Mick Jagger: “Keith Richards drove me crazy listening to The Beatles all the time"

Keith Richards was the original ‘pop person’ in The Rolling Stones

The band’s legendary frontman was often thought to be the “pop” member of the rock‘n’roll outfit and more focused on selling records than creating pure music, like guitarist Richards.

However, Jagger, who founded the band with Richards in 1962, has claimed it was in fact his bandmate who was more interested in pop,  Independent reports.

The Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making them the second best-selling artists of all time behind only The Beatles.

“It never works like that. Originally, Keith was the pop person really.

“I mean, I used to just write lyrics to his pop tunes and he wrote all these pop tunes because he listened to The Beatles all the time. “Drove me crazy listening to The Beatles when we shared a flat together.

“Keith sort of left that behind in a way, but he wrote Ruby Tuesday, Let’s Spend The Night Together – these were all Keith’s songs.

“But yeah, people will say ‘Keith was the one that liked blues’

I really like pop music now, listen to it all the time – Keith doesn’t.

“I still like blues but I like dance music and Keith doesn’t really like it.”

 Mick Jagger is denying one of the most beloved Rolling Stones stories.Contrary to popular belief, he now says late drummer Charlie Watts never punched him after a night of drunken revelry.

The moment was said to have taken place in 1984 in Amsterdam, when an inebriated Jagger called Watts' hotel room and demanded, "Where's my drummer?" Watts reportedly got up, shaved, donned asuit and then walked down the stairs to meet Jagger. Once there,he punched Jagger in the face and told him, "Don't ever call meyour drummer again. You're my fucking singer!""Didn't happen. No, not at all. Keith invented that story," Jagger says

Jagger also reflected on the transition from vinyl to cassettes, CDs and now streaming.

“Albums by pop acts did not sell,” he said. “What did sell was show albums like ‘South Pacific’.…Frank Sinatra might sell albums.…And then suddenly, the Beatles came along, and they started selling pop albums. So it was a huge change.”

“the interesting thing about it is that people of all generations can access music from all periods”.

“Before, if I wanted to, you know, buy an old blues record from 1955, that was really difficult. I had to do a mail order; I had to go into a specialist’s shop, even though I had plenty of money. To go and buy it now, I can just – there it is. It’s right there. So what does that mean? Well, that means that kids of 16 can access anything they want.” (NME)