Agreed gillymor. If Sympathy for the Devil or Gimme Shelter (to name but two) were released today, they would sound fresh, exciting, threatening, innovative, inventive. These songs are more than 50 years old. In a world as fickle as pop music (and all its sub-genres) how many other bands or artists could you say such a thing about? I love the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but I think their sound has dated more.

If people are still willing to pay to see them perform, good on them. If the Stones still want to perform, presumably to some extent because of their love of music and performing, then good on them. Lots of people further down the chain will benefit too, from support acts to roadies to caterers to techs to journalists, and so on. Whether they play the blues badly or not, their music has brought joy to millions, and I and many others think they've produced some of the greatest songs ever put to vinyl. Go stick the intro to Paint It, Black on now. However you want to categorise their music, there's no way that that's 'bad'.