Working from the premise that the collective memory of rock26 should dovetail with the artist who most accurately represents what rock music actually was, the Rolling Stones are a very, very strong answer.

There is too much preexisting mediated history to easily upend the status quo. The meaning of rock—at least in a broad sense—has already calcified. “As far as what artists get anointed, I suppose it’s just whoever or whatever embodies those [central] attributes in the simplest, most direct way,” Petrusich concludes. “When I think of rock ’n’ roll,