The Rolling Stones are featured on "The Rest Is History"

This might seem like an unusual topic for a history podcast, but co-host Dominic Sandbrook wrote his doctorate on American politics in the 1960's and has written multiple books on post-WWII Britain.  He has a unique talent for tapping into the essence of baby boomer politics and culture. In the first episode of a two-part series, he demonstrates a keen understanding of how the Stones filled a unique niche in British culture, along with a solid grasp of the music criticism of the time.

Naturally, the Beatles also lurk in and out of the story.  Sandbrook opens up a contentious debate topic by claiming that if the Beatles hadn't come along, then some other British group would have blown up just as big in their place.  He doesn't argue that another group could have matched the Beatles' musical genius, only that another band's mania would have filled the same cultural space occupied by the Beatles.  His point is that the conditions were ripe for a group to break through into superstardom.  The market had been wholly prepped toward the teen demographic, and skyrocketing music sales indicated that the interest was absolutely there.  The cyclical nature of teen heartthrob bands in the six decades since seems to prove this point.  When it comes to "boy" or "girl" bands transcending the culture, it's always just been a matter of time.   

Thus, the genius of the Beatles (and the Stones) isn't born out by the fact that they broke through, it's that they lasted as long as they did.  Careers were short in the 50's and 60's, which is why most artists were struggling to maintain a career on the oldies circuit less than a decade after their peak. A new cohort of teenagers came rose up every couple of years, while the previous cohort aged out and took their favourite bands with them.  A promoter had one or two years tops to milk every red cent out of a musical fad before it faded away permanently.  A record would become a hit and would be quickly followed by a slew of copycat and/or response records.  The turnaround time had to be weeks or months.  Long term investment in a band for their artistic vision was a concept that had little meaning.  All in all, yes, I believe that some other band other than the Beatles would have been pushed into a pre-arranged spot that had been carved out for them by the record industry.  They probably wouldn't have broken America or lasted beyond a couple of albums.  But in the short term, it would have worked.  

Sandbrook describes the Andrew Loog Oldham enigma wonderfully.  Here, I hadn't appreciated many key aspects about his role in shaping the band into what they became.  Oldham was just nineteen years when he started managing the Stones.  At the time, he knew nothing about music or the music industry.  He just knew that there was a lot of money to be made.  The image of the Stones as a bad boy group of misfits (leading to the infamous "would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?") was entirely manufactured by him.  In reality, the Beatles were the true working class misfits, but were presented as clean cut and wholly presentable.  The Stones were middle class ex-grammar school students.  Mick Jagger dropped out of the London School of Economics to devote himself fully to the band.  Charlie Watts trained as a graphic designer, loved jazz more than rock and roll, and was married until the day he died to a woman he met before even joining the Stones.  There was nothing even remotely bad boy about him.  But somehow, a complete industry neophyte like Oldham correctly read the cultural winds where so many others had failed.  He recognized the need to market his crew as a stark alternative to the Beatles.  He recognized that the prevailing trends were moving towards bands writing their own song -- a bold risk that paid off when Jagger and Richards proved to be brilliant songwriters.

Part 2 jumps ahead to the end of the 60's, covering the death of Brian Jones and the tragedy of Altamont -- topics that fall even more into Sandbrook's wheelhouse.