Rolling Stones fans see signs of new album in local newspaper advert
The brightly coloured promotion in the Hackney Gazette said the business was established in 1962 — the same year the Rolling Stones formed — and the new store would open in September.
Have the Rolling Stones just announced the release of a new album? The band’s representatives say “no comment” but the fans, who have been waiting for a new LP for almost two decades, think they might be about to get some satisfaction.
Their hopes have been raised by an innocuous-looking advert in a small London newspaper heralding a new glass repair store called “Hackney Diamonds”.
The brightly coloured promotion in the Hackney Gazette said the business was established in 1962 — the same year the Rolling Stones formed — and the new store would open in September.
“Our friendly team promises you satisfaction. When you say gimme shelter we’ll fix your shattered windows,” the advert said in the newspaper’s August 17 edition, referencing some of the group’s best-known hits.
It directs readers to a website where users are asked to register their interest, with privacy terms signed off by Universal Music Group (UMG), which handles the Rolling Stones’ back catalogue.
Stones aficionados have been enjoying sharing the many knowing references in the advert to the band’s history, lyrics and iconography.
The company’s name, Hackney Diamonds, is believed to be the title of their new album — and uses the same font as the band’s 1978 album Some Girls.
The phrase Hackney Diamonds is old east London slang for broken glass — specifically the shards left on the ground after car and shop windows are smashed during a robbery.
The i in (Hackney) Diamonds is dotted with the band’s tongue and lips logo, while Diamonds is also a reference to the Rolling Stones’s 60th anniversary tour, which began last year in Madrid.
References to at least three of the band’s best-known hits are included in the text of the advert: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Gimme Shelter and Shattered.
A new Stones album would be their first since 2016’s Blue and Lonesome, which was a collection of blues cover songs, and their first record of original material since A Bigger Bang in 2005.
It would also be the band’s first release since the death of drummer Charlie Watts in August 2021 aged 80, after suffering throat cancer.
The star is known to have recorded new drum tracks with the band before his death.
“Let me put it this way,” Guitarist Keith Richards recently told the Los Angeles Times, “you haven’t heard the last of Charlie Watts.”
It has also been rumoured that Paul McCartney and Elton John will appear on the album, which is being produced by Grammy winner Andrew Watt.