Creativity Quote by Don Was

A producer’s compliment that doubles as a sales pitch, Don Was’s line is engineered to do two jobs at once: reassure the faithful and recruit the curious. By splitting the audience into “longtime fans” and “new fans,” he frames the release as both payoff and initiation rite. The promise isn’t just that the music is good; it’s that the music will confirm an identity (“you were right to stick with them”) and create one (“now you’ll get it”).

The phrase “thrilled with these results” gives away the studio context. Was isn’t speaking like a critic; he’s speaking like someone who has heard multiple versions, watched takes succeed or fail, and is confident the final mix clears a bar set by decades of Stones mythology. “These results” is tellingly clinical, as if the band’s late-career output is a high-stakes experiment: can the Stones still sound like the Stones without becoming a tribute act to themselves?

Then comes the big, useful exaggeration: “the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world.” It’s a slogan as much as an opinion, a line that recalls the Stones’ own branding and the long-running cultural argument about authenticity, swagger, and longevity. Was is leveraging legacy as proof, implying that if the record lands, it won’t merely be a strong entry in a catalog; it will retroactively justify the entire myth. The subtext is confidence with a hint of anxiety: greatness here isn’t assumed, it has to be demonstrated again, for one more generation.