Thanks for mentioning this about the CD Rev, while I got it lying around here, I have to go pick up my CD player first which I have stashed in the basement of my future home LOL so that's why I have only listened to the streaming and the bought mp3 version so far 

Also about Darryl, of course the answer is money, Mick's too cheap to grant him a bigger share lol

Omg I thought this was Chanel

Also lol why Keith vocals on Beautiful Delilah instead of backing vocals but backing vocals on Ringing Hollow when he sings much more on Ringing Hollow? I don't think that is very accurate info^^

I'm listening to it on CD rn and the thing people describe as brickwalling isn't really there yet actually it sounds almost retro on these small speakers which is kinda fun 

Insights from the Amazon track by track (in case someone doesn't have Amazon music):

Keith said he came up with the riff for In the Stars (as if anyone else could have done that lol)
Mick admitted Keith came up with a really cool riff for Mr Charm which was better than the one he had so they took Keith's
Keith (once more) praised Mick's harp play (on Rough and Twisted) and said it was the first track they ever did with Andy (for HD) and it resurfaced again for FT
Ronnie said he always loves to use a slide guitar and that Ringing Hollow therefore reminds him of what they did on HD
Ronnie praises Mick for his clever words on Never Wanna Lose and great chorus
Ronnie praises Mick's harp on You Know I'm No Good
Keith says Some of Us is about some people with very large heads and very small hearts (omg which confirms my assumption it's about Mick in the 80s, seeing how he wrote it during the Dirty Work sessions when Mick and him didn't get along but probably didn't want to lose him)
Mick wrote Covered in You on acoustic
Ronnie really likes Side Effects and revealed that it also was one of the choices for the album name
Mick said Andy wanted a new great ballad for FT and Mick was like why, I have great ballads, Keith has great ballads, why we need a new one? So Andy admitted he wanted to help write it and so Mick, Keith and Andy wrote Back In Your Life together^^
Mick and Keith both played 12 string guitar on Beautiful Delilah and it took them 2h to get it right

Really amazing info right there!!

So I kinda feel like I wanna sum up what we know (so far) about what Keith did on this album

He came up with the riff for In the Stars and Mr Charm
He turned Divine Intervention from a country song into a rocker
He dug out Some of Us and finished it up together with Mick
He also brought the idea for Side Effects and wrote it with Mick
He and Mick (and Andy) wrote Back Into Your Life
He plays guitar on all the tracks
He provides backing vocals on 7 of them
He sings lead vocals on 1 and shared vocals on the bonus track
Also he plays piano on Hit me in the Head

I'd say he contributed pretty fucking well^^

Rev:

"BigM, my perception over the years is that i LOVE more of the
Stones catalog than any other online fan. So I love Tattoo You,
just not as much today as Some Girls or Foreign Tongues... As far as rankings go, there are so many ways to do that. If it
is on strength of the top cuts, it is still at this point SG over FT.
If it is on how many cuts that I skip, it is today the other way round. I skip, or even am slightly less enthused about, zero FTs currently. Totally a kid in a candy store..."

Essentially identical experience to mine. For context, I've had TY sitting at #5 for ages, behind SG, SF, Exile, and LIB.

FT has already knocked TY out of the #5 spot. Zero skips. If I had to skip something because I was a few minutes short of time, "Jealous Lover" would go, but I'd be really hard pressed to pick a second skip (Note: I like Jealous Lover just fine and don't skip it).

With Tattoo You, I wouldn't have that problem. I can and do skip Heaven. I have had days when I'm not in the mood for Slave (sometimes love it, some times not in the mood). If Tops wasn't by the Stones, I wouldn't listen to it. The highs are so good, I still love the record. But when I listen to Mr. Charm, Covered In You, Divine Intervention, and their brethren, the rout is on. And these don't even have the benefit of imprinting my mind with live versions.

Which brings us to Some Girls, my favorite Stones record since 5th grade (record came out the same week 5th grade ended). Throughout my Stones journey, across the last 48 years, SG has held on. FT can't match the highs of SG, but as a whole, it can honorably ask SG to meet for pistols at dawn.

FT's highs are really high and the cohesion of the record is as strong as any record they've made.

I'm usually very reserved about new Stones records, having been let down so many times since ... Tattoo You. With Undercover, Dirty Work, Voodoo B2B, and ABB, I have to make playlists of the best cuts, but I rarely/never listen to those records (1983-2005) straight through. I thought Hackney was outstanding, despite have a couple of sometimes-skippers.

This new record is just wall-to-wall balls. Awesome stuff. I'm telling everyone about it. Sending links. Being that guy.

I'll be interested to look back in a couple of years and see if my opinion mellows, but so far it hasn't on Hackney and Blue/Lonesome, both of which I love. The other latter day records, I didn't love at first and never have.

Summing up:

"Best since Some Girls" = yes

"Best since Exile" = well ... probably not ... but hear me out ...

Rev 20 Redlights wrote on May 7^th, 2026 at 10:40pm:



ronnie-woody wrote on Jul 13^th, 2026 at 3:42pm:

ronnie-woody wrote on Jul 13^th, 2026 at 3:35pm:


According to Mathjis on IORR Keith also worked together with Mick on Hit me in the Head and Ringing Hollow (altho I'm not sure about the latter cause Keith said on the Planet Rock radio show with Paul Sexton that Mick had Ringing Hollow finished and asked Keith for input and Keith said it's perfect already what do you want me to add?) But at least Mick meant to include him, this also has to count for something 😅

Ronnie-Woody:

"Back in Your Life" is a contender for songs that will be skipped someday, but for now it plays.

