The opposite half of Hackney Diamonds seems like an commercial for promoting placements, songs meant to be offered to promote one thing else. As The New Yorker’s David Remnick famous in 2010, the Stones grossed $2 billion within the prior 30 years, largely buoyed by big-ticket syncs for beer and software program. The priapic pleas of “Get Shut” appear custom-made for Cialis, its buoyant hook good for the smiling silver couple. James King’s throbbing sax solo makes an apt mattress for the side-effects legalese on the finish. “Dreamy Skies”—an interminable and illogical nation blues about escaping to the woods “with no connections or a satellite tv for pc cellphone”—presages a possible bidding conflict between Jeep and Subaru. It barely issues that these aren’t primo Stones cuts and that they’re as bland as talcum powder. Touched up by tech, Watt, and a half-dozen assorted engineers, Jagger’s lissome tone stays immediately identifiable, a advertising workforce’s dream.
That is the primary Stones album Watt has produced—not dangerous, because it’s solely the fifth they’ve launched since his delivery. Nonetheless, he’s been right here earlier than. Aside from albums by Publish Malone, Miley Cyrus, and Justin Bieber, Watt has helmed classes by Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, and Elton John (a frequent visitor on Hackney Diamonds). On this realm, Watt is the antithesis of Rick Rubin. Moderately than lean into the age and expertise of his elders, he drags them towards the current, goading them to sound like their youthful selves inside ill-fitting modern settings. For the Stones, Watt favors the molds of circa-millennium various rock, from Collective Soul to Franz Ferdinand, then buffs the outcomes till they gleam like sickly wax figures. Jagger, terrifyingly, has by no means sounded so youthful. Keith Richards has hardly ever sounded so regular, his solos all workouts in conference and effectivity. Think about upgrading a basic muscle automobile, say the MG Midget or a 1967 Shelby Cobra, with low cost however shiny plastic elements. Posed, patched, and polished till the precise character has all however disappeared, that’s how Hackney Diamonds sounds.
The Stones are so tightly wound for the album’s first 9 songs that they danger snapping, their famously ramshackle indulgence supplanted by the must be quantized and mechanized. They blessedly let up close to the tip, when Richards steps ahead to steer “Inform Me Straight,” a weak little question a few relationship’s odds of survival. With its dim glints of dissonance and bedraggled tone, it’s a welcome reprieve from Hackney Diamonds’ exhausting and ageless quest for perfection. (What’s extra, it’s a reminder of how the looseness of Richards and the Stones at giant helped inform bands like Slint and Sonic Youth.) That is as unmitigated and sincere because the Stones have sounded in years, the age exhibiting via Richards’ licks and lyrics. Good factor for Keef, too, as his solos on Hackney Diamonds are among the many most routine and forgettable of his profession.
