How popular are The Rolling Stones?

[pmc]

Personally I love The Stones. The 65-75 era stuff is some of the best music ever made IMHO. And they are hugely popular aren't they? You know, up there with The Beatles, U2, Floyd, giants of popular music. Well maybe not. Take a look at this.

http://www.last.fm/charts/music/artist/

This is last.fm's weekly play chart. The Stones are in 50th place. They are behind Rammstein and The Postal Service (and Modest Mouse and Evanescence whoever they are). And look who's #1, The Beatles. And this isn't unusual. They have a total of around 6 and half million plays on Last.fm. The Beatles do 10% of that in a week! They have a total of 31 million plays, meaning thay are 5 times more popular. The Beatles, The Chillis and Radiohead as consitently the top 3 in these charts. I can understand that but find it amazing The Stones are consistently so low. What gives?

[ba' heid]

This is surprising to me too.

I'm a Beatles fan but I like the Stones, especially the era you mention.

The problem could be with the Stones themselves still touring and producing albums that cannot match that high point in their career. So although their concert tours are undoubtedly of high quality the studio output has struggled to reach that standard.