My views of The Rolling Stones was pretty similar to Galpy/Andrew Galperin (web.archive.org/web/20040606061143/http://home.uchicago.edu/~agalperi/)

I love the pop era of The Rolling Stones when they were The Beatles darker counterpart writing great 60’s pop song.
I actually thought Their Satanic Majesties’ Request was their best album initially.

However I found “Classic Stones” too americana, too bluesy/folksy/country. I had an aversion towards Americana music that I found offputting. Let It Bleed which is now my favourite The Rolling Stones album, My initial impression was I thought Gimme Shelter was great and You Can’t Always Get What You want was great and everything in between was mediocre. I initially found Beggars Banquet to be mediocre and thought Sympathy From The Devil to be overly repetitive. Exile On Main Street which was probably their purest americana was just too much and I initially thought it was their worst album of their career. I thought Goat Head Soup was a better album for a while.

My frame of reference towards music was very much britpop (I mean Parklife by Blur was one of the earliest album I consider great and my interest in music coincide with britpop movement. It was a musical formation moment that made me a very pro-britannia view on music and my belief that British white guys are inherently better songwriters than American white guys. To this date I believe British culture of communal singing helps them to develop catchy melodies at a more successful rate). Getting into classic Rock, The Beatles and The Kinks were easy digestible from that reference but classic Stones was more alien

I think the turning point for me to “get” classic Stones was actually The Kinks Muswell Hillbillies which was a loveletter to americana but it was strongly synthesise with british sensibility. That album was a gateway for me to get a whole country musical heritage. After loving that album The Stones made sense and then later on real Americana music made more sense afterwards