Pureplay of the Day: iHeart’s All Beatles & Stones Radio

Some Boomers will tell you that in the 1960s and early 1970s, everyone identified either with The Beatles or The Rolling Stones — but not both. The two preeminent recording bands of the era anchored opposite poles of a sprawling rock-pop continuum.

The Beatles: crafted, elite, highly produced, well-fed, boyish, experimental, their drug use in the service of musico-spiritual enlightenment.

The Stones: grounded, jamming, low production values, starving, old before their years, traditional, their drug use in the service of getting stoned.

If these two juggernaut bands divided the audience, iHeartRadio has been trying to capture the whole for over a year with All Beatles & Stones Radio. Presented on the iHeart platform, this unique stream is non-interactive — no skipping. Start it up and lean back. (All Beatles & Stones was first covered in RAIN here, with legal considerations.)

The station is a link to youth for anyone old enough. For others … well in last season’s American Idol episode devoted to The Beatles, it was obvious (and confessed) that several contestants had never heard a Beatles song. So the iHeart station could be a musical education for some. Either way, it is great, vintage listening.

Brad Hill