The Rolling Stones are overrated: a case for Black Sabbath’s legacy

This might sound like blasphemy to classic rock fans — the kind of statement that could get you blacklisted from every vinyl collector’s meet-up in the country — but I’ll say it anyway: The Rolling Stones are overrated.

Don’t get me wrong. I grew up with the Stones playing on radios at family barbecues, at dive bars, in movies. I know the riffs, the poses, the anthems. They’ve sold millions of records, packed stadiums for over six decades, and written songs that have, in some way, soundtracked entire generations. But as I got older, listened deeper, and thought more critically about music’s evolution, I started to realize something: if the Rolling Stones had never existed, popular music would barely be any different. And that’s not something I can say about Black Sabbath.

The Stones didn’t invent a genre. They didn’t even dramatically transform one. They were British kids who loved American blues and rhythm & blues, and who — credit where it’s due — brought it back across the Atlantic with style. Their early success was part of the British Invasion wave, and they always had a great nose for what would sell. Image, branding, controversy — they nailed all of it. They looked dangerous enough to scare parents, but familiar enough to charm the masses.

But musically? They played it safe more often than not. Sure, they wrote great tunes. But innovation? Sonic disruption? True genre-defining shifts? Not really. If you erased the Stones from history, the blues-rock movement wouldn’t vanish. The Beatles were already breaking the mold. The Who were bolder. Cream and Hendrix were bending genres into new shapes. And Led Zeppelin? They were creating the blueprint for hard rock.

In contrast, Black Sabbath didn’t just contribute to an existing scene — they created one.

Now picture a world without Black Sabbath. It’s not just that we’d be missing some great records. We’d be missing an entire musical movement.

No Black Sabbath means no Paranoid, no Iron Man, no Children of the Grave. But more than that, it means no heavy metal as we know it. No doom metal. No thrash. No grunge. No Metallica, Soundgarden, Tool, or Slayer. No legions of bands that drew directly from Sabbath’s dark, sludgy, and aggressively tuned-down sound.

Tony Iommi’s riffs weren’t just catchy — they were ominous, like the sound of a machine dragging itself across scorched earth. Geezer Butler’s lyrics dug into the soul of postwar paranoia and existential dread. Ozzy’s voice wasn’t just weird — it was prophetic, like a street preacher warning us of the end. Together, they weren’t just making music — they were forging an entirely new genre. And they did it when nobody else dared to go that dark, that heavy, that real.

Sabbath didn’t surf the musical wave of their time. They made the wave. And decades later, it’s still crashing.

Let’s clear something up: I’m not denying the Stones' cultural weight. Their fashion, their stage presence, the Jagger strut — it’s all iconic. They influenced generations of frontmen and helped define what it meant to be a rock star.

But there’s a difference between presence and influence. The Stones are famous — world-famous. But if you measure influence by how many musical directions sprang from a band’s work, how many genres owe them their DNA — then Sabbath towers over them.

Think of it like this: if the Stones never formed, rock history would still have the same shape. If Sabbath hadn’t formed? The entire underground, heavy, and alternative music scenes would look completely different. That’s not just impact — that’s tectonic.

We live in a time where legacy is often tied to numbers. Streams, followers, headline festivals. And in that equation, it’s easy to crown bands like the Stones as the “greatest.” But music isn’t just about numbers. It’s about movement. About what a band started, not just what they maintained.

Black Sabbath started something. They cracked open a dark, heavy, honest space in music that millions have entered since. And yet, they’re still too often written off as “that metal band Ozzy was in.” Meanwhile, the Stones get glossy documentaries, Super Bowl ads, and universal praise — even though musically, their contribution was less about change and more about polish.

This isn’t about canceling the Stones. They’re legends, and they’ve earned that status. But if we’re honest about who really pushed music forward — who truly altered the landscape — then Black Sabbath deserves more of that spotlight.

Because they didn’t just play rock music. They reimagined what it could be. And that’s something no amount of record sales can buy.