The article critiques how Rolling Stone magazine historically portrayed the Rolling Stones’ later albums as triumphs, despite their declining musical quality. It reflects on the tendency of the publication to restore the band’s greatness retrospectively after less successful records. This practice highlights the constraints of media hype in accurately assessing the artistic vitality of veteran musicians. As tastes evolved, the magazine struggled to manage expectations, often leading to contradictory evaluations of albums like 'Undercover' and 'Steel Wheels'. Such retrospection raises questions about the integrity of music journalism and its influence on public perception.
Unfortunately, you can only return to greatness once, so when the next album would arrive, they had to retroactively downgrade the previous album that had been dubbed a near masterpiece.
The idea that it is a near-perfect album is, literally, insane.
In the past few years the reverence typically shown both the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan has worn perilously thin.
Nothing reinvigorates Sixties icons like having something to prove.
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