Mick Jagger names the most important album by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones cut their teeth in sweat-filled rooms across London, which made them a formidable force as a live act straight out of the gates. However, while playing live shows extensively fully equipped The Rolling Stones to tackle the biggest stages once they found success, the art of recording studio albums took them longer to finesse.
When The Rolling Stones released their eponymous debut album in 1964, they followed a straightforward blueprint that aligned with the actions of their contemporaries. Notably, this pre-dated The Beach Boys’ release of Pet Sounds or The Beatles’ birth of Rubber Soul, which both played a pivotal role in redefining the album format.
Most artists didn’t even consider creating an entire LP full of original material during the early 1960s. Even Bob Dylan, a songwriter to his very core, only wrote two tracks for his first record in 1962. It was merely how the industry operated, and The Rolling Stones were playing by the rulebook.
Only one track on The Stones’ debut album was penned by the band, and while they took more responsibility with each record they made, it took until 1966’s Aftermath for the group to stand on their own two feet as songwriters fully.
Despite their growing popularity and the slew of original hit singles they’d accrued, including 1965’s ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off My Cloud’, Aftermath was still a make-or-break moment for The Rolling Stones. While they’d written their own number-one songs at this stage, making an album that entirely consists of homemade songwriting is a different task altogether.
Nevertheless, they passed the assignment with flying colours, and Mick Jagger looked back on the album with immense pride. Although it was only released two years after their debut, the musical landscape had changed significantly, and the demands expected of artists were much higher than when The Stones emerged. Many bands failed to adapt, but with Aftermath, The Rolling Stones proved they were set to stay for the long haul.
In addition to scoring another chart-topping release, it included several classic tracks, most notably ‘Paint It Black‘. While Aftermath isn’t as refined or demonstrative of The Rolling Stones’ magnificence as later releases, such as Between The Buttons, Beggars Banquet, or Their Satanic Majesties Request, it set the foundations for those three albums to be forged.
This view is shared by Jagger, who told Rolling Stone in 1995, “That was a big landmark record for me. It’s the first time we wrote the whole record and finally laid to rest the ghost of having to do these very nice and interesting, no doubt, but still cover versions of old R&B songs – which we didn’t really feel we were doing justice, to be perfectly honest, particularly because we didn’t have the maturity. Plus, everyone was doing it.”
The rock ‘n’ roll icon also explained how the album provided a more thorough exploration of their wide-ranging artistry, which was previously impossible while being largely reliant on covers. Jagger remarked: “[Aftermath] has a very wide spectrum of music styles: ‘Paint It, Black’ was this kind of Turkish song; and there were also very bluesy things like ‘Goin’ Home’; and I remember some sort of ballads on there. It had a lot of good songs, it had a lot of different styles, and it was very well recorded. So it was, to my mind, a real marker.”
While The Rolling Stones were still establishing their identity during the making of Aftermath, it showed them who they were as artists, which they wouldn’t have discovered without stepping away from the comfort of covers. By no stretch of the imagination is Aftermath, their most complete body of work, but it’s difficult to play down its importance.
