Adventures in Listening, November 3, 2023: Too Young for Dying, Too Old to Lose
Astonishingly, The Rolling Stones return. Plus: What feels like the 40th new Taylor Swift product of the year.
The Rolling Stones - Hackney Diamonds
A few days before the release of the new Rolling Stones album— their first batch of original material in 18 years— David Browne’s review appeared with this headline: “It’s 2023, and The Rolling Stones Have Made a Record You’ll Want to Play More Than Once— Seriously.” I’ve spent the last few days wondering whether Browne was setting the bar a bit too high or a bit too low. Personally, I might have been content with a Rolling Stones album that wasn’t an abject embarrassment, especially since their Chicago blues revue Blue & Lonesome seemed to cap their career so eloquently. The prospect of a Stones who still sound vital and engaged enough to earn repeat listening almost seemed greedy. But Hackney Diamonds capably clears each of these ankle-high hurdles: It’s not an embarrassment. It’s a pretty good Rolling Stones album. I’ve played it several times already, and will probably play it several more.
Like most Stones albums of the past 40 years, it opens with a bright, arena-ready rocker in the vein of “Start Me Up”— this one’s called “Angry,” and it’s got a tight little groove, plus plenty of spirited invective from Mick Jagger. In a way, you could say that Hackney Diamonds is an entire album of “Start Me Ups,” which is not to say that there aren’t some welcome detours into shufflin’ country (“Dreamy Skies”), high-stepping disco (“Mess It Up”), and unadorned Delta blues (“Rolling Stones Blues”). But the dominant mode here is the Stones in crowdpleasing, arena rock mode, favoring a sound that’s crisp and professional, eschewing not just the murk of Exile but even the lingering earthiness heard on A Bigger Bang. Credit producer Andrew Watt for the gleaming sound, which ably demonstrates the Stones at a peak of well-oiled rock and roll showmanship. (They’re so respectable!)
Maybe the biggest sigh of relief here is that the Stones still sound like the Stones— indeed, they’ve now existed in their stadium-pro “Start Me Up” mode much longer than they did their debauched peak, so you could argue that Hackney Diamonds conjures their most enduring essence. No rock and roll band has ever mastered hip-shakin’ swing and groove quite like the Stones, and you’ll hear plenty of that on Hackney Diamonds— on the dancefloor-ready “Whole Wide World” and the pissed-off punk tune “Bite My Head Off” in particular, the latter sporting an elastic bass line from Sir Paul McCartney, clearly relishing the opportunity to play with a great rock band once again. Keith is typically effortless here but, as with Blue & Lonesome, it’s Mick who sounds most invigorated, most committed to the continued vitality of the Stones. Meanwhile, the absence of Charlie Watts looms large; replacement drummer Steve Jordan is more than adequate, but his hard-hitting approach brings Charlie’s laid-back beatkeeping into sharp relief.
Still, I go back to the David Browne headline, and to the question it implies: Exactly what is it I want from a Rolling Stones album in 2023? If the answer is simply an entertaining, fully-engaged summary of everything they’ve done over the past four decades, Hackney Diamonds more than delivers. But if it’s an effective coda to their catalog, an album that actually adds to their legacy, I can’t help but recall how Blue & Lonesome provided a fittingly symmetrical send-off, allowing them a chance to end their recording life much as it began, with a set of ferocious (and Charlie Watts-powered) blues bangers. That’s not to say that Hackney Diamonds lacks a sense of mythology— why else would Mick and Keef end the album with a stripped-down duo performance of the Muddy Waters tune that gave this band its name? But anyone hoping for songs that reckon more directly with the band’s legacy, or with lessons learned along the way, may be disappointed. Mick has become fairly surface-level as a lyricist (“Dreamy Skies” clumsily name-checks Hank Williams and “bad honky tonk”), only referencing mortality in a throwaway line about being “too young for dying, too old to lose.” But hey, who said anything about dying? In interviews surrounding this new release, Mick teased that a follow-up album was already more than halfway complete. And if it’s as good as this one, finding the Rolling Stones exulting in the simple joy of playing together, I’ll be eager to listen to it— likely more than once.
Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor’s Version)
She’s a generational talent, probably the most consequential pop singer of my lifetime. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as too much product— and I haven’t even seen the Eras film yet. Taylor’s 2023 output has made even Zach Bryan seem lazy by comparison, and the cumulative effect is that it’s just hard for me to muster a lot of enthusiasm for the 1989 re-record, an album that dutifully replicates the sound of her big pop breakthrough. The From the Vault material is consistently good, yet only “Now That We Don’t Talk” is so good that it makes me wish it was part of the proper album sequencing. Meanwhile, a song called “Slut!” isn’t nearly as spiky as a song by that title ought to be. I’m happy to give this a solid B+, and to say that if you’re still swept up in Taylor’s imperial era, this will certainly satisfy. But I wouldn’t be mad if she took a little time off— or better still, if she started taking creative risks like she did circa Reputation.