The Rolling Stones Releases First New Original Album in 18 Years

The music video for the 2011 hit single by Maroon 5 “Moves Like Jagger” famously starts and ends with archive footage of an interview with Mick Jagger. In it, Jagger claims he thinks his band is “pretty well set up for at least another year”. As per the interview, this statement was made 2 years into The Rolling Stones’ operation - that would be in 1964. We were supposed to be shocked how much Jagger underestimated the potential of his own band back in 2011. Yet, then again, here we are over a decade later, with The Stones still touring and putting out new music. 

That’s right, for the first time since their blues record “Blue & Lonesome” from December 2016, which only featured cover songs, they are realeasing a new album. To get to the last album from the English rock band with original compositions on it, we have to go all the way back to September 2005, when “A Bigger Bang” came out.

However, there is a brand new, bona fide Rolling Stones album out there again. It is fresh off the presses too, having been just released on October 20th, 2023. “Hackney Diamonds” is another classic rock record from the legendary British band. Two singles have been released so far from the tracklist. The first one is simply titled “Angry”, which did not really blow up on the charts, to be in honest. It peaked at #34 on the OCC Singles Chart in the UK and at #32 on Billboard’s genre-specific Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in the US. 

For their second single, they got some help from some heavy players in the world of music. Soul legend Stevie Wonder was featured on the track “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, as was one of the biggest pop divas of the 2010s, Lady Gaga. This was a lot better received in the band’s home country of the UK, reaching the #2 spot on the charts, but not so much so “across the pond”, in the US. It’s linked below for your listening pleasure.

Allmusic.com has reviewed the new Stones record “Hackney Diamonds”. They gave it a 3.5 stars out of 5, writing:

“Because it has no grand conceptual hook and because the Stones so thoroughly integrate their superstar guests -- not only are Gaga and Wyman here but so are Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and McCartney -- it doesn't overwhelm upon an initial listen the way the lengthy Voodoo Lounge or A Bigger Bang do; that small scale is its strength. At its heart, it's nothing more than the Rolling Stones knocking out some good Rolling Stones songs, which seems like a minor miracle after such a long wait.”

They scored it just ever so slightly lower than their audience, which gave it an average score of 4.0 out of 5, after 276 votes. While it seemingly was not met with the hype a new original Stones record could be expected to do, it is no doubt “Hackney Diamonds” made quite a few classic rock fans quite happy across the world.