More than 200 million records sold. 2,165 million euros raised in the more than 1,500 concerts they have given. 24.6 million listeners on digital platforms. 31 studio albums. 4 Grammys and 3 VMA Awards. The Rolling Stones, the most popular and longest-running rock'n'roll band in the world, not only represents 61 years of unforgettable experiences for their many fans, but also one of the most lucrative businesses in pop culture. Thus, Fútbol Club Barcelona has associated itself with one of the great rock brands and, specifically, with its most popular logo: the famous tongue and lips.
After the release of their album Let It Bleed in 1969, the band was looking for a striking logo to give them an identity. Thus was born the most famous design in music history to date.
Always with the idea of the tongue in mind, the first sketches were devised by several popular graphic designers of the time such as Ruby Mazur, whose idea did not quite catch on with the group, or Ernie Cefalu, who devised much of the icon we know. now, but, as he himself has stated, "maybe they didn't go for my design because my language was too stiff and not as lively. Maybe Mick (Jagger) wanted to put a more personal touch on it."
The author of the final design was John Pasche, a young man who drew the emblem while studying graphic design at the Royal College of Art in London. Jagger went to school looking for emerging artists, young people with fresh ideas for his image and opted for Pasche. "He wanted something anti-authoritarian and rebellious, but when I saw his huge mouth, I guess I couldn't help but be inspired," the young man said years later, when his work was already a global icon.
It happened 52 years ago, in 1971, when the Rolling Stones were forming their own record company, RollingStonesRecords. He was paid 50 pounds for his work at that time (just over 70 euros today), a figure that is scarce even for the time, but even more so knowing the overwhelming impact it has had on a global level. It was included for the first time on the album Sticky Fingers, whose cover had been designed by artist Andy Warhol. Hence the mythical and false belief that it was Warhol himself who had designed the language logo.
The logo represents, to some extent, Mick Jagger's big, rebellious mouth. Although the vocalist did not directly inspire the logo, his role was fundamental, as he contributed a newspaper clipping that he had seen that showed the Hindu goddess Kali, goddess of eternal energy, with a long, pointed tongue.
The emblem also had a deep impact and would soon become a message of free expression and rebellion for an entire generation. “Sticking your tongue out at authority is a symbol of protest that has been used by various cultures,” Pasche has stated on more than one occasion, alluding to the spirit of the drawing.
Years later, the design was auctioned for 250,000 pounds sterling (about 370,000 euros at the time) during an auction to benefit the fight against cancer held in London.
The popular dimension that the logo of the legendary London band has reached is such that in 2006, during the biggest television show in the US, the halftime of the Super Bowl XL, the structure of the stage became the language created by Pasche 35 years earlier. Of course, Jagger, Richards and company were the big stars of the night.
Pasche, who created a simple and innocent mouth sticking out his tongue, must have thought that his work would be used on the back cover of the album for which he had been hired and some other promotional placement; he was wrong. Over the course of these 52 years, the iconic image of the Stones has been the most emblematic graphic of the music industry: t-shirts, caps, records, mugs, badges, safety pins, cushions, rugs, backpacks, keychains, bottle openers and even their own monopoly.
The last one, the recent collaboration with the Barcelona Football Club, where the brand new red tongue logo will appear in the center of the first kit that the team from the Catalan capital will wear against its eternal rival, Real Madrid, on the 28th of October at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium.
