"In contrast, The Rolling Stones had become not simply the greatest rock band of all time, but the darkest, most ferocious band ever to occupy the center of the cultural mainstream."

I hadn't considered it in quite those terms before. Taking note of the qualifying "to occupy the center of the cultural mainstream," are there other meaningful contenders for this title?

Frankly, no.

The Stooges were darker, and quite more ferocious. But they occupied a place far from the center. The Velvets too.

To be fair, the Stones marketed themselves as dark, but towards the center. That's a wholly different proposition than any of the others listed. One was expression of cultural dissatisfaction from the center; the other from the fringe.

Interesting question is, if they both end up in the same place, does it even matter?

Led Zeppelin was the only possibility that came into my mind, but pretty quickly dismissed. While I might give Zep "heavy," they just can't compete on dark and ferocious.

And as successful and influential as they were, I think they were also much further from center, anyway.

Zep further from center? Do explain? They way I see it, 13 year old boys smoking pot in their bedrooms listening to Trampled Under Foot is pretty mainstream ;-)

ps - Zep was some dark, but it was in the, say, Tolkien sense, which is much different from Sympathy for the Devil dark (whether one finds that authentic or not) and much further away from the I Wanna Be Your Dog variety

Exactly so regarding the darkness. Zep wanted to evoke an epic, evocative "what hath been wrought here?" darkness, rather than a "oh shit, this is a bad place to be right now" darkness.

On distance from center, I think that your center/edge point is the key. The Stones were (are) a product of the center, but Zep (starting up in '68) were already a product of the fringe, and I don't think they aimed for broad appeal the way that the Stones always and explicitly have.

Also: I certainly wouldn't know anything about teenage boys smoking pot and listening to Trampled Under Foot. :)

The Stones wanted to be loved. Feared too, but loved. Or at least lusted.

Zep wanted to be worshipped in the Hammer of the Gods way.

Stooges wanted to scare the shit out of you.

The Velvets didn't even see you.

Holy crap. I think I need to have those statements letterpress printed, framed, and hung on my wall.

Guys, what about Black Sabbath???

I think that Black Sabbath fail the "occupy the center of the cultural mainstream" test.

Sabbath definitely had a position in the cultural mainstream, but it was (by design) as boogeymen lurking in the shadows, biting the heads off of bats, rather than as a band, exactly.

I'd go so far as to propose that until the rise of the big hair era, no metal band held a truly mainstream position (though the cultural fringe occupied by metal was and is extremely large).

yeah, i think you're right.

maybe we need to fork this conversation, I was thinking about it this morning, the birth and rise of Stoner Rock

That's a tough one. I mean, music has always gone great with being stoned, no? But seriously, Sabbath released "Sweet Leaf" in like 71?

But there are some who would say it starting in the early 90s with "desert rock" and that became "stoner rock". i think stoner rock and stoner metal are too different things. Sleep does not sound like Dead Meadow, ya know? but i would say they are both "Stoner" bands.

Fair point, I lump Stoner Rock and Metal together.

And while it's always gone well together, I do think the progenitors or it as a genre are Zeppelin and Sabbath.

I was in a meeting today with the CFO and our Senior Director of Planning and Budget. Our CFO wanted to come up with a slogan for Finance. I suggested "Embrace Adequacy" and he didn't get that i was joking around. Why are adults so serious?

With a few of my old friends, we play a game where we try to insert song titles or lyrics into ordinary conversations, to see is any notices (rarely). For example, if a bunch of people were waiting for a car and someone said "where is the driver" we might add "driver 8, take a break"

Childish stuff like that.

We still do it

Van Halen and Kiss were very much metal AND mainstream well before the rise of hair metal.