Well, I love this new Rolling Stones album! It’s got some of the greatest guitars heard on a Stones LP in years! So, I have almost no negative comments to make, except one, and I want to get that comment out of the way early, so here it is. I hate the name of this album! Just why did they pick this ridiculous name? Even worst, it’s named after a jewelry store?! Just shows you that Mick Jagger has changed a lot now that’ he’s an old man, and what used to be so cool about who he was, is no more. Guess maybe he wanted that stupid “sir” title he has to shine a bit here. But in my own old age, I’m happy to say that I’m at least still anti-establishment, and knowing Keith Richards, he still is too! He still remembers that the establishment threw them both in jail over nothing (and did the same to a few of their mates, too), back when they were a lot younger (something that a wise man shouldn’t ever forget about!).

Okay, so with that out of the way, what a great album we got here to enjoy! There are two songs on this one that totally stand out, with the first one being the LP’s opener, “Angry”. Yeah, it’s title alone sounds like a song that Jagger would write, and it’s got some of the best Rock n Roll guitar riffs I’ve heard on a Stones song in several decades! The best hard rock song on the album, for sure, but not the overall best number, since that goes to “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”! This one might not have heavy guitars on it, but it doesn’t need any, as Lady Gaga’s co lead vocal with Mick is so damn good, that (for me anyway) it’s the best female vocal ever heard on a Stones’ song, passing up Merry Clayton’s wonderful vocal solo heard on “Gimme Shelter”, a title that she’s held for well over 50 years. Damn, I’ve never been a big fan of Lady Gaga before, but I am now! Boy, can she carry a tune!

 
My third favorite song on this LP would be “Whole Wide World”, but not by much, as most of the remaining songs on this album are all pretty cool and close to each other in how they are played out. Just a song or two on here have weak lyrics to them, but since the band is playing great on every song, weak lyrics on a couple of them don’t matter. Perhaps the weakest lyrics show up on “Bite My Head Off”, but the band is driving hard on this one and they sound fantastic, along with special guest and old friend Paul McCartney giving them a hand on the bass guitar. As it is, there’s a few more special guest stars on this album besides Lady Gaga and Macca, including Stevie Wonder and Elton John, and even nicer, former Stone Bill Wyman shows up on here too! Plus of course, this is the album that the band was putting together when Charlie Watts passed on. I was hopping he would appear on more than just two songs on this one, since other tunes were put together with him before his leaving us. But two last songs with Charlie is better than none at all. Guess “Live by the Sword”, which features both Watts and Wyman on it, will be the very last song recorded and released by the original band (minus Brian Jones, of course).

But expanding just a bit on my last sentence in the above paragraph; us old-time – no, let me change that – us long time Stones fans, who are the only ones who can claim that we’ve been fans of the band since day one, must finally ask if this will be the last Stones album to ever be made? Well first, that’s a question that most such fans (like myself) should know better than to ask, since as long as the Glimmer Twins are still alive, the band will go on. But, both of them are now octogenarians! The average male doesn’t even live to see that age group! But with this new studio album, both Mick and Keith have shown that they will still make new music as the “Rolling Stones”, as long as they are both around. Us hard-nosed fans have known this since at least the 1990s, after they somehow survived the ’80s and Dirty Work. So, until Father Time says so, you can expect another new Stones album sometime down the pike, even if many of the band’s original fans might not be around to hear it. Let’s just hope it happens real soon, since they are still putting out better music right now than most of the youth who have taken over the music scene of today!