The Rolling Stones have a new album out with Charlie Watts on it from beyond the grave

[TeddyWhelan]

The Rolling Stones released Foreign Tongues on July 10, their first new album since 2023's Hackney Diamonds and only the second one made without Charlie Watts, who died in 2021. The late drummer still appears on the record though, through sessions that were recorded before his death and worked into the final mix

The guest list on this one is genuinely stacked. Paul McCartney, Steve Winwood, the Cure's Robert Smith and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers all show up across the tracklist, which is a lot of cross generational rock royalty to fit onto one Stones record without it feeling like a gimmick

It lands in the same window as new music from Deep Purple, whose Splat! record continues their run of albums produced by Bob Ezrin, and follows well received releases this year from Paul McCartney, Peter Frampton, Ringo Starr and Yes. There is clearly still a real appetite for legacy rock acts putting out proper new material rather than just touring on the old catalogue

Having Watts present on a new record five years after his death is a strange and genuinely touching detail, especially for a band that has always felt inseparable from his drumming. Whether Foreign Tongues ends up remembered as a proper final chapter or just a curiosity will probably depend on how the songwriting holds up next to Hackney Diamonds, which was widely seen as a late career high point

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[Gaz_82]

Having Charlie Watts still on a new record five years after he passed is such a bittersweet detail, glad they found a way to include those sessions properly

[EarlyBird]

Robert Smith showing up on a Stones record is such an unexpected combination, curious which track he's actually on

[Di46]

Hackney Diamonds set the bar pretty high for a late career Stones album, hope this one doesn't just feel like a victory lap by comparison

[Vanessa26]

Feels like 2026 has been a stacked year for legacy rock releases, McCartney, Ringo, Yes and now this all in the same stretch

[HiddenSeb75]

Wonder how much of the album was actually written with Watts's parts already in mind versus built around older recorded sessions

[Wasp]

Steve Winwood and Chad Smith on the same guest list is a wild combination, curious how those contributions actually sound mixed together