Well, they have made the transition from blues rock to country rock to hard rock quite nicely, I'll give them credit for that.

I`d add soul & funk to that too.

They did a nice tribute to Ray Charles when I saw them last week with Jagger doing a duet with a female soul singer who`s name escapes me right now.

I think any diversity the Rolling Stones may have had, died with with Brian Jones.
He had an experimental attitude towards music and it would have been interesting to see what may have happened had he lived.
The competition with the Beatles would have been even more intense than it was.

It`s a shame he never really took to songwriting the way Jagger & Richards did.

I`m pretty sure he could have given Lennon a run for his money.

No, I'm not joking. The Stones have more ariety than The Beatles, yes, because with all the line-up changes the Stones went through, it brought more diversity and styles to the band than The Beatles.

Listen to the difference between Jones era Stones and Taylor era Stones.
A much greater gap in variety of sounds and styles than The Beatles, just because Harrison noodled a Sitar all over something.

Done by Jones first.

Brian Jones was an amazing instrumentalist. He could play almost anything.
Jumpin jack Flash can stand against anything the Beatles has done.

I`m not so sure thats true.

The Stones were always a blues based band who played pop/rock , maybe with a couple of blues/soul covers thrown in . They experimented with psychadelia on Satanic Majesties & Flowers but when it was obvious that didn`t really suit them they pretty much went back to what they knew with Beggers Banquet & Let it Bleed and give or take the odd song they`ve pretty much stayed with that.

I don`t see much progression between Jones leaving & Taylor joining , there wasn`t that much of a drastic change in sound between Jones last album Beggers Banquet & Let It Bleed which they both played on as opposed to Sticky Fingers & Exile which were all Taylor. In fact if anything they went back to their blues roots on exile.

I certainly don`t think it`s anywhere near the progession the Beatles made between Help through Rubber Soul , Revolver up to the White Album which was a phenominal change in direction, it almost sounds like a different band in some cases.

Oh and if you are wondering , I prefer the Stones to the Beatles.

You forgot Goats Head Soup.

All I'm saying is the fact The Stones had more people in their band results in more variety of sounds and apporaches.

The more members thing is a bit of a red herring really.

In the Beatles you had 4 members contributing different songs & ideas. Lennon & McCartney had the monopoly on the songs but the other members were free to come up with other material too.

The Stones on the other hand were different , it was ALL Mick & Keef. One of the reasons Jones became such a f*ck up with booze & drugs was because he was getting depressed at not being able to come up with his own material to compete with Jagger & Richards stuff & finding himself on the sidelines of the band he started.
As for Mick Taylor , he was just an employee who was just told what to play.In fact the primary reason he left was because he was frustrated at not being able to record his own songs. As for Ronnie Wood , he came from a blue rock background with The Faces so getting him wasn`t much of a radical departure from what they were already doing.