But were the Stones purely a rock band or a wannabe Chicago blues band as well? Their earliest albums are largely covers and even when they revitalized their career with Beggar's Banquet, they turned in a lot of blues recordings.
The Rolling Stones DO rock more than the Beatles but the Beatles have the more consistent output and better songwriting ability (even if it is not entirely rock and roll either).
In the 1960s, formatted radio was still not absolute so bands had to be able to mesh with all sorts of playlists. Things are very niche today.
"But were the Stones purely a rock band or a wannabe Chicago blues band as well? Their earliest albums are largely covers and even when they revitalized their career with Beggar's Banquet, they turned in a lot of blues recordings."
I always considered the Stones as a Blues band...if you listen to their music and not the crap on the radio...you can see it's 90% Blues....that was up until the mid 80's...then they turned pop....