The Spider and the Fly. Authenticity, Dualism, and the Rolling Stones

This paper is dedicated to the historical and analytical deconstruction of the dualism between Jagger and Richards. We show how it slowly emerged from a more homogeneous vision of the Stones as an “organic” collective, and we claim that this internal differentiation has helped to anchor the Rolling Stones to a narrative of authenticity. Over the years, Keith Richards has become the embodiment of this authenticity, a process that started in the mid-1970s, parallel to a process of increasing individuation of the members of the band. The emergence and stabilization of this dualism have become essential to understand the contemporaneity of the Rolling Stones and the balance of independence and commitment that has marked their life in the past three decades.