The Famous Times Keith Richards Insulted Other Musicians
via "Ask Keith Richards" / official Keith Richards YouTube account
Keith Richards doesn’t waste time being diplomatic. The Rolling Stones guitarist has long been rock’s reigning champion of the offhand insult, doling out jabs to everyone from fellow legends to fleeting pop stars without a second thought. His critiques don’t come wrapped in metaphors or softened with politeness—they hit blunt and unfiltered, often catching people off guard with their sheer audacity.
What’s remarkable is how often Richards targets not just rivals but his own peers—people many assume he’d share a mutual respect with. He’s slammed Sgt. Pepper, rolled his eyes at David Bowie’s entire catalog, and taken potshots at artists who helped shape the very scene the Stones once ruled. Sometimes it’s about the music. Other times, it’s the persona, the fame, or the lack of grit he sees in them.
And yet, for all the controversy his comments stir up, they’ve become part of his legend. Richards doesn’t insult to trend—he insults because he means it. He’s a walking reminder that rock and roll was never about playing nice. In the following sections, we revisit ten moments when Keith Richards let his thoughts fly and didn’t care who took offense.
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1. David Bowie: “It’s All F—ing Posing”
Keith Richards didn’t mince words when asked about David Bowie’s music. In a 2008 interview with Uncut, he dismissed nearly everything Bowie ever did, saying the only track worth remembering was “Changes.” For Richards, Bowie’s glam theatrics and shifting personas were more costume than content.
“It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing,” he declared, painting Bowie as an artist more concerned with style than substance. While many view Bowie as a visionary who reshaped pop culture, Richards didn’t buy into the hype. He even added, “I can’t think of anything else he’s done that would make my hair stand up,” doubling down on the jab.
For someone who built his own career on grit and authenticity, it’s clear why Richards saw Bowie’s chameleon act as hollow. Their approaches to performance couldn’t be more different—Richards the raw bluesman, Bowie the shapeshifting star. And to Richards, only one of those felt real.
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2. Bob Dylan: “A Nasty Little Bugger”
Despite showing admiration for Bob Dylan’s songwriting talent, Richards didn’t hold back when describing Dylan’s personality. In a 2014 NME interview, he recalled Dylan being a bit prickly—and even competitive. “Bob’s a nasty little bugger,” Richards said, recounting a moment where Dylan took a shot at him over songwriting.
According to Richards, Dylan once told him, “I could have written ‘Satisfaction,’ Keith – but you couldn’t have written ‘Desolation Row.’” Richards didn’t disagree with the assessment but noted the sting of the remark. The exchange showed a tension between two rock icons who clearly respected each other’s work—but weren’t afraid to throw barbs.
Things almost got physical between them during a night out in 1966, when Dylan claimed his band, the Hawks (later The Band), had surpassed the Stones. Though no punches were thrown, the moment underlined the fine line between rivalry and resentment. Richards remembers it well—and doesn’t pretend they always got along.
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3. Creedence Clearwater Revival: “It Started to Annoy Me”
In his infamous 1969 Rolling Stone interview, Richards didn’t hold back on his contemporaries—and Creedence Clearwater Revival didn’t escape his line of fire. At first, he liked them. “When I first heard [CCR], I was really knocked out,” he admitted. But that excitement didn’t last.
Richards quickly became bored with the band’s straightforward sound. “After a few times, it started to annoy me,” he said. The simplicity that had initially attracted him began to feel repetitive and uninspired. He described the band as “so basic and simple that maybe it’s a little too much.”
While CCR is remembered for their driving swamp rock and anthemic hits, Richards clearly found the formula too limiting. His comments suggest that while he could appreciate rawness, he still expected a band to evolve—or at least surprise him. For him, Creedence never crossed that line.
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4. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper: “A Mishmash of Rubbish”
Keith Richards never held Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the same regard as most music fans. In a 2015 Esquire interview, he said The Beatles’ so-called masterpiece was “a mishmash of rubbish.” For Richards, the album lacked soul, roots, and any real grit.
He suggested that the Beatles’ popularity with women—and their early retreat from touring—led to their artistic downfall. “Chicks wore those guys out,” he said bluntly. “They stopped touring in 1966; they were done already. They were ready to go to India and shit.” That comment alone was a dismissal of both their stamina and spiritual pursuits.
To Richards, Sgt. Pepper represented a band that had lost touch with its core. While others praised the album’s innovation and studio wizardry, he saw a project that had wandered too far from rock’s foundations. It’s one of his more pointed critiques—and one that still sparks debate.
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5. Elton John: “Lovely Bloke, But Posing”
Richards’ opinion of Elton John has swayed between mild tolerance and outright scorn. In 1988, when asked about Elton’s hit “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That,” Richards dismissed it casually: “Lovely bloke, but posing.” It was yet another shot at an artist he viewed as more flash than substance.
His criticism deepened years later, after Elton re-recorded “Candle in the Wind” for Princess Diana’s funeral. Richards saw the move as opportunistic: “I’d find it difficult to ride on the back of something like that myself,” he said. “But [Elton] is showbiz.” The implication was clear—Richards wouldn’t have cashed in on grief.
