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Unfortunately, the Stones were confoundingly unstoppable by this point, so the disco album sold like crazy, too, even if every critic recognized its terribleness immediately. And when they haphazardly tossed a song they'd almost deleted five years earlier onto their next album, it became one of their biggest hits of all-time.

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Suddenly on a hot streak, the Stones plowed headlong into the '80s with a newfound willingness to try anything at least once. As we all know now, the returns never stopped diminishing after that point, culminating in embarrassing shit like this:

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Did those suits work on anyone? Ever?

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More than 30 years later, a lot of us are still wishing the Rolling Stones would just bring the embarrassment to an end already. It's a lot like when Michael Jordan came out of retirement to play for the Washington Wizards, the only difference being that the Stones probably aren't risking broken hips on a nightly basis to satisfy a crippling gambling addiction.

As for The Beatles, well, John Lennon died in 1980, so we'll never know if the original line-up would have reconvened sometime that decade to embarrass us all just like every other hero from the '60s did. If nothing else, though, the fact that they didn't even attempt to carry on as a band after that (aside from some studio trickery surrounding a lost Lennon demo in the '90s) shows The Beatles knew when done really meant done. Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones will most likely be the first band in the history of rock to break up in their sleep.

That's why the Beatles vs. Stones war will never have a clear winner. When your only choices are "Gone too soon" or "Way overstayed their welcome," how do you even decide?

Adam hosts a podcast called Unpopular Opinion that you should check out right here. You should also be his friend on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

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