Opinion
06 Oct 23

Album Review: The Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds – "The Old Gods Are With Us Still"


Mark Seliger

Pat Carty

Are the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world still in there? Stones hardliner Pat Carty takes a listen and offers his evaluation.

I put on the vinyl copy of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! I’ve had since I was a teenager. There’s a few crackles and then the voice of tour manager Sam Cutler asks, “Is everybody ready… for the next band… We’re sorry for the delay… the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world… The Rolling Stones!”

After much rumour and speculation, the Stones that are still standing announced a new album, Hackney Diamonds, on September 6. It was on the same date eighteen years ago in 2005 that they released their last album of new material, A Bigger Bang. My daughter was born the year after and she’s now doing her Leaving Cert. That’s a long time. “We’re sorry for the delay.”

It’s not like The Stones were sitting around scratching their arses in the intervening years, or at least not all the time anyway. There were augmented archival releases, the enjoyable zombies-in-the-swamp action of ‘Doom And Gloom’, and 2016’s slightly over-produced but still pretty great blues covers album Blue & Lonesome which had one quite possibly inebriated hack speculating, after a spectacular night out in Hamburg, that “they’re plugging into their past to get the power back on.” During lockdown they treated the most captive audience in history to the appropriately titled ‘Living In A Ghost Town’ single, which prompted the same amadán to comment that, “The twilight of the gods is a ways off yet.”

But is it still a ways off? Can the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world – and remember, Cutler was saying that at a time when there could have been little doubt – still be in there somewhere? Can they, like Dylan, Cohen, Bowie and, more appropriately, Muddy Waters before them, deliver a classic this late in the day?

And can a lifelong fanatic who sees the work they did from 1968 to 1972 as the pinnacle of all human achievement and can pick at least two or three great songs off every album since then – even Dirty Work – be trusted to review this record with anything even approaching objectivity? Will I too fall foul of the “new Stones album” syndrome where reviewers declare it “their best record since Exile/Some Girls/Tattoo You”, as they’ve done with every release since Exile/Some Girls/Tattoo You before filing it away with all the others?

A Kick In The Arse

“1… 2… 3” A drum groove gives way to the same sort of Keith Richards riff he’s been peddling since he first tuned his guitar to G somewhere around 1968, and despite the slight will-this-do whiff off it, it manages to be simultaneously as loose as a pair of old sweat pants and tight as a bend on a mountain road. Mick Jagger, sounding at least half his age, hollers, “Don’t get angry with me” and we’re off.

There’s a guitar solo filthier than your uncle’s jokes; the men in the back chant “An-Gry”; Jagger ad libs, imploring the missus not to spit in his face as he was only taking the piss; and, admirably making fun of his infamous amorous adventures, declaring that he’s off to Brazil; and Keith and Ronnie, in time honoured fashion, weave it all home.

Ok, the inventors of the wheel won’t be making any urgent calls to the patent office, but it rocks, it rolls, it’s The Rolling Stones. Is ‘Angry’ their “greatest single in 40 years” as some have claimed? I might cry out for ‘Almost Hear You Sigh’ or ‘Love Is Strong’ or ‘Streets Of Love’, but it’s a good one and there’s better to come.

‘Get Close’ takes its cue from ‘Slave’, the glorious extended groove centrepiece of 1981’s Tattoo You, the last Stones album that really was great, before this one anyway. Steve Jordan’s drums take up where Charlie Watts’ left off, proving he’s the right man for the job. On Keith Richards’ solo records, as great as they are, Jordan was sometimes a bit too loud for his own good, but on Diamonds, he’s playing in the band, not on top of it. Perhaps Jagger had a word, reminding him whose name is over the door.

Richards pulls another riff out of his seemingly inexhaustible supply, but the thing is – and you can say this about the majority of the tracks here – it’s not just a riff looking for a song, something they’ve been guilty of in the past; it’s a great song that happens to have a guitar riff at its centre. A saxophone solo worthy of both the late Bobby Keys and Sonny Rollins is another ‘Slave’ nod, and that’s Elton John playing the piano, because when The Stones put out the call, everybody shows up. This should have been the single.

