With “Hackney Diamonds,” their first album in eighteen years, with megastar appearances from Lady Gaga, Elton John, and even their former nemesis Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones resurrected on Friday.
Currently in their sixth decade of collaboration, the renowned British group returns with their 24th studio album. First time participant McCartney plays bass on the punky song “Bite My Head Off.”
Though John Lennon sang on the Stones’ 1967 song “We Love You,” the rivalry between the Beatles and the Stones was always more hype than substance back in their 1960s glory.
“Paul and I have always been friends,” Stones frontman Mick Jagger, 80, told France 2 this week. McCartney’s appearance was something of an accident, Keith Richards told Guitar Player magazine.
“He happened to be around and dropped by,” Richards said. “I don’t even think he intended to play bass on a track, but once he was in there, I just said, ‘Come on, you’re in. You ain’t leaving till you play.'”
While McCartney and Elton John’s contributions are somewhat hard to pick out, Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder make more of an impact on “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, a blues-y ballad in the vein of classics such as “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.
