Photo Credit: Mark Seliger
“I just saw Let’s Spend the Night Together [the concert movie of the Rolling Stones’ 1981 tour] and I’m convinced rock n’ roll must be on a life support system. Well, it’s time someone pulled the plug. Yesterday is gone.” – A letter to the editor of Stereo Review magazine, 1983
Imagine if someone had told this guy back then that the Rolling Stones would still be touring and releasing new music four decades later. Yet, by this point, it’s likely that few were surprised when the band had a hugely successful stadium tour in 2019 and have since gotten back on the road, despite being temporarily sidelined by the pandemic and even after the death of longtime drummer Charlie Watts in 2021.
Since 1981 – the era of a hugely successful album (Tattoo You) and tour but also the onset “are they getting too old for this?” continuing speculation – the Stones (now officially comprised of Mick Jagger, founding guitarist Keith Richards and second axeman Ron Wood) have only released a half-dozen studio albums, none of which have had anything close to the cultural impact of earlier classics like Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Exile on Main Street or even Some Girls.
Nor, most likely, will Hackney Diamonds, the Stones’ first new album of all-new material in eighteen years. But the record still offers plenty of reasons to celebrate the band’s belated return to studio work. The album cuts right to the chase with the opening track (and first single) “Angry,” which wastes no time in introducing a classic Stones guitar riff before juxtaposing it with a hooky pop chorus, and the balance is nearly flawless. “Get Close,” then, is a killer mid-tempo in the vein of the 1971 classic “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” (right down to the saxophone solo, in this case courtesy of James King). “Depending on You,” then, is a traditional but still quite fresh-sounding Stones love song.
While dozens of outside musicians have played on Stones albums over the years, the band has never made a practice of featuring major guest performers. But no doubt recognizing a clear-cut now-or-never scenario (Jagger and Richards are both eighty years old), they’ve now seized the chance to invite some of their longtime peers into the fold. Most notably on the rocker “Bite My Head Off,” where Paul McCartney plays bass and helps everyone remember that this was his primary instrument. Not to be outdone, original Stones bassist Bill Wyman takes over on the fittingly more Sixties-ish “Live by the Sword,” which also features Elton John (as does the aforementioned “Get Close”).
“Whole Wide World,” one of a couple of tracks that seem a bit closer to slick ’80s production, offers up the Stones’ mantra circa 2023: “And you think the party’s over // But it’s only just begun.” Regardless, Hockney Diamonds does lose just a bit of its shine about halfway through. The twang-laden “Dreamy Skies” is the obligatory lean towards American country music, but is nowhere as unique or enjoyable as some of the band’s previous forays into that genre (“Faraway Eyes”). While they hardly mess up “Mess It Up” the cut is nothing extraordinary, and then the token Richards-sang track “Tell Me Straight” is straight-up just okay.
Celebrity guests return for the seven-plus minute track “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” a grandiose gospel-inspired Let It Bleed era-type epic featuring keyboards by Stevie Wonder and Janis Joplin-like backing vocals provided by Lady Gaga (as if to show the Stones’ multi-generational reach). This works very well as a climax before the band adds a tag scene with a stripped-down and traditional cover of Muddy Waters’ “Rolling Stone Blues.” The song, originally from 1950 (sometimes called simply “Rollin’ Stone”) which is both where the band got their name from and the sound which they originally embraced, seems meant to send a very obvious message: with a very good chance that this will end up as their final studio album, the Rolling Stones want to end where they began. But Hackney Diamonds was really not meant for anyone to overthink, only to be enjoyed, which most Rolling Stones – or rock – fans definitely will.
Your never to old