Foreign Tongues: A New Autopsy of the Rolling Stones
Listening to Foreign Tongues doesn’t excite me. The Rolling Stones stopped being relevant after Exile On Main St. in 1972, with only occasional flashes of genius like Some Girls or Tattoo You. Every album since Tattoo You (1981) has been a failed attempt to fuse those two records in which the Stones genuinely tried to sound modern. I wonder if Jagger or Richards even listen to relevant bands today beyond the so called indie rock of Sam Fender. What about Jack White, The Blue Stones, Rival Sons, or All Them Witches? Foreign Tongues is a new effort to update the sound of Some Girls, to be precise. Once again, though, the Stones end up recycling their old, obsolete riffs. Foreign Tongues sometimes sounds like Hackney Diamonds leftovers. The man tasked with “rejuvenating” the Stones’ sound is once again Andrew Watt, the favorite producer of the geriatric ward. Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, they’ve all been through his hands. Watt basically gives the Stones TRT to tr...
