The Rolling Stones

BIOGRAPHY

The Rolling Stones formed in London in 1962, debuting at the Marquee Club that July as "the Rollin' Stones." The classic lineup, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, took its name from a Muddy Waters track after Jones spotted the LP during a phone call to a journalist. The Jagger-Richards partnership quickly became the band's songwriting engine, driving the gritty, rhythm-heavy sound that helped define hard rock. Their run of albums for Rolling Stones Records, starting with Sticky Fingers (1971) and continuing through Exile on Main St. (1972) and Goats Head Soup (1973), produced staples like "Brown Sugar," "Wild Horses," "Tumbling Dice" and "Angie." Active for over sixty years, the band has sold more than 250 million albums, won four Grammy Awards plus a Lifetime Achievement Award, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. Hackney Diamonds (2023) topped UK charts, and their latest release, Foreign Tongues, arrived in 2026.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

Few bands have shaped the vocabulary of rock stardom the way The Rolling Stones have: fashion, swagger, and the idea that a band could age publicly while staying commercially vital. Billboard and Rolling Stone have named them among the greatest artists ever, and they've repeatedly broken records for the highest-grossing tours, topping the earnings charts again in 2021. Even six decades in, they keep testing that legacy: reviews of their newest work range from praise for a "raw, timeless surge of blues-rock" to sharp criticism of over-polished production, proof the Stones still provoke real critical debate rather than nostalgia alone.

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