CHART ME UP …THE LAST TIME

It’s been 30 years since THE ROLLING STONES had a Top 10 hit single in the UK. A shocking fact – and one which has deeper implications for rock’n’roll, says RC’s editor, Ian McCann

It was perhaps the last great record of its type… maybe the only one. It was classic Stones, a moment where they pulled all the shambling, disparate parts together, remembered what they were about and made something genuinely more than the sum. Where they set their rock’n’roll souls free.

The classic riff from Keef to open it. The arrogance of Jagger’s voice; that sound which defied his upbringing to be loud, lairy and bluesy. The endless churn of the rhythm section. It had all the true Stones ingredients they had traded on since their youth, and yet something more: the lyrics owned up to the ageing process. It was an utterly brilliant record.

What nobody could have realised in 1981 was that Start Me Up was not only a fantastic single and one of the few rock’n’roll classics to come to terms with the ridiculousness of becoming a silver-haired fool in a young man’s trade; this record represented the death of The Rolling Stones as a great singles band. And worse, that death meant that rock’n’roll would never manage to reconcile rough’n’ready pure party noise with getting old.

The Stones generally managed one such transcendent moment per album. You might think that wasn’t a great hit rate, but it was consistent with the works of their heroes, …

by Ian McCann
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