Check out the Stones’ top 5 streams on Spotify and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the numbers: while they’re far outpaced by the likes of Chainsmokers and even Coldplay, they’re in line with U2, somewhat more popular than Zeppelin (who in fairness were late to the medium and are not active) and significantly more popular than Macca (who in fairness is not the Beatles). At least by this narrow metric, they’re in the same league as Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
This suggests to me that Joyce Smyth, Mick and co. are doing something right. The 2009 remasters that mean very little to us are reaching the people they were *meant to reach*.
I’d go so far as to say the band is in better shape now than they were in the early-2000s pre-streaming era.
What does this mean for the “new album” that seems forever in gestation? I can’t be sure. I’m thinking virtually out loud. But it could very well mean that the noise we’ve been hearing about batches of singles, different iterations of the same songs, or even an EP might have substance behind it.
When Mick dropped that single, it seemed like the format worked because the songs were topical for the Trump/Brexit era and because Keith apparently didn’t think much of them. But we should also consider that Mick was simply dry-running the piecemeal release of new music. Sure, the songs “bombed” — but there’s no reason to think future Stones songs will suffer the same fate.
One last thought: it’s very fashionable for big artists to put out music by surprise:
[
www.billboard.com]
The Stones have lost the element of surprise with *us*, but probably not the general public.
Who knows. We will all find out soon enough. Or not.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-11-21 18:16 by MelBelli.