Elton, never one to back down, fired back with some of the harshest words anyone has aimed at Richards. “He’s pathetic, poor thing,” Elton told New York Daily News. “It’s like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go on stage and look young.” The two eventually reconciled, but the exchange remains one of Richards’ most notorious feuds.
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6. Guns N’ Roses: ‘Too Much Copycat, Too Much Posing’
Keith Richards has never hidden his contempt for what he calls posing—artists who focus more on image than substance. It’s one of his most consistent complaints, and few bands triggered that reaction more than Guns N’ Roses. Even though the group helped usher in a harder-edged sound to combat hair metal excess, Richards wasn’t convinced they were the real deal.
“I admire their guts,” he told Rolling Stone in 1988, before quickly undercutting the praise. “But their look—it’s like there’s one out of this band, one looks like Jimmy [Page], one looks like Ronnie [Wood]. Too much copycat, too much posing for me.” To Richards, the visual posturing was more than a style choice—it was a sign that the band didn’t truly understand rock and roll’s core.
For someone like Richards, who built his legacy on rawness, imperfection, and honesty, anything that looked manufactured felt like betrayal. Guns N’ Roses might have had the riffs, but in his eyes, their borrowed swagger and aesthetic mimicry made them part of the very problem they claimed to disrupt. In Richards’ world, you can fake a lot—but you can’t fake being real.
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7. Oasis: “They’re Crap”
Keith Richards didn’t just roll his eyes at Oasis—he went for the jugular. When asked about the band in 1997, he echoed Paul McCartney’s view that Oasis was derivative, but added his own blunt verdict: “They’re crap.” It wasn’t a casual swipe, either—Richards made it clear he found their whole persona grating.
“These guys are just obnoxious. Grow up and then come back and see if you can hang,” he said in Rolling Stones: Off the Record. To Richards, Oasis wasn’t just recycling sounds from decades past—they were doing it without any of the original charm. “I don’t hear anything there,” he said. “It’s all just retro to me. But there is an element of pity.”
The animosity even spilled over into real life. When Richards crossed paths with Noel Gallagher at a New Year’s Eve party years later, his opening line was ice cold: “Ah, you’re still around, are you?” For Richards, it was more than musical judgment—it was a dismissal of an entire attitude he couldn’t respect.
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8. Led Zeppelin: “A Little Hollow”
Despite giving Jimmy Page his due as a guitarist, Keith Richards never bought into the full Led Zeppelin package. His main issue? Robert Plant. “The guy’s voice started to get on my nerves,” Richards told Rolling Stone in 1969. “Maybe he’s a little too acrobatic.” As far as Richards was concerned, Zeppelin’s vocals leaned more toward theater than soul.
The problem wasn’t just Plant’s vocal range—it was the whole presentation. To Richards, Zeppelin’s music lacked something elemental. “I always felt there was something a little hollow about it, you know?” he said in 2015, nearly half a century later. The fact that his opinion barely shifted speaks volumes about how deep his critique ran.
That “hollowness” comment eventually made its way back to the Zeppelin camp. Jimmy Page, rather than fire back, brushed it off with a resigned shrug: “He’s Keith Richards.” It was as close as anyone came to acknowledging that Richards’ critiques—however sharp—are sometimes just part of the landscape.
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9. Mick Jagger: “Lost Touch With Reality”
Keith Richards hasn’t only taken aim at artists outside the band—he’s taken serious swings at his own frontman. During the Stones’ rocky period in the late ’80s, Richards and Mick Jagger drifted apart personally and musically, and Richards didn’t hold back in his memoir Life. “It seemed to me he had really gone off the tracks,” he wrote.
Richards felt Jagger’s solo ventures lacked direction and authenticity. “This is where I felt Mick had lost touch with reality,” he recalled. Publicly, he mocked Jagger’s new material with barbs like “Disco Boy” and “Jagger’s Little Jerk Off Band.” The tension hit a boiling point when Richards joked that Jagger should just join Aerosmith if he was so eager to leave the Stones behind.
When asked by a reporter when they’d stop bickering, Richards deadpanned: “Ask the bitch.” It was one of many lines that captured how volatile their creative partnership had become. Somehow, the band survived it all, but those insults were real—and unforgettable.
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10. Prince: “Insulting to Our Audience”
Keith Richards was not impressed when a young Prince opened for the Rolling Stones in 1981—and he didn’t hesitate to let people know it. In a 1983 interview with Musician, Richards slammed Prince for trying too hard: “He’s trying to be Stevie Wonder,” he said, clearly unimpressed by Prince’s genre-bending style and flashy persona.
Richards believed Prince’s downfall came from his attitude, both on and off stage. “He’s got a problem with his attitude and it comes across on record,” he said. “Prince has to find out what it means to be a prince. That was his attitude when he opened for us on tour, and it was insulting to our audience.” To Richards, it was a classic case of someone thinking they’d earned the crown before proving anything.
And yet, decades later, when Prince died, Richards offered a surprisingly heartfelt tribute: “A unique talent. A true original. So sad, so sudden and, I will add, a great guitar player. We are all going to miss him.” It was a rare moment of tenderness from a man better known for slicing critiques than soft eulogies.
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