Megastars Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, the respective faces of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, last week reignited the decades-long rivalry between the two British supergroups.
McCartney, 79, belittled the Stones by calling them a “blues cover band,” while Jagger, 78, disparaged the Fab Four for failing to play giant stadiums — in contrast to the thousands of concerts staged by the “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” singer and his cronies.
Fans have debated the relative talents of the bands ever since they shot to fame in the early ’60s. But, aside from the quality of their music, the groups earned the joint reputation of party animals — at least after The Beatles ditched their clean-cut image.
Although neither appears to have trashed a hotel room or bitten the head off a bat, The Post asks whether the Stones or The Beatles were the most rock ‘n’ roll.
Staying relevant
The Beatles
The mop-tops hoped to engage with Generation Z with the launch last week of their @TheBeatles TikTok channel. It features golden oldies, interviews with surviving band members McCartney and Ringo Starr and behind-the-scenes footage of recordings of songs such as “Let It Be.” But the key project bringing the Liverpool legends to prominence this year is the Nov. 25 release of the eye-opening, four-part docuseries “Get Back” on Disney+.
The Beatles, pictured in 1964, are hoping to recruit fans from Generation Z with a new TikTok channel.Popperfoto via Getty ImagesThe Rolling Stones
Nearly 60 years after forming the Stones, the artists behind “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil,” who last week retired their 1971 hit “Brown Sugar” due to cultural sensitivities, continue to play to sold-out crowds at the world’s most prestigious venues. Their 2021 No Filter tour kicked off last month at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, with tickets costing as much as $500.
Drugs
The Beatles
John Lennon, photographed as a clean-living New Yorker shortly before his untimely death in 1980, was once addicted to heroin. Getty ImagesDespite mixing in hedonistic circles in the band’s early days in cities like Berlin, John, Paul, George and Ringo were initially lightweights when it came to substance use. According to McCartney, Bob Dylan introduced them to marijuana when they visited New York in 1964. The septuagenarian said it was so potent, it made them feel like “the ceiling was coming down.” Nonetheless, it didn’t stop McCartney from becoming a dope and LSD fiend. He was reportedly fined and arrested numerous times for drug possession in the ’70s and ’80s and even served a week-plus stint in a Tokyo jail for marijuana possession. Now, as a doting grandfather, he claims his liking for weed is all in the past. Sadly, Lennon developed a heroin addiction in the late ’60s, which apparently contributed to his increasing alienation from his bandmates. He had put his opiate dependence behind him ahead of his shocking murder in 1980.
The Rolling Stones
Guitarist Keith Richards was one of the world’s most notorious drug addicts — he reportedly forked over an astonishing $16,000 a week to feed his cocaine and heroin habit.Getty ImagesIt’s been well-documented that the hellraisers from London smoked, guzzled and snorted. It has been reported that Ronnie Wood freebased cocaine using a Bunsen burner he smuggled into parties. Tragically, Wood’s fellow guitarist Brian Jones, then 27, drowned in his swimming pool in 1969, and an autopsy showed he had a heavily enlarged heart and liver due to drinking and drugs. As for Jagger, he received a three-month jail sentence (later quashed) in 1967 for possession of amphetamines. But the Stones’ premier drug user was lead guitarist Keith Richards, who remains alive today despite having reportedly once nursed a $16,000-a-week habit. He was repeatedly plastered across the front pages after numerous arrests involving marijuana, heroin and cocaine. In a sensational interview in 2007, the eccentric strummer made the bizarre confession of allegedly having snorted some of his dad’s ashes along with some “blow.”
Sex scandals
The Beatles
Paul McCartney has admitted that, back in his Beatles heyday, he had a “wonderful experience” with two “hookers” in Las Vegas — a liaison he claimed was “the closest I came to an orgy.” He also divulged that Lennon was partial to the occasional threesome, once inviting a husband and wife back to his house and encouraging the woman’s other half to watch. Perhaps most revealing of all, in 2018, McCartney acknowledged that he, Lennon and their friends would enjoy mutual masturbation sessions “instead of getting drunk and partying.”
The Rolling Stones
British singer Marianne Faithfull, pictured in the 1960s, was involved with three members of the Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones.Corbis via Getty ImagesIt’s hard to know where to start with Mick Jagger’s headline-grabbing encounters with lovers of both genders. According to Christopher Andersen, author of the 2012 biography: “Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger,” the rocker seduced David Bowie, his handsome A-list peer, in the early ’70s. Other men that Andersen linked to Jagger included Eric Clapton and posh English actor James Fox, with whom he allegedly embarked on a “sort of romance.” Rather surreally, the biographer also claimed that TV host Geraldo Rivera once found himself trapped in a “sexual sandwich” between Jagger and ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev at a showbiz event.
As for women, Andersen purported that the Lothario had a somewhat “ambiguous” relationship with Princess Margaret, with whom he would party on the private Caribbean island of Mustique. But his four-year affair with singer Marianne Faithfull was widely known. Card-carrying British rock chick Faithfull happened to be the ex of Jagger’s bandmates Richards and Brian Jones. Another juicy detail Andersen claimed in his book was his estimation that Jagger, who now has eight children by five different women, had no fewer than 4,000 notches on his bedpost.
But Jagger’s exploits pale in comparison to the sexual proclivities of Stones bass guitarist Bill Wyman. In the mid-1980s, he allegedly began a relationship with then-14-year-old British schoolgirl Mandy Smith. The couple wed in 1989 when Smith was 18 and Wyman was 52, before divorcing just two years later.
Mutual rivalry
The Beatles
John Lennon fired the opening salvo against the Rolling Stones in 1970 when he accused Jagger and his pals of copying The Beatles. His claim centered on the release three years earlier of the Stones’ album “Satanic,” which, according to Lennon, featured songs that mimicked their music. “Every f–kin’ thing we did, Mick does exactly the same — he imitates us, ” Lennon said. A year later, he continued his rant, saying, “Mick’s a joke” and the rival band was “not in the same class, music-wise or power-wise” as the Fab Four.
Drummer Charlie Watts (far right) died this summer but his bandmates, the Rolling Stones, are currently on their 2021 tour, called No Filter.Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for ThThe Rolling Stones
In 1987, reflecting on the breakup of The Beatles 18 years earlier, Jagger expressed mostly disdain. He claimed it was “a very good idea” and added that he “couldn’t give a s–t” about the split that devastated fans. Meanwhile, Keith Richards twisted the knife in 2015 when he described The Beatles’ ground-breaking 1967 album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” as “a mishmash of rubbish” and a “load of s–t.”
Not only that, but in a precursor to Jagger’s oneupmanship over the Stones’ impressive concert record, the guitarist patronized the competition by praising their “lovely sound and great songs.”
Then, as a final insult, he snarked: “But the live thing? They were never quite there.”
