(London) After a mysterious advertisement in August, the suspense is at its height: the Rolling Stones will unveil details on Wednesday afternoon of their first studio album with original songs since 2005.
Hackney Diamonds will be launched at an event in the Hackney district of east London, a location “at the center of the new album”.
For the occasion, Mick Jagger, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the end of July, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood will be interviewed by American television host and humorist Jimmy Fallon.
The event will be broadcast on YouTube starting at 2:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. Eastern Time). “This is a truly global moment that we want to share with fans around the world via YouTube,” the band said.
The album is the Rolling Stones’ 24th studio album in the UK, the first with original songs in 18 years, when they released A Bigger Bang. Their last album, 2016’s “Blue and Lonesome,” was a record of blues covers.
Hackney Diamonds will be their first album since the legendary group’s drummer Charlie Watts died in 2021 at the age of 80.
The BBC is reporting rumors that stars like Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga will feature in the album.
The launch of this opus was announced in August in an enigmatic advertisement which appeared in a local daily newspaper, the Hackney Gazette.
“Hackney Diamonds, glass repair experts. Opening September 2023,” the ad read. It immediately spread on social media, with fans spotting allusions to the band.
In the text, mentions of flagship titles such as Gimme Shelter and Satisfaction. The date of the creation of the company, 1962, also happens to be that of the creation of the group.
And the dot on the “i” of the word “diamonds” took up the famous logo in the shape of a mouth sticking out its tongue.
The advertisement referred to a website hackneydiamonds.com bearing the signature of the Universal Music label.
On Wednesday morning, this website links directly to the group’s website and shows Jimmy Fallon on a couch, hanging from an old telephone.
“New album, music, era,” it says, above a countdown before the “conversation” between the Stones and Jimmy Fallon begins.
