There are some talents so supreme that they feel heaven-sent, crash-landing on earth as a fully formed thing that’s exciting and excellent from the very first second. Prince was one of those talents, and The Rolling Stones were lucky enough to play a tiny part in bringing that to the world’s attention as he opened for the band in 1981.
The event has gone down in infamy as the Stones’ fans treated Prince terribly, throwing verbal abuse at him along with bottles and cans. While Jagger jumped to his defence, clearly seeing the insane talent on display, Richards’ response merely echoes the tired and limited critique of the classic, dad rock fans that tried to tear the artist down. Prince never needed the Stones. By the time he got up on stage for that support slot, he’d already begun his sharp rise all off the back of his own insane, all-encompassing talent as a multi-instrumentalist, producer and all-round star. He was going to keep rising whether he played this gig or not, so for Richards to try and tear him down, deeming him “an overrated midget”, is honestly just quite embarrassing and a comment that no doubt Prince laughed off as he flew past them to the top.
George Michael
The Insult: “Shave and go home. A wimp in disguise.”
The Defence: There’s a key theme when compiling this list of insults. With each comment, Richards is revealing himself to be the kind of music fan I hate the most: the classic rockers that sit on their high horse of perceived independent, alternative spirit and look down on anything more pop-leaning. He’s the kind of music fan who seems to think hating pop makes you deeper or more interesting, like your taste is more high-brow or cooler because you can’t dance to it, and the radio might not play it. Even that feels a little ironic because out of all the famous rock bands, The Rolling Stones have a hefty dose of pop spirit in them as tracks like ‘Start Me Up’ and ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ bottle the same jovial fun that the genre is built on.
He called pop music “pushbutton music”, summarising the dullest take that pop isn’t “real music”. Of all the pop stars to ever exist, George Michael was real music. He was a defining voice of the 1980s and a pioneering force in the genre that, whether the Stones want to admit it or not, they dip into and are propped up by.
Sex Pistols
The Insult: “What’s the point of listening to that shit? It’s for mass-media consumption.”
The Defence: The strange rivalry that emerged between the Sex Pistols and The Stones is a silly one. One band called the other shit; Sex Pistols called them old, Richards declared them all image, and Johnny Rotten said they should retire. It rolled on like that for a while, with the media egging them on. But is this comment I take issue with; “What’s the point of listening to that shit?”
The Stones and Sex Pistols exist in two very different spheres, but there’s a cross-over in the Venn diagram. That middle ground is British musical history. It’s key moments in time where things changed, and the sound shifted. Whether you think they’re good or not, the Sex Pistols were a turning point; they were something new and something to soundtrack a moment of social and political change in the country. Without that punk scene back then, we wouldn’t have such a thriving punk scene now. The same can be said for the Stones, helping to bring in the country’s powerful legacy of guitar bands. So regardless of thoughts, feelings or silly fights, there’s always a point in listening to “that shit”.
The entire rap genre
The Insult: “This is kindergarten shit. It’s like karaoke. But I’m making records that people can listen to. Obviously, the attraction is there until they all shoot each other – and they’re doing a good job of it.”
The Defence: Richards’ attempt to go after the entire rap genre is a boring and racially biased take. Especially considering he said this as recently as 2015, the linking of rap music with violence is problematic. Specifically, the implication of gang violence is a wince-worthy remark that’s painfully old-fashioned.
Overall, it just feels like something Richards shouldn’t be speaking on. Sure, he’s a legend, but I don’t think we need the Stones’ guitarist to ponder all musical forms and movements while having literally nothing to do with them.
The Beatles
The Insult: “I think The Beatles has passed their performing peak even before they were famous.”
The Defence: Another laughable take as Richards attempts to take a swipe at perhaps the one band that sits on a bigger throne than his. For the entire start of their career, the Stones chased the Beatles’ tail. As the Liverpool bands expanded their rock and roll sound into something wider on Revolver, the Stones weren’t far behind with ‘Paint It Black’. When the Fab Four got more experiments, Richards and his crew followed suit. For as long as The Beatles were around, they were copied, so Richards’ attempt to discredit them feels like a joke.
Lennon spotted the pattern. “I would like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every fuckin’ album. Every fuckin’ thing we did, Mick does exactly the same — he imitates us,” he said. He puts it plainly on ‘Dig a Pony’, where he sings, “Roll a stoney/you can imitate everyone you know”. Take that, Keith.
David Bowie
The Insult: “It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing. It’s nothing to do with music. He knows it, too.”
The Defence: Once again, Keith Richards can’t look past an outfit it seems. The entire point of David Bowie’s evolving appearance was that it had everything to do with the music. As his sound shifted, so did his style, aiming to create an all-encompassing aura to better translate his songs and stories.
Really, that’s something the Stones lacked. Even as the band evolved, their albums and eras never had much visual differences to mark new moments in their history. Richards can try to act like that is “posing”, but switching up looks and visuals has forever been part of artistry. It’s just a part they’ve bypassed.
