The Rolling Stones guitarist talks about synthesizers, pop music and “screaming rap”.
Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones have long been part of the ever-changing music scene. Now the guitarist revealed in an interview that he has absolutely nothing to do with the current, modern world of music.
To celebrate the Rolling Stones’ new album HACKNEY DIAMONDS, Richards shared some insights into the new record and explained what bothers him about the current music scene. “The only way […] is to put the boys in a room and play and look each other in the eyes. I don’t even want to start talking about modern music. Drums at the push of a button and everything is synthetic. Digital recording is a disposable toilet,” he says in an interview with The Independent.
No pop or rap please
The rock icon had complained about the developments in modern music and the charts in the past and didn’t mince his words. “Pop music has always been trash. I mean, that’s the point of it. They make it as cheap and as simple as possible and that’s why it always sounds the same; There is very little feeling in it,” the 79-year-old recently told The Telegraph. He continued: “I like listening to music by people who play instruments. That means I don’t like synthetic plastic music like the kind you used to hear in elevators, which is commonplace today.”
Another genre that Keith Richards can’t handle is rap. To him it sounds like music from artists who are just shouting at him. “I don’t like it when people shout at me and tell me that it’s music, so it’s rap. I get enough of that without leaving my house,” he said.