I’ve been following the Rolling Stones for years.
In Year 7 at Fulham Primary School in Adelaide, I brought a 45rpm record of “Honky Tonk Women” to class. I played it to the class on my portable record player. I had no idea what the lyrics meant but the ding-ding cowbell intro, Charlie Watts’ opening 4×4 bass drum/ snare and Keith Richards’ open G chord become etched into my brain.
In future articles we might revisit some the “classic” Rolling Stones albums from the late 60’s early 70’s but for today we are looking at “Foreign Tongues”, the latest Rolling Stones album.
It follows 2023’s “Hackney Diamonds” which was their first album of originals in nearly two decades, and first since the 2021 death of drummer Charlie Watts.
It is apparently songs which were left over from the Hackney Diamonds sessions. One wonders why they were not made into a double album. They worked again with Andrew Watt. He is a 35-year-old producer who’s become the go-to guy for veteran rockers.
Among the tracks are some of the typical Stones blues rock swagger, such as “Rough and Twisted” and “In The Stars”. There is the country infected “Ringing Hollow”, the politically motivated “Covered In You” the gospel infused “Back In your Life”.
Let’s face it, the core group of Jagger, Richards and Wood are in their eighties. Is there another album in them? Who knows. This may be the last. I will leave it to our listeners to judge but the album has generally rated around 7/10 on various music websites.
If you would like to hear the album in its entirety, tune in the 88.0 HEPFM at 10am on Saturday morning.
