Read More @HJ Reviews: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll... Rick Engstrom Previews: Trailer, Studio Stills, Overview David Bruce, Webmaster

Several years ago, the New York Times ran an article entitled "Are the Rolling Stones Still Relevant?" There are essays just like it all over the Internet, comparing them to everything from a Vegas-style oldies review to an historical reenactment of the Rolling Stones on par with community theater. Every time they perform, someone begs them to retire. We hear how the songs aren't what they used to be. And at what point the songs began to tank is up for debate. Was it after Tattoo You (1981) or was it after Some Girls (1978) ?

It's always been obvious that film director Martin Scorsese loves the Stones by the way he's used their music in his films. (It seems like every trailer to an upcoming Scorsese picture uses Gimme Shelter as the bumper track.) Shine a Light is apparently his homage to the Stones. Using footage from two 2006 fall shows at New York City's famed Beacon Theater, Scorsese shot Shine a Light using Imax photography (and an Imax experience is clearly the way the film should be taken in).

Seeing the film reminded me of how I've always had a duplicitous relationship with the Stones. I love their 1970s albums. But whenever I see concert footage, I'm appalled. A friend of mine who saw the Stones in the 1980s summed it up: "They were sloppy and didn't seem to really care, as if I should've considered myself lucky to be in the same room with them." And when I saw the 2006 Super Bowl Halftime set, I was mortified and ready to join those begging for the Stones to retire.

I use the word "retire" with intentionality. The common assumption is that the Rolling Stones are too old to be doing what they're doing. Scorsese even takes this angle in the film. In Shine a Light, concert footage is occasionally alternated with archive footage of interviews from the late 1960s. A twenty-something-year-old Mick Jagger is asked by practically every interviewer, "How long can you keep doing this? Can you see yourself doing this at 60?" Then we are brought back into the present-day Beacon auditorium where twenty-four year old women, trendily dressed, are dancing in the front row while Mick flirts onstage with Christina Aguilera, all in order to show us that he's not too old to be a rock star.

Whether bands are "too old" to play anymore is not the issue. We are supposedly a culture obsessed with youth, but there are plenty of older musical artists not only relevant but officially "cool" in the eyes of the young adult audience. Johnny Cash did some of his best music in the last decade of his life (and everybody knows Johnny Cash is cool). College students are taken with Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop. And no one is telling Willie Nelson that it's time to retire.

The difference is the recent songs of these artists reflect on things like regret, mortality, and loss. The Stones would do so much better if they stopped trying to defy their age and instead use it to their advantage.