‘Depending On You’ is the sort of mid-tempo, slightly melancholic number the Stones have written many times before, but this is better than most of them. As strings swirl up around him, Jagger shakes his head as another love heads off, and it’s good to hear him declare that he’s too young to die, despite losing again at the game he invented. All three of these opening songs are co-writes with producer Andrew Watt. Brought in by Jagger to give them a kick in the arse, his boot print is certainly on the seat of their collective trousers. No, it’s this one, this should have been the single.

I received an excited phone call from Stuart Clark who was also privy to an advanced copy of the album after we both donned ceremonial robes and signed solemn blood oaths. “'Bite My Head Off' sounds as much like the Pistols as the Stones!” gushed a man who fought bravely on the frontlines of the punk wars, and I can kind of hear where he’s coming from, as a bouncier version of the monumental noise Steve Jones spewed up onto the Sex Pistols’ ‘Liar’ comes out of the speakers.

Some Girls aside, the band’s 1978 riposte to the young pretenders which took on punk, new wave and disco at their own games, the Stones tried something similar with ‘Hang On To Your Hat’ on 1989’s Steel Wheels but it pales in comparison. ‘Bite My Head Off’ is driven by a furious and affronted Jagger (“The whole @#$%&’ ship is sinking!”), has some real kick to it, and of all the songs that you might have thought Paul McCartney would tog out for, this seems the least likely. Alright, Jagger’s “Come on, Paul, let’s hear some bass” is probably unnecessary, but if you had a Beatle playing in your band, you’d tell people about it too.

Bad Honky Tonk

There’s an undeniable dip in the middle, if only a mild one. ‘Whole Wide World’ – Jagger gives it some cockney while walking the “the dreary streets of London” of his youth – tries hard but tries a bit too hard. The country strum of ‘Dreamy Skies’ sounds slightly unfinished and could have used more Keith on the harmonies, although hearing Jagger go on about “Hank Williams and bad honky tonk” in his ‘Faraway Eyes’ accent before his harmonica comes in is far from unpleasant.

As a lot of the older material has been shelved, for now at least, the late Charlie Watts only appears on two tracks. He’s by far the best thing about ‘Mess It Up’, the sort of dance number that Jagger (some young one has nicked his phone and is sharing out photos) always insists on including. You can hear Charlie lifting his stick off his hi-hat as he hits the snare and it’s worthy of inclusion for this alone. And the riff because there's always a riff.

‘Live By The Sword’ reunites Watts with Bill Wyman for the first, and probably the last, time since ‘Highwire’ was added to 1991’s Flashpoint. The song might remind hopeless obsessives of 'Flip The Switch' from Bridges To Babylon cross bred with ‘I’m Gonna Drive’, the B-side to 94’s ‘Out Of Tears’ and it’s perfectly ok, like the other three songs in this slightly sagging midsection which, to be fair improve with repeated spins. It’s just not as good as the rest of the record.

Sweet Sounds

Long ago, before marriages and money and differing lifestyles and all the rest of it got in the way, Mick and Keith used to write songs facing each other. ‘Driving Me Too Hard’ was, apparently, written in the old fashioned way, with these two friends who will never get away from each other for all eternity cheek to jowl. Richards’ riff, his best in a long time, descends from the opening blast of ‘Tumbling Dice’, one of the most joyous sounds there has ever been, before moving slightly to the left, allowing his mate to bemoan another lover’s unreasonable demands. Richards steps out of the riff into a guitar solo as rickety as a house of cards in a hurricane and as solid as a lonsdaleite redwood that couldn’t be from anyone else and there’s even a nod to ‘Soul Survivor’, the closing track on the greatest record ever made.

One of the joys of the last fifty years of Stones records has been Richards’ unlikely emergence as a great balladeer. It’s no accident that he’s often played Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘The Nearness Of You’ in concert because, in a way, he’s carrying on that tradition. ‘Tell Me Straight’ continues the line and if finally giving up the gaspers hasn’t magically transformed him into Pavarotti, it has added warmth and tone to his lovable rasp.

All this talk of greatest albums since whenever is one thing, but ‘Sweet Sounds Of Heaven’ is – by far – the best thing with The Rolling Stones name on it in decades. Let’s get the necessary out of the way first. Lady Gaga sings her ass off and adds just the right amount of wailing, complementing Jagger without overwhelming him. Stevie Wonder is Stevie @#$%&’ Wonder so naturally every note he plays is the right one.

