According to the Rolling Stones
by The Rolling Stones
List Price:
Our Price: $9.55
You Save: $10.40 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.76 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: The Rolling StonesBrand: Music Sales
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-10
ISBN: 0811840603
Number of pages: 360
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Book Reviews of According to the Rolling Stones
Book Review: "Little More Gloss on those Red Lips, Please"
Summary: 5 Stars
The Stones and the PR industry get along very well. The relationship could be summed up by a London tabloid in the headline, "Stones + PR = Hot and Heavy"
To the Stones, the PR industry is a young professional woman, like one from a Brooks Brothers catalog, wearing a lightweight sweater of elastic, ribbed grey wool over a smile-inducing bust just a little bit larger than one would expect. And the PR industry returns the favor, shining its most flattering light on these four sexagenarians, doing its best work for them. This is an interesting book, just as the bright young lass posited above, is an object of above average interest. One reads with willing eyes, but one also sees, in the way the book reproduces the quotes from the documentary included with the DVD set `Four Flicks,' that a lot of work has been put into polishing the apple. Newsflash: the Stones don't actually talk like that. What look like off the cuff remarks on the DVD are actually set pieces based on the silky quotations crafted for the book. I can't knock it. Darn, I know magazine covers are air-brushed, but I look anyway.
It's a way better book, even if it serves up the Stones like jelly on crumpets, than Wyman's "Rolling with the Stones," which, in comparison, is a view of the Stones from the position of one locked in the rumble seat. He was there, but I think all he did was collect receipts and make diary entries.
The Stones prove themselves not above trading on their legend and even sugar-coating it a little; you can't tell if they hold their noses while keeping up appearances, but I think they do it at Jagger's behest, knowing that it must be if they're to stay in the business they love so well. I've focused my listening energies on the Stones for a about a year now, so I forgive them for the top-dressing, because over time, I have found in their music an eerie combination of the utterly ordinary and completely magical -- everything that anyone's said about them is true -- and this combination is evidence that they do fight the good battle everytime they collectively pick up their instruments to create music. This is why I believe the Stones are the genuine article, authentic (authentic in italics), as the book's sources describe them. It's in the bones, as Keith says, but in saying that, he's just saying it's in all our bones to try hard and even win sometimes.
P.S. I'm authentic too, so why ain't I rich? Because I never mastered PR, not the way the Stones do it. As Bill Clinton might have said, "It's the PR, Stupid."
Summary of According to the Rolling Stones
Here's the inside story: the history of the Rolling Stones - according to the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood have come together for this remarkable project. They've also opened up their personal and band archives to include many rare and intimate images that are interwoven with the text. The book gets right to the heart of what makes the Stones the Stones, as musicians, songwriters, performers, and colleagues. They describe how their music has evolved and how it has affected and changed their lives. They also reveal, with refreshing frankness, how their own lives have helped, or hindered, their music-making. The Stones' own words - insightful, funny, poignant, surprising, and above all, completely authentic - are complemented by insider reflections from key players in their story over the years such as Ahmet Ertegun, David Bailey, and Cameron Crowe. A comprehensive reference section including discography, and chronology, studded with the Stones' personal comments on the music and memories, completes this must-read volume. Here, in their own words and images, is the life and work of a band which has played the soundtrack of our lives for the last forty years.According to the Rolling Stones hews closely to the formula set in 2000 by the publication of The Beatles Anthology. Like its predecessor, it's a beautiful coffee table tome with hundreds of gorgeous photographs, from childhood pics of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to concert shots from the 40 Licks Tour. The text is taken from recent interviews with the band's four latter-day members (Mick, Keith, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood). Notably missing, however, is any contribution from former bassist Bill Wyman, who left the band in the early '90s and published his own history of the band in 2002, Rolling with the Stones. Where Wyman is an obsessive collector and diarist, the other Stones are more impressionistic in their memories, lending an approach to history as casual as the band?s concerts are rigorously planned and staged.
