The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds (Polydor/Universal Music)
In 2016, the Rolling Stones entered the studio to record a new album. Unable to agree on a new repertoire, they came out with a collection of very beautiful covers of blues songs, Blue
Seeing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, 80 and 79 years old respectively, the last survivors of the original lineup, offer eleven new songs (and a cover) in Hackney Diamonds, is a small miracle. The main problem is that these are mostly harmless, if not downright annoying. Angry, the first single, is embarrassing, as are the next two on the record. These three songs have in common that they were co-signed with Andrew Watt, who also produced the album.
The Stones chose this thirty-year-old in order to “rejuvenate their sound” and it was a failure: the titles are crushed by flashy and hollow FM production. Mick Jagger sings wonderfully, Steve Jordan’s drums bang (perhaps too much), the guitars ring but nothing takes off before the fourth track, Bite My Head Off, a punk rock explosion that you would swear was an escape from Some Girls. The song hits well, with its fast tempo and Paul McCartney’s fuzz bass. He is the only “special guest” that we really hear, with Lady Gaga on the gospel Sweet Sounds of Heaven.
The others – Elton John and Stevie Wonder, both confined to keyboards – go unnoticed. Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, is present on two songs: the horrible Mess it Up, an attempt at disco pop which is not far from being the worst title in their history, and Live by the Sword, on which he is joined by Bill Wyman, original bassist, absent since 1993.
Whole Wide World sounds a lot like an Iggy Pop song, and that’s a compliment, with the only good guitar chorus on the record. Ron Wood may not have been completely useless this time… Dreamy Skies is to be placed in the category of (excellent) country ballads that the group has been fond of since hanging out with Gram Parsons. Drive Me Too Hard begins like Tumbling Dice but the comparison ends there: we’ve already heard this type of song, much better, dozens of times on Stones records. And Jagger really didn’t strain the lyrics of the entire album…
Keith Richards brings a really intriguing and slightly dissonant arpeggio to his contractual song, the beautiful Tell Me Straight, with Jagger on backing vocals. It’s one-on-one that the Glimmer Twins close the album, with a cover of the song that started it all: Muddy Waters’ Rollin Stones, the one that gave them their name. With a vintage guitar sound and rootsy production, the Stones hit hard but a little late in a record that was too long and too ordinary.
Now and Then : the very best of Richard Hawley (BMG)
We would like to no longer have to write that Richard Hawley is the best kept secret of English rock over the last twenty years, but that is still the case. This compilation – the first of a solo career begun in 2001 – constitutes the ideal entry point into the world of this superb singer-songwriter, crooner and extraordinary guitarist.
After cutting his teeth in the Longpigs, this former working class man from Sheffield accompanied his great friends from Pulp for a long time. But it is in his personal pieces that he has always been the most moving. It’s simple, there is absolutely nothing to throw away in the discography of this gentleman, who offers here a striking shortcut of his original compositions as well as his well-felt covers such as Ballad of a Thin Man, one of Bob’s best songs Dylan, which he recorded in 2019 for the finale of the fifth season of the Peaky Blinders series.
Loved and recognized across the Channel, Hawley has worked for television, notably the series The Full Monty (with the wonderful Not the Only Road). A sought-after collaborator – he has played alongside the Arctic Monkeys, Paul Weller, Elbow and even Lisa Marie Presley, Richard Hawley is what we call a “cult musician” in our region. May this cleverly organized best-of offer him a wider audience.
