The Rolling Stones are easily one of the most important and influential bands in the history of rock music. Sprung from the friendship of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones began in the 1960s as one of the biggest British blues rock outfits to emerge from the club scene. They have become the self-proclaimed Greatest Rock Band in the World. At this point, it’s arguable that there are few to challenge their claims.

In the early goings, the Stones were primarily a club act, playing the scene in the cities of England similarly to bands the likes of the Animals and the Beatles. However, they had a more marketable sound and look than the Animals, and offered a distinctly edgy flair that the Beatles never could compete with. As such, the Rolling Stones came to create and define the palette of what would become the rebellious form of rock and roll.

As they grew in popularity, the Stones continued to push the boundaries of rock. They experimented with psychadelia in the 1960s, as did many bands of the period, but they found themselves gravitating back toward blue-oriented rock and roll as the decade came to an end. And while the Stones were most prolific as a creative force in the ‘60s, it would be the ‘70s that would come to define them as the quintessential rock group.

Touring constantly, the Rolling Stones achieved great success as they entered their second decade together. However, it was also during this time that the musical climate changed, and the Stones were seen as aging dinosaurs of a dying regime. With punk rock threatening to obliterate classic rock, the Stones released Some Girls, and their career was born again.

The band repeated this feat in the 1980s with the record Tattoo You. Critically-acclaimed at a time when the band wasn’t known for breaking new artistic ground, this record brought the Stones back to the forefront. It was also during the 1980s that the Rolling Stones performed their first “last” concert tour – an idea that is laughable with the band still going strong 20-plus years later.

And so the Rolling Stones have kept on keeping on. They continued their policy of releasing one great record per decade to keep them current enough to justify an occasional massive money-maker of a tour. As it stands today, nothing short of death (not even cancer to one of the band members) will keep the Stones from rocking on.