Pitchfork: Hackney Diamonds

[COOOK 76,406]

"Speckled with guest stars and produced by Andrew Watt, the Stones’ second original album this century is a bunch of hackneyed duds, polished until the character has disappeared."

Spoiler

"On Hackney Diamonds—the second album of original material by the Rolling Stones this century and the first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts, the band’s bedrock for more than half a century—these titans of industry flail as they try to act their image rather than their age. Alongside producer Andrew Watt, they turn every trick they can to conjure just one more hit, one more chance to cash in. They try and fail to reinvigorate themselves in the rock’n’roll fountain of youth they helped create, only to emerge with a dozen hackneyed duds."

"This is exactly the sort of album you gift a middle-age, mid-divorce dad who’s flailing for direction as he speeds around town in his post-split sports car, cranking the Stones’ anti-romance rants. A petulant ex for 60 years now, Mick Jagger is so pouty about being put out here it scans as absolute arrogance. Sneering opener “Angry” is the theme song for the pops who reminds everyone how hard he’s worked, how little thanks he gets, and how he’s also, inexplicably, “still taking the pills” and “off to Brazil.”

"The other half of Hackney Diamonds feels like an advertisement for advertising placements, songs meant to be sold to sell something else."

"And if Hackney Diamonds, despite the ever-impetuous Jagger’s protestations to the contrary, lands as the final Stones’ album, it won’t be a worthy farewell from the band that once made sex, danger, and bitter honesty so integral to rock’n’roll. Available in so many vinyl, CD, and Blu-Ray variants it should give Taylor Swift new ideas, Hackney Diamonds suggests that the key component of rock’n’roll as the Stones now see it is that it moves units. They have nothing of consequence to say here, even after losing the band’s anchor, nor no indelible riffs to play, even after two decades to write them. Just like the image of its title, Hackney Diamonds isn’t at all full of rare gems; it is, instead, the mess made in the attempt to get easy money from someone else."

On Andrew Watt's production:

Spoiler

"This is the first Stones album Watt has produced—not bad, since it’s only the fifth they’ve released since his birth. Still, he’s been here before. Apart from albums by Post Malone, Miley Cyrus, and Justin Bieber, Watt has helmed sessions by Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, and Elton John (a frequent guest on Hackney Diamonds). In this realm, Watt is the antithesis of Rick Rubin. Rather than lean into the age and experience of his elders, he drags them toward the present, goading them to sound like their younger selves within ill-fitting contemporary settings. For the Stones, Watt favors the molds of circa-millennium alternative rock, from Collective Soul to Franz Ferdinand, then buffs the results until they gleam like sickly wax figures. Jagger, terrifyingly, has never sounded so youthful. Keith Richards has rarely sounded so normal, his solos all exercises in convention and efficiency. Imagine upgrading a classic muscle car, say the MG Midget or a 1967 Shelby Cobra, with cheap but shiny plastic parts. Posed, patched, and polished until the actual character has all but disappeared, that’s how Hackney Diamonds sounds."

On "Sweet Sounds of Heaven":

Spoiler

"Aside from a post-scripted cover of the Muddy Waters mantra that gave the band its name, Hackney Diamonds ends with “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” a horn-lifted gospel number that mostly seems like an excuse to riff with Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder. Jagger contemplates nationalism, poverty, and his own mortality, trying to resist the sirens’ call for just a bit more hard living. “No, I’m not going to hell in some dusty motel,” he rails, Gaga buttressing him as actual feeling and fight well up in his voice for the first time all album. “And I’m not, not going down in the dirt.” Jagger spends the first 30 minutes of Hackney Diamonds cosplaying a younger version of himself, all cocksure and strutting and fake. He is only convincing when he sings of what is real and nearer every day."

Full review and previous scores here.

[Teletubby 151,030]

[Maxine Puth 9,053]

Atleast they stan SSOH 

[Hyperobject 66,771]

8 minutes ago, Teletubby said:

she is THEE music industry 

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 26,139]

19 minutes ago, Maxine Puth said:

Atleast they stan SSOH 

Well, not really

[NichuuB 43,788]

31 minutes ago, Maxine Puth said:

Atleast they stan SSOH 

 

[Sneaky Oliver 22,226]

SSOH could have been so much better tbh   It’s a shame the album is not going to be acclaimed, it’s definitely not going to make huge numbers either 

[Nao tem 526]

1 hour ago, COOOK said:

He is only convincing when he sings of what is real and nearer every day.

Wow. They're brutal

[4th Time Around 4,541]

1 hour ago, Sneaky Oliver said:

SSOH could have been so much better tbh   It’s a shame the album is not going to be acclaimed, it’s definitely not going to make huge numbers either 

Pitchforks review is one of the rare negative ones, the vast majority of reviews have been very positive. Hackney Diamonds can't compare to classic era Stones but this review feels overally harsh and ageist.

[Ivy 12,745]

The disrespect 

[Robo Ga 15,314]

Pure savagery 

[MOT 3,186]

A really terrible review imo. I don't mean 'a review that says the album is really terrible', I mean a really terrible review, a rubbish piece of writing, a load of pretentious bs. I don't care how bad the album is, it has to be miles better than that garbage. I hope he didn't get paid for it.

[Ultimecia 6,069]

The person who wrote that sounds bitter as ****.

Makes me want to listen to the album even more.

[Shipper 13,088]

This seems very personal.

Are all Pitchfork reviews like this?

It's like the reviewer hates Jagger and is internalizing stuff. Is the reviewer a "middle-age, mid-divorce dad who’s flailing for direction as he speeds around town in his post-split sports car, cranking the Stones’ anti-romance rants." He sounds like he hates his life and hates older people enjoying their lives. 

[StarstruckIllusion 52,938]

Like… 

God, it’s brutal out here