The Rolling Stones’ Six-Decade Career: Looking Through Their Past, Darkly

Here's what we've written about "England's Newest Hit Makers" over the years.

Illustration by Barbara Gibson. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Image; Michael Ward/Getty Images; Richard E. Aaron/Redferns.

The title of the U.S. version of the Rolling Stones’ first album was England’s Newest Hit Makers – but that was 62 years ago. Their latest is Foreign Tongues, a gutsy, vital rock n’ roll album from a band that helped define it. In between, the Stones released 25 albums, went through three guitarists and have had enough drama to fill several books and documentaries. Leaving no stone unturned, Billboard rolled back the pages to shine a light through the past, darkly.

Street Fighting Band

Reviewing the band’s U.S. debut single, “Not Fade Away,” in the April 11, 1964, issue, Billboard hailed “another hot GB group that proves how deep the R&B roots have gone over there.” “The Redcoats Are Coming” declared a June 6, 1964, headline of an impending Stones tour; in that same issue, a full-page ad trumpeted, “Watch the Rolling Stones crush The Beatles!” In smaller text: “This space has been given, in the public interest, by an advertiser.”