With a brand-new album called Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stone is back.With megastar appearances from Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, and even Elton John, it’s the band’s first album in eighteen years. The group has been playing music together for seven decades at this point. It is their twenty-fourth studio album. First time participant McCartney plays bass for the punky song “Bite My Head Off.”
For lovers of rock and roll, McCartney’s presence on the record is a significant occasion. Though John Lennon sang on the Stones’ 1967 song “We Love You,” the rivalry between the Beatles and the Stones was always more hype than substance back in their 1960s glory.
“Paul and I have always been friends,” Stones frontman Mick Jagger, 80, mentioned to France 2 in conversation this week.
Guitar Player magazine was informed by Keith Richards that McCartney’s appearance was somewhat of an accident. “He happened to be around and dropped by. “I don’t even think he intended to play bass on a track, but once he was in there, I just said, ‘Come on, you’re in. You ain’t leaving till you play.'”
The British band’s fans are excited about their new album, but reviews haven’t been overly enthusiastic—mostly polite.
The Guardian rated it with four stars and stated: “If this is the end, they’re going out with a bang”, while the LA Times called it “surprisingly spry, sparked by the deathless riffs”.
Before its publication, there was a lot of buzz, with some even claiming that it was their finest work till Some Girls in 1978.
However, some were not impressed at all by the slick production by Andrew Watt, who has collaborated with pop artists such as Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa.
Pitchfork punned the term “hackney diamonds,” which is an ancient London slang for shattered glass, referring to the album as “a bunch of hackneyed duds, polished until the character has disappeared.”
“The group seemed to concede years ago that, with such a legendary discography, new albums and attempts at new styles are almost superfluous,” penned down Variety.
“(But) if there’s a better way to end the Rolling Stones 60-plus-year recording career, it’s hard to imagine what it could be,” it further added.
