By Roman Salomone, Staff Writer

[Polydor Records; 2023]

Rating: 3/10

Back in early 2020, the Rolling Stones dropped “Living in a Ghost Town”, a Covid-themed track recorded during lockdown that wasn’t awful. Though fairly one-dimensional and by-the-numbers for the band, it was light-hearted and novel enough to warrant being a passable tune at the time. Combined with the very unfortunate passing of Charlie Watts (one of the finest drummers of all-time), there was more going on with the band in the span of two years than the entirety of what they did in the 2010s. However, the dust has settled enough for the band to come back, and now we have “Angry”, the intro track and lead single from the band’s forthcoming 26th studio album Hackney Diamonds. And if you haven’t guessed by the score yet, it sucks. 

To say the Rolling Stones are past their prime is not a hot take. The surprise, though, is that if this song was moderately reworked – I’m talking retakes on all performances, slight song structure/melody changes, production choices – this could have been a legitimately decent little comeback tune. All the components are here in some shape or form, but execution and end result is a gift-wrapped piece of soulless, tipsy boner-jam. 

The song opens with a painfully rudimentary groove from the rhythm section and a flabby, two chord riff from Keith Richards that repeats through nearly all of the song. It’s stiff and gets stale very quick. Then there’s Mick Jagger, who opts to give a vocal performance that is a complete nonstarter by almost all accounts. It’s extremely frustrating to listen to, as there are tiny snippets here where it seems like he’s going to start actually kicking some ass, but climbs straight back down the ladder before reaching any level of excitement. Jagger lazily stumbles around vocally, teasing the possibility of any serious energy, goes on throughout all of the track’s three minute and 47-second runtime, and is beyond aggravating to bear from start to finish.

Of course Bill Wyman and Watts are pretty much irreplaceable by all image and band-chemistry standards, but it’s especially painful to hear a rhythm section lack this much personality. And it’s incredibly unfortunate given that Darryl Jones is talented enough to rip-up some “19th Nervous Breakdown” energy, but the rest of the people involved are not on board with him bringing some actual musicianship to the table. A final part worth mentioning is the mix, which is fine, sans the pointless and intense overuse of cheap reverb and creaky echo that leave it feeling tacky and overproduced. And let’s not kid ourselves – this song sounds like a bad attempt at remaking “Start Me Up”. 

Look, I hold records like Beggars Banquet, Some Girls, Sticky Fingers, and Between the Buttons in generally high regard. Hell, if you wanna talk underrated albums, Goats Head Soup and Emotional Rescue smoke supposed classics like Let It Bleed and Exile on Main St. This is all just my humble opinion of course, but for every ounce of praise I have, there’s bound to be another spot that I hate to extreme degrees. And come on, do you really think me or nearly anybody under the age of 45 had their fingers-crossed, praying for Jagger and the band to come back and distill unto us a fresh batch of blues-rock boomer jams in 2023? 

The Rolling Stones used to always have the best intros. “Rocks Off”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Miss You”, the list goes on. “Angry” on the other hand is annoying, has no finesse, and has no reason to exist. It’s certainly not the most sonically (*cough* or lyrically *cough*) offensive thing they’ve put out, but it’s definitely a tragic attempt from a weathered rock titan having all the tools to make a solid “twilight-years” tune, yet not having the spirit to hone in any sort of focus. But hey – “You can’t always get what you want”, right Mick?
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