{"id":985156,"date":"2026-05-26T04:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/985156\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:29:18","slug":"why-grace-slick-called-for-the-rolling-stones-to-retire-in-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/985156\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Grace Slick called for The Rolling Stones to retire in 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Grace<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Fotopersbureau De Boer \/ Noord-Hollands Archief \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

With their most recent comeback having caused something of a stir amongst fans and casual onlookers, with many of the most ardent critics arguing that they\u2019re far past their best, The Rolling Stones<\/a> are probably under more scrutiny than they have been for some time.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, with less than three years having passed since the release of their last album, Hackney Diamonds, the rather laboured rollout of their 2026 return provided a proverbial nail in the coffin for many people when the limp lead single from Foreign Tongues, \u2018In The Stars\u2019, was eventually accompanied by an AI-assisted video that sparked significant backlash<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Large amounts of the vitriol came in the form of comments stating that the octogenarian duo of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, alongside their slightly junior Ronnie Wood<\/a>, were trying too hard to embrace modern technology and failing to understand how they were simultaneously displaying how out of touch they were with their fanbase\u2019s values. On top of that, the song itself felt like a flaccid rehash of old ideas, and that they\u2019ve finally reached a point of being the creatively bereft geriatrics that they\u2019d previously avoided being categorised as. <\/p>\n

Of course, some fans will argue that they\u2019re still enjoying themselves and paying service to them by stoically continuing to fight the good fight, and that any slight misstep, whether in terms of the music or other creative decisions, ought to be both expected and dismissed. If they want to keep making music that helps them feel in touch with their younger selves, then why should you stop them?<\/p>\n

The thing is, The Stones have been on the receiving end of this sort of criticism for decades at this point, and while contemporaries of theirs have proudly called it a day and are content with looking back on their careers, still respectably untarnished, Mick, Keith and Ronnie\u2019s refusal to retire feels increasingly less like a \u2018fuck you\u2019 to those who doubt them, and more of a misguided arrogance that has caused them to believe they\u2019ve still got the same pizazz they had in their heyday.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Credit: Kevin Mazur<\/p>\n

Now, not every band has successfully managed to hang up their instruments before a downfall of epic proportions, and Grace Slick, once of \u201860s counterculture icons Jefferson Airplane<\/a> and later of the rebranded Jefferson Starship and Starship outfits, certainly knows a thing or two about failing to recognise when you\u2019re beating a dead horse.<\/p>\n

Tumbling from the highs of \u2018White Rabbit\u2019 and \u2018Somebody To Love\u2019 at the start of their career and catastrophically winding up at the universally reviled \u2018We Built This City\u2019<\/a> only 20 years later, Slick realised that she\u2019d allowed her glory days to fall by the wayside and was releasing hot turds that did nothing to uphold the integrity of her career. As a consequence, her departure from Starship in 1988 and subsequent retirement from music altogether in 1990 was a line in the sand that she felt she needed to draw before the artistic self-flagellation worsened.<\/p>\n

If she was able to reflect and realise that enough was enough at a reasonable point, then why haven\u2019t The Rolling Stones been able to do the same? As a matter of fact, when interviewed in 2007 by Bill DeYoung, she had some hard truths to impart on the British rockers as they entered their 45th year as a band. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, The Rolling Stones are still pretty good,\u201d she conceded, willing to realise that there were still flashes of brilliance to be found in their elderly incarnation before swiftly caveating her praise with a harsh call for their retirement. <\/p>\n

Adding, \u201cBut you\u2019re listening to somebody singing \u2018I can\u2019t get no satisfaction\u2019 who\u2019s got lines all over his face, and the wattles under the chin are wagging back and forth. As soon as your chin doesn\u2019t go with your face, when you turn it real fast, it\u2019s time to get out of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stones have been plagued by wrinkles and sagging for many years now, so by Slick\u2019s estimation, their curtain call should have come long before 2007, let alone now. Their determination to soldier on should be commended in some respects, but at the same time, there\u2019s a point where this belligerent desire to continue in spite of their faltering faculties can turn into a source of second-hand embarrassment. <\/p>\n

As hard as it might be to accept that your deserved time in the spotlight has come to an end, to quote one of the band\u2019s finest moments, \u201cYou can\u2019t always get what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Fotopersbureau De Boer \/ Noord-Hollands Archief \/ Alamy With their most recent comeback having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":985157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,80484,80485,269,9942,16,15],"class_list":["post-985156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-grace-slick","tag-jefferson-airplane","tag-music","tag-the-rolling-stones","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116638999620636339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/985157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}