"The Beatles Were Thugs Who Were Put Across as Nice Blokes, and the Rolling Stones Were Gentlemen Who Were Made into Thugs"

"While carefully allowing for mutual respect and admiration between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he reveals that the competition between the perennial 'toppermost of the poppermost' and their scruffier, sleazier runners-up motivated the Stones to match the success of pop’s lads from Liverpool, who were then driven to keep ahead of those equally calculating London blues-rockers, during much of the ‘60s. McMillian examines the creation of the marketing images for both groups, and he demonstrates how they were both, despite denials by members, complicit in their Fab Four models and thug five poses."

John L. Murphy at PopMatters reviews John McMillian's Beatles vs. Stones.

As does Tyler McMahon in Salon.

And Newsweek publishes an excerpt.