50 HIGHEST MOMENTS
1. Meeting Andrew Loog Oldham (1963)
This is where it all began, “it” being the vision, verve and sheer outrage-inducing smarts that Oldham brought to a hot club R&B band, to launch them into hyperspace. Oldham had previously worked with Chris Montez and The Beatles, so he already had the media contacts that the Stones would come to thrive on. The power of their music, the sexuality of their performance and the length of their hair did the rest.
2. Locked in the lavatory (1964)
Oldham knew there was little future for a band that relied upon other artists for their hit records (Chuck Berry, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, etc.), and he singled Mick Jagger and Keith Richards out as the members most likely to succeed. Simply asking them to try a song got him nowhere, however. So he locked them in the bathroom and refused to let them out until they’d written one. It worked. (See also No. 44)
3. Black and Blue (1976)
Not many fans would describe this as the Stones’ best album. Nor was it their most organized: Most of it was designed in a Munich basement, with a host of guest guitarists passing through. But it was certainly their most courageous release, the first to drop the wildest trappings of their previous image and iconography. It was the first, too, to turn a blind eye to whatever else was happening around them, and just turn every instinct up to 10. Here’s the rocker, there’s the ballad, here’s the epic, there’s the funk jam, here’s the reggae cover — even their critics didn’t know what to make of it.
4. Keith’s sleepless night (1965)
The story is as hoary as any rock legend, but when Richards woke up in the middle of the night, scribbled down the riff that was playing