That being said, the song, written on the piano in one of his many gaffs, belongs to Mick. On an album of exceptional, time-defying, vowel-stretching, soul-charged, goat-acting, Mick-Jaggering, rock-n-roll-defining Jagger vocal performances, this is where he pulls out all the stops. Listen to the way he climbs up the bridge before the horns come in and take the song a step higher. It’s his best vocal since the seldom-heard ‘Following The River’ on the deluxe edition of Exile On Main St.

It ends but it doesn’t. The band don’t want to let it go. Jordan starts a shuffle, Gaga comes back in alongside the bass. “Play me something, Steve,” Jagger says and Wonder obliges. Mick goes into his best falsetto “Oh Yeah” since ‘Worried About You’ in 1981 and adds to it with a stream of "HeavenOhYeahComeOnFallingEarthWoo!". Then everyone crashes back in – the horns, guitars, and drums are let off the leash – driving towards the final finish. It’s gospel, it’s soul, it’s The Rolling Stones. It’s the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world.

Back Down The Road I’m Goin’

Once upon a time, a young man called Brian is on the phone, trying to get a gig for his new band. The booker on the other end of the line asks what they're called. Brian and his friends look around them. A copy of The Best Of Muddy Waters (Chess LP 1427) is on the floor, perhaps even the same copy that Mick Jagger had under his arm alongside Chuck Berry’s Rockin’ At The Hops when he met his childhood friend Keith Richards on platform two of Dartford Railway Station on October 17, 1962 and they decided to do something. One of the tracks is ‘Rollin’ Stone’. They’re called The Rolling Stones.

Hackney Diamonds closes with Mick and Keith, all these years later, side by side once more, playing and singing Muddy’s ‘Rollin’ Stone Blues’. Richards bends guitar notes that stretch all the way from Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, where the young McKinley Morganfield first heard ‘Catfish Blues’, to the top of the world. Jagger, the most famous of Little Walter’s students, blows his harp before wishing that he too was a catfish with all the good looking women fishing after him. The last six decades disappear as Little Boy Blue identifies himself as the child who’s gonna be a rolling stone.

They might claim a next record is already halfway finished, but wouldn’t this be the appropriate place to end it, circling back to where they started, before they were a band at all, not to mind the greatest one the world will ever know? And are the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world still in there on Hackney Diamonds? Yes, against all sensible bets, they are. Is this the best Rolling Stones record since…? It might be the best one since Keith Richards’ Talk Is Cheap, the greatest Rolling Stones record that never was, and that’s something. The old gods are with us still.

[www.hotpress.com]

Okay, "best since TATTOO YOU", "Best since TALK IS CHEAP"... Let see who comes with some another "best since" album. Do these reviewers have a competition who comes up with the most unique title?

Boring. I guess it is a mission impossible to say anything insightful of this band and of their music any longer (the last one tried hard, though, but mostly fails. And has some stupid errors: "Hang on to your hat", Mick and Keith meeting in 1962). The band has outlived their reviewers and critics a long time ago.

But thank you for providing the reviews here. A nice move to let the reviews to go out now - lots of things happening almost every day and keeping us excited. While we wait.

- Doxa



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 10:14 by Doxa.

More critic criticism.

I pity the poor reviewer. Being objective about this band is probably impossible. Ever since I've been a fan - 1981 - I've been reading all these 'best since' reviews. Makes me think of a kid crying out wolf. This doesn't mean some of them might get it right (like now?), but you know, how can you take that seriously?

And funny thing is that when they did those albums that are now bigger than life and the external reference of brilliance (especially the Big Four), the reviews weren't that special. Not many spotted the brilliance or even recognized the masterpiece there. Probably back then it was cool for a serious 'critic' to say something not so totally flattering about them (isn't that the way to make a name and credibility for a critic by bashing one of the most popular bands on earth?). Since, say, UNDERCOVER, it has been the other way around. The Stones have been treated with silky glooves, like an old treasure beyond any real critical evaluation. And the critics also got old (the younger colleagues, out of politiness and respect, let the task for them).

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 10:58 by Doxa.

I remember A Bigger Bang being called their "best album since Exile".

So I wouldn't read too much into that. Still the four tracks we heard (including the leaked tracks) sound extremely promising so I think there is a valid chance that this album could be indeed the best one of their later career.

Quote
rogerriffin
it sums 42 variants in vinyl till now:



Blue by Universal
Green by Amazon
Transparent by roughtrade
Carnaby's Red
Red by Fnac
Fiusha jpc.de
Purple by Target
Internacional Black
Picture Disc by Official Store
White by MLB/rs.com (30 different covers/team)
Picture Disc by Blood Records
Paul Smith exclusive
Japanese with OBI

CD
CD digipack
Cd+ Bluray
CD Japan + Living in A Ghost Town
CD Japan digipack +Living in A Ghost Town
Cd+Bluray Japam +Living in A Ghost Town

Angry cd
Angry 7" Red
Angry 10" Black

Sweet Sounds of Heaven cd
Sweet Sounds of Heaven 10" Black

the most (and maybe) only surprising aspect of all this is (at least to me): Not even one of these variants features a single track that is not on the album (or has been released before like Ghost Town), no remix bonus track, not even the edited version of Sweet Sounds of Heaven, nothing, absolutely nothing

Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

Quote
Topi
Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

me, too. I see no reason to do so. I'm going to buy the album, of course. But a week after the release date there will be so many special offers for the regular edition. So there's no need to hurry

Quote
Topi
Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

You aren't. I don't buy any physial mediums anymore. I am looking forward to stream the hell outta the album.

Quote
Topi
Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

One hand here. I am so nostalgic that I am planning to buy my copy from the store the day it will be released.

Like a young Doxa going to get UNDERCOVER the day it was released... (now to think of it, I don't even remember how I get to know the release day. Probably from a radio. It was not so easy to get such info those days).

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 11:37 by Doxa.

Maybe not if you didn't subscribe to Bill German's fanzine

Quote
Doxa

Like a young Doxa going to get UNDERCOVER the day it was released... (now to think of it, I don't even remember how I get to know the release day. Probably from a radio. It was not so easy to get such info those days).

- Doxa

The young Liddas used to live in record shops ...

C

How can he even think of Depending On You as «blues rock»?

Quote
DandelionPowderman
How can he even think of Depending On You as «blues rock»?

I don't find it being "mid-tempo" that apt description either. I mean, "Start Me Up" is something like that.

But "Angry" being the best single since "Street of Love"... Oh yes, we all have an opinion, like we have an arsehole, but not all of us are writing reviews into respected papers (or whatever they are).

I think the result is that the Stones output since, say, UNDERCOVER is very hard for anyone really review. The opinions vary so much, you know, what is better than the other (like the diehards trying to reconstruct an edited, say, 12 track version of A BIGGER BANG or VOODOO LOUNGE). There is no such consensus for greatness as is with their old stuff. It stops with TATTOO YOU and "Start Me Up". Since then it is very subjective.

I think altogether the latter day material by the old masters who once made history - you know, like the 60's heroes a'la The Stones, Macca, Dylan, Clapton, Neil Young, Van Morrison, etc - is pretty hard to evaluate, and how actually it stands against their non-disputed classical stuff or against any contemporary stuff. They like live in the odd realm of their own, and no one really knows what to think of them. Usually the reviews for all of them are pretty praising ones. The reviewers, like the fans (and the reviewers are fans), are excited for having anything - the big audience probably not that much - but even among them the attraction pretty quickly vanishes. Does anyone even recall that The Who released a new, praised album a couple of years ago?

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 12:57 by Doxa.

Quote
Doxa
More critic criticism.

Not many spotted the brilliance or even recognized the masterpiece there. Probably back then it was cool for a serious 'critic' to say something not so totally flattering about them (isn't that the way to make a name and credibility for a critic by bashing one of the most popular bands on earth?). Since, say, UNDERCOVER, it has been the other way around. The Stones have been treated with silky glooves, like an old treasure beyond any real critical evaluation. And the critics also got old (the younger colleagues, out of politiness and respect, let the task for them).

- Doxa

I don't think the silk gloves came out until the 1990s - Undercover they were still a contemporary band, albeit pre-punk old farts, and were heavily mocked (Spitting Image et al) for their age and rock-god creakiness, while critically, the British music press hated their guts, and loathed them musically, morally, sartorially.
You were walking into a stiff wind if you liked the Stones in that decade.
It took the rise of legacy mags in the 90s to turn that around, along with their transformation from contemporary band to legacy brand with the Steel Wheels stadia, and the tours thereafter.

But whichever way you cut it, this new album does sound like a late-career game changer. The only two sets I often play since Tattoo You are Blue & Lonesome and Bridges to Babylon, and it'll be great to have this new one on the automatic changer!

Quote
MadMetaphoricalMax

Quote
Doxa
More critic criticism.

Not many spotted the brilliance or even recognized the masterpiece there. Probably back then it was cool for a serious 'critic' to say something not so totally flattering about them (isn't that the way to make a name and credibility for a critic by bashing one of the most popular bands on earth?). Since, say, UNDERCOVER, it has been the other way around. The Stones have been treated with silky glooves, like an old treasure beyond any real critical evaluation. And the critics also got old (the younger colleagues, out of politiness and respect, let the task for them).

- Doxa

I don't think the silk gloves came out until the 1990s - Undercover they were still a contemporary band, albeit pre-punk old farts, and were heavily mocked (Spitting Image et al) for their age and rock-god creakiness, while critically, the British music press hated their guts, and loathed them musically, morally, sartorially.
You were walking into a stiff wind if you liked the Stones in that decade.
It took the rise of legacy mags in the 90s to turn that around, along with their transformation from contemporary band to legacy brand with the Steel Wheels stadia, and the tours thereafter.

Yeah, you are right about that. But the British music press was famous for being harsh for them. Like they were for any British act going international fame (make it big in America, that is). And the big and almighty Stones were like the worst representative of all that what is wrong with rock culture. The critical British music press was always looking for new hot acts and trends (and they made those). But for that reason a wannabe cool kid like me was checking out, say, NME back in the 80's to see what was the latest thing going on in England. But at the same my heart was bleeding in seeing how much they loathed the Stones.

But I think the music press at the time was more kindly to them at outside their home country.

- Doxa



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 13:30 by Doxa.

Doxa, you're right - UK music hacks crucified them here at home.
I still remember, with rage, the dismissive review from a hack named Tony Parsons (British people especially will be unfortunate enough to recall his name) of Emotional Rescue, and especially his sneering contempt for All About You. 44 years have gone by, and I still want to smack him in the mouth - with Mike Tyson's fist.
But hey, all those bitter pretentious post-punk hacks ade all dead, old, ugly, impaired, unemployable, forgotten and/or long sacked from the mag that closed long ago ....
...and we have a fab new Stones album.

The best revenge will happily take its time....

I just got me an offer from Newsquest to buy me a copy of the Hackney Gazette with the ad for £30 so I bought me one Never paid that much for a newspaper lol.

Who wants yesterdays papers

Life's just a cocktail party on the street



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 14:18 by MononoM.

Just noticed the release date 20 october co-incides with the producer Andrew Watt’s birthday. Funny co-incidence, I presume. Sorry if it’s already been brought up.

Quote
Topi
Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

You're not the only one. I always buy it in the store on release day.

There's a release party in Oslo on October 19th. I might pick it up there, though (if possible. Universal are usually pretty strict about that - hope they won't be there)

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There's a release party in Oslo on October 19th. I might pick it up there, though (if possible. Universal are usually pretty strict about that - hope they won't be there)

Release parties everywhere
They probably play the record at 23:00 and start selling at midnight

Life's just a cocktail party on the street



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 15:17 by MononoM.

Quote
vudicus
Is it true that it has leaked????

Not according to the "reference" site [hasitleaked.com]

--------------
IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

Quote
MononoM

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There's a release party in Oslo on October 19th. I might pick it up there, though (if possible. Universal are usually pretty strict about that - hope they won't be there)

Release parties everywhere
They probably play the record at 23:00 and start selling at midnight

I hope they do. They didn't at the El Mocambo release party, though...

I remember the release of Undercover in the UK, songs we're played from the new album, radio 2 host Johnny Walker interview Mick, Keith and Bill separately but i will never forget the Keith interview.
Keith sounded strange, drunk but different, i thought it heroin and I'd heard him sound like that a few times afterwards although he claims to have stopped for good in 77"
I'd give anything to hear that interview again, I'm sure its in the BBC archives somewhere, he really lost his guard that evening, larger than life Keith at his fascinating best.
Obviously the band weren't talking and Keith was probably upset the album hadn't gone in the direction he wanted said he had nothing to do with mixing the album but it was the personal things he talked about that blew me away, opened up about heroin and how Mick helped him etc.
If anyone has the interview I'd be amazed, i taped it on cassette but it's long been lost.

Quote
DandelionPowderman

Quote
Topi
Let's see some hands. Am I the only one who hasn't ordered any version of Hackney Diamonds yet?

You're not the only one. I always buy it in the store on release day.

There's a release party in Oslo on October 19th. I might pick it up there, though (if possible. Universal are usually pretty strict about that - hope they won't be there)

I always make the same schoolboy error ...I order the album online, but it never turns up before I could have popped into HMV and bought one over the counter .

Did it again this time. I'll never learn .

I usually order from Amazon but have gone with HMV this time because, believe it or not, they were initially the only UK outlet offering the standard black vinyl . Fingers crossed they despatch promptly.

The Rolling Stones
The Houston Press
Virgin
"In 1994, I listened with a straight face as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards told me that in time, Voodoo Lounge would come to be viewed as one of their best releases ever, maybe even up there with Exile on Main Street (which, they reminded me, was universally panned upon its release). For a while, I even tried to believe that, because I'm a fan, and it's not like I want the Stones to suck."



Entertainment Weekly
By David Browne
Updated July 22, 1994 at 04:00 AM EDT
Voodoo Lounge

"Yes, they’re back: The Rolling Stones have returned after five years with a new album, Voodoo Lounge, the first fruits of their $45 million contract with Virgin Records. In the past, a new Stones record was a certified Event in rock & roll. But how does Voodoo Lounge fit into this era of grunge, acid jazz, hip-hop bebop, and pop divas? To confront these and other vital questions, we decided to get our ya-ya’s out by devoting every inch of space in this section to this bound-to-be-debated album, with reviews by music critic David Browne, critics-at-large Greg Sandow and Ken Tucker, and our usual gang of contributors. (We’ve asked them to divulge their ages to see if the generation gap still exists.) Read on to see how those dice still tumble.

Well, what a surprise: The Rolling Stones aren’t pretending they’re a ’90s band on Voodoo Lounge, but they’ve used the freedom of ’90s rock to make a fascinating album. Not since the ’60s has the group used so many adventurous sounds — the prim ching of a harpsichord, for instance, blending with acoustic guitars in ”New Faces” or the snuffling nocturnal chatter of ”Moon Is Up.” Never, ever, has a Stones song been so sparsely challenging as ”Thru and Thru,” in which, more than two minutes after a drumless start, the trembling thread of Keith Richards’ voice is slammed by sudden, massive percussion.

Yes, some tracks are straight-ahead rockers, in familiar Stones styles, but their lyrics come alive with troubled noir imagery, and their hooks are, by miles, the best from the band since Some Girls, or maybe even Exile on Main St."




THE ROLLING STONES
A Bigger Bang
Virgin
Robert Chrisgau
Blender, Oct. 2005
Former World's Greatest Band show how they used to do it

Old rockers make too many promises they can't keep. So you can bet the life and lightness of the Rolling Stones' twenty-third studio album will be considered a miracle. Without playing "best since" games, just say it ranks near the top of the eight they've manufactured since 1980. Note, however, that there are only eight, most of which drag or suck. Not even the most propulsive songs on 1994's Voodoo Lounge or 1997's Bridges to Babylon approach the driving interlock of "Rough Justice": Mick Jagger's high-energy drawl powered by Keith Richards's rude precision and Charlie Watts's uncommonly ecstatic beat. But if A Bigger Bang's lead track is worthy of Exile on Main Street, it would fall in line somewhere to the rear. "Best since" is a tough game with these guys.




A Bigger Bang Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music


"Eight years separate 2005's A Bigger Bang, the Rolling Stones' 24th album of original material, from its 1997 predecessor, Bridges to Babylon, the longest stretch of time between Stones albums in history, but unlike the three-year gap between 1986's Dirty Work and 1989's Steel Wheels, the band never really went away. They toured steadily, not just behind Bridges but behind the career-spanning 2002 compilation Forty Licks, and the steady activity paid off nicely, as the 2004 concert souvenir album Live Licks proved. The tight, sleek, muscular band showcased there was a surprise -- they played with a strength and swagger they hadn't had in years -- but a bigger surprise is that A Bigger Bang finds that reinvigorated band carrying its latter-day renaissance into the studio, turning in a sinewy, confident, satisfying album that's the band's best in years. Of course, every Stones album since their highly touted, self-conscious 1989 comeback, Steel Wheels, has been designed to get this kind of positive press, to get reviewers to haul out the cliché that this is their "best record since Exile on Main St." (Mick Jagger is so conscious of this, he deliberately compared Bigger Bang to Exile in all pre-release publicity and press, even if the scope and feel of Bang is very different from that 1972 classic), so it's hard not to take any praise with a grain of salt, but there is a big difference between this album and 1994's Voodoo Lounge. That album was deliberately classicist, touching on all of the signatures of classic mid-period, late-'60s/early-'70s Stones -- reviving the folk, country, and straight blues that balanced their trademark rockers -- and while it was often successful, it very much sounded like the Stones trying to be the Stones. What distinguishes A Bigger Bang is that it captures the Stones simply being the Stones, playing without guest stars, not trying to have a hit, not trying to adopt the production style of the day, not doing anything but lying back and playing."


Bottom line...
"Hackney Diamonds is by far the best Rolling Stones album in nearly 20 years!
And that's a fact!" Marc Jacobs

The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds, review: a raucous and dirty modern rock classic

5/5 stars

Jam-packed with Jagger swagger, this crisp and thrilling album is the Stones sounding as good as they did in the 1970s

By Neil McCormick, Music Critic
6 October 2023


Mark Seliger

Stop the clocks! Roll away the stones! As rock’n’roll diehards, electric boogie fiends, old groovers and true believers have hoped for, I am delighted to confirm that the new Rolling Stones album is the best thing they have made since their Seventies glory days. Which, it might reasonably be argued, de facto makes it the best rock’n’ roll album of the past four decades at least.

Two singles have certainly whetted appetites, from the Start Me Up-jolt of Angry steamrollering over any possible objections, to the epic conclusion of righteous gospel monster Sweet Sound of Heaven reaching such heights of rapture that you might actually start to believe St Peter could welcome the old rogues through the pearly gates someday – all that bad behaviour and Sympathy for the Devil forgiven. Surely the fact that having the sainted Stevie Wonder on piano playing his multi-coloured socks off and Lady Gaga trilling away like a fallen angel is not even the best thing about it should confirm the Stones resurrection to even the most sceptical.

Let’s be fair, there have been plenty of wonderful individual tracks since the last thoroughly decent Stones album of original songs, 1981’s Tattoo You. They haven’t maintained their reputation as the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band on live shows alone, and 2016’s sinuous covers collection Blue and Lonesome confirmed that they remained masters of the blues groove. Hackney Diamonds, though, has that added magical something to elevate it above everything the Stones have released from 1983’s Undercover to 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

The dozen songs on offer are jam-packed with Jagger swagger, Keith Richards’s riffology, Ronnie Woods’s sleek solos, the Glimmer twins’ aching harmonies, abounding with tight rhythms, catchy melodies, snappy lyrics, dirty energy and all bound together with lightning flashes of hair raising flair. They are certainly not trying to reinvent the (steel) wheel, but they do sound like they may have paid a visit to the Exile basement and reminded themselves what they are really good at. Scratch that – what they are the best in the business at.
Producer Andrew Watt has done a superb job of keeping the sound bright, crisp, loud, raucous and improbably modern. This is not the Stones at their most delicate or intricate, indeed, it is arguably simplistic to the point of being almost dumb, but then rock’n’roll doesn’t demand genius. It thrives on energy and feel, on lightning in a bottle stuff that can be desperately hard to capture with the separated recording style favoured in modern digital studios.

Watt built his reputation making records with the likes of such pop froth as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, but has lately been adapting contemporary techniques to freshen up the sound of vintage rockers including Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John and Iggy Pop. He has clearly been an enabling force here, taking a co-writing credit with Mick Jagger and Richards on the three opening songs, and playing bass on four (Richards and Woods both fulfil bass duties elsewhere, along with a couple of notable guests, including an old Beatle and an old Stone).

Paul McCartney pops up on Bite My Head Off, with a fuzzed-up bass solo driving through the thrilling middle of the Stones’s punkiest offering since they took on New Wave with 1978’s Some Girls. “Come on Paul, let’s hear something!” Jagger yells, just to make sure everybody notices that their old rival is in the ranks. Original Stones bassist Bill Wyman returns to reunite with the ghost of Charlie Watts on Live By the Sword, a throwaway number redeemed by that down and dirty rhythm section. The Stones’ late lamented drummer also appears on Mess it Up (one of two songs dug out of the vaults and gamely spruced up by Andrew Watt), driven by a fantastic stop-start Richards chordal riff before slipping into the sleekest Stones’ disco beat since Miss You.

It is lovely to hear those crisp Watts hi-hats in action but replacement drummer Steve Jordan (who has played on Richards solo projects since the early 90s) is on dynamic form throughout, absolutely driving through the wondrous Get Close To You, replete with a slashing Richards rhythm guitar riff and tight Jagger-Richards harmonies, with a sax solo from James King worthy of the late, great Bobby Keys. “Yeah!” Jagger can be heard purring in justified satisfaction at the end. The tinkling rhythm and blues piano comes courtesy of Elton John.

Depending on You is another winner, drawing out that Gram Parsons style country melancholy the Stones have feasted on over the years, bulked up with Hammond organ (from the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench) and lush strings. “I’m too young for dying and too old to lose,” croons the octogenarian front man, making 80 sound like the new 40. Dreamy Skies drifts deeper into those country plains, with the jet set Jagger improbably fantasising about being left alone with “an old AM radio” that “just plays Hank Williams and some bad honky tonk.”

Richards himself takes up the torch on Tell Me Straight, one of his lush, wise, deeply romantic ballads in which he wonders “is my future all in the past?” Not on this evidence, it isn’t. Driving Me Too Hard is another gem, with Richards and Woods’s guitars weaving gorgeously around Jagger’s sensitive vocal and closing out with big soul harmonies. The only misfire is arguably Whole Wide World, with an echoing 80s guitar and Jagger going full cockney to lament a lost past of “sex and gas” and, honestly, even that is better than almost anything the Stones actually put out in the 80s. “When you think the party’s over, it’s only just begun!” declares Jagger, and it sounds like a promise he is determined to keep.

The frontman is on utterly fantastic form throughout, never letting a vowel go unstretched or a groove go unpunctuated. Sweet Sound of Heaven is very much Jagger’s triumph – even with Wonder and Gaga on stellar form and a fantastic band pulling out all the stops, it is the ageless singer who leads the storm on heaven’s gates. It’s a track that belongs in the pantheon of the Stone’s very greatest hits.
It all ends in the sweetest possible fashion, with Jagger and Richards eyeball to eyeball, playing Muddy Waters Rolling Stone Blues on acoustic guitar and harmonica. This is the very song that gave the band their name, from an album the teenage Jagger was carrying under his arm when he bumped into old school friend Richards at Dartford Station on October 17, 1962, an encounter that set this particular stone a-rolling.

It could serve as a sentimental thank you and goodnight, a gorgeous bluesy swan song from a pair of musical rogues who’ve helped keep the world rocking for over 60 years, and a band that became the living definition of the most resonant and impactful musical genre of our times. Yet this album is just so full of life, so shot with love and energy, only a fool would bet against them doing it all again. The Stones roll on. All is well in the rock’n’roll world.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

bye bye johnny beat me to it



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-10-06 19:13 by Cristiano Radtke.

Great pictures, should be the album cover

Time will tell where those reviews will end up to settle
cant wait to hear the thing though

OMG!

I'm SOOOOO proud of this band!

I still don't get it - new albums, new tour possible.

OMG!