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With the first new Rolling Stones songs in 18 years, the band’s frontman is kicking himself for taking so long. He reflects on turning 80 in a worsening world – and the style and humour of his late drummerThe new Rolling Stones album is the band’s best since Some Girls in 1978. Rock critics have been making this claim since the mid-1980s to talk up a series of albums – Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon – so you probably won’t believe me when I say their new one, Hackney Diamonds, really is that good. Better, actually. When I tell Mick Jagger how much I enjoyed it, by this point he’s as suspicious as anyone: “I’ve got really good reactions from people that seem to be genuine.”They haven’t released an album of new songs since 2005’s A Bigger Bang, instead doing 2016 covers album Blue & Lonesome and a series of high-energy, record-breaking world tours. Jagger turned 80 this year, and with Keith Richards passing that milestone in December, I half expected them to do something like Johnny Cash’s final recordings with Rick Rubin, contemplating the Styx with a downbeat croak, particularly as it comes after the death in 2021 of Charlie Watts, the band’s drummer since they first stepped into a studio in 1963. Continue reading...