What makes the Rolling Stones great?

They wrote Jumpin' Jack Flash

I looked back at all the editing to the question and I wanted to be more specific. Jumpin' Jack Flash is extremely awesome.

I'm not a music scholar, so I could be wrong, but a lot of Beatles was pop. It was great stuff, but the Stones is the first major band I can think of that really tried to integrate blues music in with rock. If they aren't the first ones they've got to be the most popular. Mixing blues in with rock is something almost every band since then has done.

Not only that, but in the band's earlier days they were hailed as being 'bad boys' in contrast of the Beatles clean-cut image. Which really set up every other band since then to have the bad-boy image.

I don't know, I'm not very good at answering these things. But if I was writing a paper on it I'd definitely say something about how they popularized blues-rock.

Every great band is unique . The stones were one of those because they wrote unique songs with good rock beats that even today are still being played and downloaded. if every band played the same, all music would be boring with no difference in their style. The Stones went going out on a limb with their sexually suggestive songs and no-traditional lyrics in their day. They took a chance and became world renowned because of that style. Some hated them , but the majority of teens at a time when freedom was pretty restricted they embraced their music.

Where the early Beatles were all about love and hope and crushes, the Rolling Stones borrowed the attitude and overt sex appeal of the American Blues and crafted those intentions into covers and original songs that brought energy and a bit of the danger into Rock N Roll.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon were cute and clean cut... there was nothing cute about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. As the Beatles ushered in an era of songwriting, the Stones too penned classic after classic... they might seem tame by today's standards, and many people may be way too young to know the Stones as anything but old men... but the swagger and raunch of their lyrics paved the way for everyone from Aerosmith to Guns N Roses.

I know you don't want to hear that they have great songs... but from Satisfaction and Under My Thumb to Angie and Waiting on a Friend... their catalog is endless and their music legendary...

Oasis tried so desperately to sound like the Beatles but act like the Stones... no one comes close.

The Stones had one element that The Beatles did no longer have. an surprising vast sneering in-your-face undesirable recommendations-set, and a lot of swagger. They gave an surprising option to those who could no longer % out with the fluffy puffy sugary Beatles.

Well, think about it this way, they were A REVOLUTION!!!!!!!! They were among the first bands that wrote their own music while most others were using professional songwriters, they also helped influence just about every rock genre there is, I mean, listen to anything late 70s-early 80s on. Fact is, they influenced just about everything from Punk to Metal, there is not one great rock band I know that is not in some way influenced by them.

My second favourite band.Why? their music is good...and I like Mick's stage performance...and what makes them not good?and the "Beatles and The stones hate each other" thing was/is just a publicity stunt...thought that is I do agree with No more.

=)

Edit:LOL!!! badfinger? gimme a break!!!

What else makes a great band? It's all about the songs!

Honestly, they're not great. They're very overrated. I mean, I don't even like one song.

If you ask me, Badfinger should be more of a household name than the Rolling Stones...but, thanks to how immensely talented Badfinger was, they're often overlooked.

Anyway, I've seen some live clips of the Rolling Stones and the vocals were pitchy and the guitar work just wasn't that great.

That's really all it's about. Great songs.

it was micks showmanship and how well they sounded when playing together...individually , i'm not sure any of them were the best at their instrument, but together they made it click...