The first half of the Stones story has plenty of high drama (tours through the segregated South, Brian Jones's death, Altamont), which no one seems eager to reflect on deeply. (Charlie is the only one even to mention Altamont.) The more recent years has seen a long string of ever-more-successful tours and ever-less-popular albums, interrupted only by Mick and Keith?s near divorce in the '80s, plus rehab stints for Charlie and Ronnie. While The Beatles Anthology offered the surviving members' interpretations of their experiences at a distance of 30 or more years, the Stones are still living the tale they're trying to tell--and they aren?t always the most self-aware narrators. Or generous: Wyman's three-decade tenure is given short shrift, but the book finds enough space for some unnecessary digs (Wyman has "tiny hands," we're told, and an "almost effeminate" style of playing).
To flesh out the band members' own recollections, the book also contains 13 essays from music-industry friends (Ahmet Ertegun, Marshall Chess), collaborators (Don Was), famous fans (Sheryl Crow, novelist Carl Hiaasen), and, yes, even the band's financial advisor for the past 33 years, Prince Rupert Lowenstein. Their views are sometimes fascinating (the unvarnished perspective of Crawdaddy Club owner Giorgio Gomelsky, the well-told stories of art bon vivant Christopher Gibbs), but just as often self-indulgent or sycophantic. Fans looking for an artfully designed volume of photos spanning the Stones' career won't be disappointed. Anyone seeking a comprehensive history of the band may want to wait for the band's definitive biography, which has attempted many times but has yet to be written. --Keith Moerer
History & Criticism Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in History & Criticism Books
KISS and Make-upby Gene Simmons
Crown; Published: 2001-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.50
Price in other shops:
Elvis Presley: A Life in Music : The Complete Recording Sessionsby Ernst Jorgensen
St Martins Pr; Published: 1998-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $199.48
The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone, from Noisy Novelty to King of Coolby Michael Segell
Picador; Published: 2006-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.81
Price in other shops:
Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presleyby George Klein, Chuck Crisafulli
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2011-01-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.49
Price in other shops:
Bill Evans: How My Heart Singsby Mr. Peter Pettinger
Yale University Press; Published: 1998-08-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $75.65
Microsoundby Curtis Roads
The MIT Press; Published: 2004-08-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.00
Price in other shops:
Hip Hop Americaby Nelson George
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2005-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Albumby Ashley Kahn
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2003-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.74
Price in other shops:
Jazz Styles: History and Analysis (10th Edition)by Mark C. Gridley
Prentice Hall; Published: 2008-01-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.99
Price in other shops:
Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garciaby Robert Greenfield
It Books; Published: 2009-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Clapton: The Autobiographyby Eric Clapton
Broadway; Published: 2007-10-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.86
Price in other shops:
The Rolling Stones: 365 Daysby Simon Wells, Getty Images
Harry N. Abrams; Published: 2006-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops:
Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Readerby Lester Bangs
Anchor; Published: 2003-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops:
Lifeby Keith Richards
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2010-10-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops:
![6 Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Rolling Stones / [2 DVD] Image](/images/6-Ed-Sullivan-Shows-Starring-The-Rolling-Stones-2-DVD-B005LJTU7E-X.jpg){kind=small}
6 Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Rolling Stones / [2 DVD]Uni; Release date: 2011-11-01; DVD
Best price: $29.00
Price in other shops:
What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivorby Jessica Pallington West
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2009-05-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops:
Rolling Stones: Some Girls Live In Texas '78Release date: 2011-11-21; DVD
Best price: $9.82
Price in other shops:
Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Bandby Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, Neil Strauss
HarperCollins Publishers; Published: 2002-07-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.23
Price in other shops:
Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'n Roll Bandby Bill Wyman, Ray Coleman
Viking Adult; Published: 1990-11-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.79
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stonesby Stanley Booth
Chicago Review Press; Published: 2000-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.52
Price in other shops: