Aged like sparkling wine – the Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds

Let’s get over the whining. Let’s forget the persistent grumbling. Let’s just quietly ignore the fact that the Rolling Stones are long past their raw original reinterpretation of the blues and the blatant cultural appropriation that fuelled their emergence, together with the sexually-charged mischief that set them apart from That Other Band. Instead, let’s revel in Hackney Diamonds, their first collection of original new songs for 18 years.

Because, for the first part, it defies logic: it doesn’t sound like a band led by an 80-year-old lead singer, with a near-80-year-old pirate-guitarist and his 76-year-old ‘younger brother’ combining to produce the sort of energy emitted by outfits a quarter of their history. Even if you view the Stones today as barely bothering to masquerade their self-parody, they’re still capable of doing something that no one else is capable of: being the Rolling Stones. 

That point hit me someway through their set in June last year at their historically significant Hyde Park Calling gig. On what was my fifth time seeing the Stones live, and with Charlie Watts 10 months gone (his absence still raw within the band), they lived up to their moniker - The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World™. Because in the course of those two hours they didn’t put a step out of place to in any way diminish the Rolling Stones brand. And, yet, I couldn’t get out of my head the fact that this was an outfit then celebrating 61 years since former schoolboy friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reunited on a platform at Dartford Railway Station, forging a musical partnership that, even with frequent schisms in their own relationship, endures to this day. 

Not that they need the work. Their last, Covid-interrupted tour had barely ended before there was news of a new album, their 24th (or 26th if you’re counting US releases), although Jagger has maintained that none of them were in any “urgency” to record new material. And, yet, here we are, with Hackney Diamonds - 12 new songs, including final appearances from Charlie Watts (on the tracks Mess It Up and Live By The Sword, which also features Bill Wyman), involvement from Sir Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga.

“Everyone seemed happy to do a tour every few years and nothing for the rest of the time,” Jagger recently told The Times, adding that the business has flipped. “In the old days, the tour used to be a promotion for the record and the record was the thing. These days you make loads of money on the road and you don’t make much money on the record, which means you’re still selling tickets even when you don’t have a new album to promote.”

Picture: Facebook/Rolling Stones

He suggests that it reduces the incentive to make something new: “You end up thinking ‘They just want to hear Paint It Black [on tour]. They don’t want to hear anything else. They’re quite happy. Who cares about our new record?’”

Jagger clearly did, and corralled Richards, Ron Wood and drummer Steve Jordan, Watts’ anointed understudy, into the studio this time last year, setting the target of releasing it now, a deadline they met, reflecting the consummate efficiency with which Rolling Stones Inc. operates. 

In the end it took them just three weeks in a Los Angeles studio to complete, making use of chums who were around at the time, like Lady Gaga, who sings on the luscious, gospel-influenced Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, which also includes keyboard work from Stevie Wonder. Sir Elton John turns up playing keys on Get Close and Piano, while McCartney adds bass on the punky Bite My Head Off.

Viewed through the prism of the kind of commentary I opened this post with, it’s very easy to see Hackney Diamonds as The Stones By Numbers. As is the customary gag, they even let Keith sing on one (Tell Me Straight). But that ignores the fact that the Stones’ very essence runs through the album from start to finish (which, incidentally, ends with a cover of the song that birthed the band - Muddy Waters’ Rolling Stone Blues).

It is a very good Rolling Stones album indeed, and by a country mile an improvement on the somewhat pointless Blue & Lonesome. Some have suggested that it’s their best album since Some Girls, the album that signalled the end of their prime (Tattoo You, which followed in 1982, was cast in the same period and can be seen as largely a collection of ’70s outtakes). 

Here’s where they’re clever: from the outset, Angry, to the conclusion, you will think you’ve heard it all before, except you haven’t. No one ever bought a Stones record for Beatles or Bowie-like progression, so there’s not likely to be any disappointment with Hackney Diamonds. It’s a Rolling Stones record. It’s what they do. It’s what they do that no one else does. And it is brilliant.