Fans have been waiting nearly 20 years but on 20 October the Rolling Stones will release “Hackney Diamonds” – a new studio album of original songs by the legendary British band.
In an announcement on Wednesday, lead singer Mick Jagger said the album will feature 12 tracks. The first single – “Angry” – accompanied the announcement. The band did release "Blue and Lonesome" in 2016, but this featured exclusively cover songs making “Hackney Diamonds” the first of original songs in 18 years.
“Maybe we were a bit lazy and then, suddenly, we thought, let’s set a date and make a record,” explained the charismatic lead singer – who turned 80 in July – to the press.
The work is the 24th studio album by the Rolling Stones in the UK and the first with original songs since 2005, when they released “A bigger Bang”. It will be their first album since the band’s drummer Charlie Watts passed away in 2021 at the age of 80.
The Rolling Stones had kept the suspense surrounding the album alive. Its launch was announced in August in an enigmatic advert in a local daily, the Hackney Gazette.
“Hackney Diamonds, experts in glass repair. Opening September 2023,” it read. The announcement immediately went viral on social media, with fans spotting hints of the band.
In the text were mentions of hit songs such as “Gimme Shelter” and “Satisfaction”. The date the company was founded, 1962, also happened to be the date the Rolling Stones were founded. The dot over the “i” in the word “diamonds” was the famous logo in the shape of a mouth sticking out its tongue.
