The Cambridge Companion To The Rolling Stones

Edited by Victor Coelho and John Covach

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Desiccating their satanic majesties’ bequest.

Described as “the first major academic study of the Rolling Stones”, this dry compendium of essays is an intriguing prospect for serious Stones fans (i.e. those who’ve bought all the authorised product and locatable bootlegs, read all the books, yet still find the minutiae of the band’s career infinitely more compelling than anything their wives and families might be getting up to).

While some contributions inform and sparkle (Bill Janovitz’s Guitar Slingers and Hired Guns), others rip the guts out of their subject. Coelho and Covach themselves routinely over-analyse the joy and immediacy out of some of the most visceral recordings ever made; trawling through the latter’s introductory piece on the Stones’ ‘63-74 albums and singles (basically a list bulked out as frill-free prose) only feels like an act of self-harm. With painful predictability, the last 40 RS years are addressed as an afterthought, and UK punk’s defined by a Canadian roots rocker with a PhD, Lester Bangs’s tired old subjectivity and a Simon Frith on his bookshelf.

Where’s David Dalton when you need him? ■■■■■■■■■■