I don't find Ronnie's solo especially wonderful. It sounds like a Ronnie solo to my ears, not a Ronnie-inspired-by-the-Spirit solo, so the solo alone doesn't distinguish the song.

I also don't care for Mick calling out the band in studio work (not as cringey here as when he told McCartney to "play some bass" on Hackney Diamonds).

It's a standard latter-day Stones ballad (Steel Wheels era to now), but it's a really well-executed example of the type.

Mick's vocal is earnest but not cloying. The lyrics are relatable (with the notable exception of the song title: if you get ghosted, never ask why, and, for God's sake, never beg to be taken back). There are great curlicues throughout the song that come through on a good set of headphones or a loud sound system. It's also a perfect capper to the journey the album takes, with Beautiful Delilah being like a great post-credits bonus.

The falsetto in Jealous Lover doesn't bother me a bit. The song doesn't make much of journey, unlike most songs on this record. Again, I like it and don't skip it, but I'm not hooked yet. Every song on this record has at least one moment that makes me smile, makes me sit in my car saying, "Holy shit. What was that?" But JL doesn't. I'm open to being instructed on this one.

I'm not a musician, so I defer to the guitarists over at IORR or here who do the forensic examinations. They identify Watt or Watt/Wood as the author of the first solo in this song. At first listen, the beginning of the solo sounded (to me; I might have misled myself after learning Keith helped write the song) like a number of Keith solos from their 2000s tours, but as it develops it sounds too smooth and nimble for him now. So I'll defer to them to figure out whose it is. My take, as a consumer: regardless of whose it is, I like the first solo rather than Ronnie's encomium solo.

Cool, glad you can also listen to the CD/vinyl now!


Also I feel you about Jealous Lover, Biggest Mistake, that it doesn't really do much in terms of development, but I still like the song a lot 🤭
I'll give Back Into Your Life a proper listen later with headphones on the Amazon Music Dolby Atmosx maybe my ears can tell whether it's Keith or rather Andy playing that first solo...

Also personally I like ballads like Almost Hear You Sigh on Steel Wheels MUCH more...omg the video for that one is really beautiful too, and I'm aaying that altho I barely watch the videos hahaha...but Almost Hear You Sigh might be my fave song from Steel Wheels...also Sweethearts Together on Voodoo Lounge is better as well imo...and idk if you could classify Laugh, I Nearly Died as a ballad or just a slow somewhat bluesy song (I mean mood and lyrics wise) on ABB, but omg I feel this is VERY underrated...and imo Back in Your Life can't take it on with any of those

And yeah I definitely need Dolby Atmos to listen to this later cause rn on Spotify free with worse headpho es while on my work laptop I' m confused because why is Ronnie's later longer solo where he starts shredding on Keith's channel all of a sudden? 🤣 or is this my headphones being cheap and annoying Oo I'm not really sure yet (on any song tbh) where Andy is...I think I can tell where Mick is in loads of cases, think I csn make out his playing from the way he also plays live lol...but Andy no idea...

Yeah well the first solo is on the right channel, if  you mean the one at aroubd 1:40 or so minutes? So it certainly isn't Keith but the question is whether it's Andy or Ronnie cause I certainly cannot make out Andy's specific style at all, it rather seems like he appears to sometimes copycat the other guys

I like the soppy lyrics of Sweethearts Together and especially Mick and Krith singing it together

Love that you agree about Laugh I Nearly Died being completely underrated...another one of those imo is Down in the Hole on Emotional Rescue and Low Down on Bridges to Babylon (I should make a playlist with underrated songs^^)

But speaking of playing styles and all, I found it hilarious when Mick told Conan that he loves to play punk guitar but he believes Keith and Ronnie don't want him to play the guitar xD might just have to do with the fact that on stage he is throwing his guitar around (for the roadie to catch) and no proper guitarist would do that to their "baby" lol

I took a moment to think about where on the prior albums the new songs would fit in, mainly based on vibes


Rough and Twisted: could be on any of their 70s albums really, probably Sticky Fingers

In the Stars: kind of a "new Stones classic", it's what the modern day Stones sound like, paired with a stereotypical Keith riff

Jealous Lover: Emotional Rescue but maybe also Black&Blue

Mr. Charm: also a new modern day classic but if I had to place it on one of their prior albums then Some Girls probably

Divine Intervention: kinda gives me Tattoo You vibes

Ringing Hollow: could be on Exile that's how fucking good it is

Never Wanna Lose You: would fit on Some Girls since it's basically related to Miss You

Hit Me in the Head: Dirty Work, gritty, rough and dirty

You Know I'm No Good: hard to tell since it's a cover but solely based on the vibes I'd say Bridges to Babylon

Some of Us: Steel Wheels, the vibes and my interpretation of the lyrics given the circumstances

Covered in You: Goats Head Soup because it's as experimental as 100 Years Ago

Side Effects: Steel Wheels, the guitars give off the same mood that this record gives

Back in Your Life: Voodoo Lounge, it would fit right in there

Beautiful Delilah: one of their first albums from the 60s when they did all the blues covers

Bad Luck Hideaway: Let it Bleed or Exile because it's brilliant