This just in: the Rolling Stones are old, vulnerable, and open

Yet another story about how Mick and Keith really do love each other, and how Jagger shows "a new openness" and "vulnerability," although how Robert Hilburn can glean evidence of openness and vulnerabiility from the lyrics to "Biggest Mistake" ("when love comes so late/It'll really hit hard/It slams through the gate/It'll catch you off guard") shows a talent for explication de textethat would have been the envy of Roland Barthes. Articles like this make me really hate the sixties.

I don't want to hate the Stones. Sixteen tracks is a bit much for a single album (Exile On Main Street, a double, had eighteen!), but for a carnival act they've accumulated about 145 years' worth of craft; it's difficult for Jagger-Richards to write a bad song, but it's just as difficult to write an excellent one.