As Keith Richards stubbornly maintains, "Rock and Roll is not about technology." He cites the example of the Stone's "Street Fighting Man" which was recorded in one take on a 70's cassette recorder.

This now mythic era's music makes many a fan nostalgic for a time when it was about the music, and nothing but the music. Todays music scene has degenerated into a fashion walk in Hell, and the shit music reflects it. Sure, Pitchfork's top ten is just great, but would you really want to listen to Sufjan Stevens more than once?

But was it ever really about the music? Godard's "Sympathy for the Devil" is about as straight a take the music of that era and how it was made as you could imagine. The film is largely made of raw footage of the Stone's in the studio recording the now famous song the film takes its name after.

Except everything about this raw footage feels contrived, from the way the rockers are dressed, to how they present themselves to the camera, to the chatter between the band and the recording booth. And the film wasn't supposed to be called "Sympathy for the Devil" at all. In Godard's vision it was called "One Plus One". His cut conspicuously leaves out a finished version of the song, in order to emphasis the transient nature of creation. What we now know as "Sympathy for the Devil" is actually as much a result of record label and management pressures, as it is an independant vision of the band and their creative process.