Leaving Stones Unturned

Bob Spitz has compiled a press-cuttings history of the Rolling Stones. Like much of their music, it is hacked together from other people's work, though Spitz at least gives attribution. The Rolling Stones is conventional rockographical stuff: a heroic legend, sensibly frontloaded. The first 350 of Spitz's 600 pages carry the band from postwar English childhoods to early success and the death by water of Brian Jones in July 1969. The next 200 pages describe the tax-dodging and depravity of their 1970s second act. The 44 years from 1982 to now get just over a page each, but even 50 pages are too much. The only interesting things the Stones have done since 1981's Tattoo You album are Keith Richards falling out of a coconut tree (2006) and Mick Jagger's solo recording of the Slow Horses theme tune "Strange Game" (2022).