British rock band and music icons The Rolling Stones just dropped their latest album, Hackney Diamonds. Following a world tour and the recent release of their unexpected new single, “Angry,” starring Sydney Sweeney, the band headed towards a completely new project: a full-length album.
Hackney Diamonds: A Review
Previously released “Angry” welcomes us and sets the tone for the new album of the English rock band Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds. Off with a good, worldwide-appreciated start, the album, however, presents a slow decline throughout its length.
Despite being a good representation of the band’s longeval sound, Hackney Diamonds presents a vibe that’s, frankly, being heard over and over again. Trying to reproduce their previous successes, the band chose the safe direction by proposing an album that presents once again the bluesy sound that we so dearly learned to appreciate and fell for. However, the album comes off just as a new revisitation of the group’s precedent hits, instead of echoing their past work and taking an innovative and interesting step forward from their past youth releases. In other words, Hackney Diamonds often tends to remark on the now banal and trivial music influences we’ve heard many times.
Mick Jagger Leads With Impeccable Vocals
The album itself is further proof that determination and ambition—and good teachers—can lead you everywhere. It also goes to show that it’s possible to release an entire album with vocal performances that definitely don’t sound like the ones of an 80-year-old man, let alone an 80-year-old hedonist rockstar from The Rolling Stones.
Mick Jagger has in fact turned 80 in July, but his voice sounds like a refined, cured and precise version of his younger self’s tone. With an impeccable performance, the singer proved that he is in fact making sure his voice will continue to carry his work from one country to the next, as well as allow him to record an entire album as if he still was the young singer that made girls and boys fall in love with the band’s work and their rebellious look from the ’60s and onward.
On the other hand, while the vocals and instrumental parts are still on a higher level, what scarcely reaches the “Rolling Stones level” of performance is the lyrics. At times blunt and even boring, the lyrics are proof that going over the same, already-walked path isn’t always the best solution. Youthful—even juvenile—and light-hearted choices definitely took a toll on the integrity of the album.
“If it’s not done with enthusiasm, it doesn’t really get to you”
Despite not being their most inspired album, we have the certainty that the band enjoyed writing it. As childish as it sounds, after such a long career and after achieving as much as The Stones did, that’s all that really matters. We can in fact all agree that at a certain point in each artist’s career, a new release is more of a personal achievement and satisfaction rather than a dull attempt at audience-pleasing, or worse, a marketing strategy to sell a few more copies to the long-term fans. As Mick Jagger stated in the interview that anticipated the album’s release:
“Even, if it’s a nice song, if it’s not done with enthusiasm, it doesn’t really get to you, does it?”
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