When the Rolling Stones began playing gigs around London in 1962, the notion that a rock & roll band would last five years, let alone six decades, was an absurdity. Times and attitudes quickly changed, and the Rolling Stones being the Rolling Stones took on the world and won. With a new album Foreign Tongues set for July 2026 release this band continues to create timeless music and define the, often used terminology Rock N Roll longevity.

Of course, the Rolling Stones themselves are among the most important reasons for the dramatic breakthroughs and transformations that have taken place over the last six decades and beyond. Indeed, it’s essentially impossible to overestimate the importance of the Rolling Stones in rock & roll history. The group distilled so much of the music that had come before it and has exerted a decisive influence on so much that has come after. Only a handful of musicians in any genre achieve that stature, and the Stones stand proudly among them. They exist in a pantheon of the most rarefied kind with recorded music sales of over 200 million making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

 

Every album the Stones released from The Rolling Stones in 1964 to Exile on Main Street in 1972 is essential not simply to an understanding of the music of that era, but to an understanding of the era itself. In their intense interest in blues and R&B, the Stones connected a young audience in the U.S. to music that was unknown to the vast majority of white Americans, from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf to Chuck Berry and Marvin Gaye. If the Stones had never made an album after 1965, they would still be legendary with the original incarnation of Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman & Charlie Watts.

 

The Stones became synonymous with the rebellious attitude of that era. Songs like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “Street Fighting Man”, “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Gimme Shelter” captured the violence, frustration and chaos of that time. For those reasons, as the Sixties drained into the Seventies, the Stones went on a creative run that rivals any in popular music. Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), and with Mick Taylor replacing Brian, Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972) routinely turn up on lists of the greatest albums of all time, and deservedly so.

 

After that, the Stones were an indomitable force on the music scene, and they have continued to be to this day. The albums Goats Head Soup (1973), It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (1974) and Black and Blue (1976), found the Stones creating such hits as “Angie” and “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” and exploring their way through a period of transition, with guitarist Ronnie Wood coming on board in 1975 to replace Mick Taylor, contributing another key element to the band’s evolving sound. Then in 1978 the album Some Girls rose to the challenge of punk (“When the Whip Comes Down”) – whose energy and attitude the Stones had defined a decade earlier – but also swung with the sinuous grooves of disco (“Miss You”). The album is one of the very best of that decade. Tattoo You (1981) added the classics “Start Me Up” and “Waiting on a Friend” to the Stones’ repertoire and took its prominent place among the Stones’ most compelling – and most popular – later albums.

 

            With the release of Steel Wheels in 1989, the Stones went back on the road again for the first time in seven years and inaugurated the latest phase of the band’s illustrious career. They’ve made strong, credible new studio albums during this period – Voodoo Lounge (1994), Bridges to Babylon (1997), A Bigger Bang (2006) – along with the excellent live album Stripped (1995) and the fun, immensely satisfying hits collection, Forty Licks (2002).

 

While the Stones have raised the bar significantly in the studio, they have simultaneously continued to set a standard for live performance. That is an achievement completely in accord with the band’s history, something that has defined the group from the very start. Mick Jagger remembers that “As soon as we got in front of audiences, they went crazy. It started in clubs, and then it just continued to grow.”

 

When the Stones began to be introduced on their 1969 tour as “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World”, they were staking that claim on the basis of their live performances. It was almost fashionable for bands to withdraw from the road at that time – Bob Dylan and the Beatles had both done so. But the Stones set out to prove that writing brilliant songs and making powerful records did not mean that you were too lofty to get up in front of your fans and rock them until their bones rattled. The Stones’ live shows – epitomized, of course, by Jagger’s galvanizing erotic choreography – had earned the band its reputation, and that flame was being rekindled. 

 

            And that’s the critical misunderstanding of the question, “Is this the last time?”, that has been coming up every time the Stones have toured for more than fifty years now. It’s true that over the decades the Stones have been in the news for many reasons that have little to do with music – arrests, provocative statements, divorces, feuds, affairs, stints in rehab, all the usual detritus of a raucous lifetime in the public eye. But, for all that, the Stones are best understood as working musicians, and their own acceptance of that fact is what has enabled them to carry on so well for so long. For all the tabloid headlines, Mick Jagger is ultimately an extraordinary lead singer and one of the most riveting performers – in any art form – ever to set foot on a stage. Keith Richards is the propulsive engine that drives the Stones and makes their music instantly recognisable. Their complementary styles, incomparable collaborative genius as songwriters and even their all-too-public battles have made them the very definition of the rock & roll singer/guitarist partnership, battling brothers who have often been imitated and never surpassed.

 

Ronnie Wood, meanwhile, is a guitarist who has formed a rhythmic union with Richards, but who also colours and textures the band’s songs with deft, melodic touches. And the late and oh so great Charlie Watts was one of rock’s greatest, most supple drummers. He is both the rock that anchored the band, and the subtle force that made it swing.

 

            “It’s still too early for me to talk about the Stones’ legacy,” Keith Richards says. “We haven’t finished yet. There’s one thing that we haven’t yet achieved, and that’s to really find out how long you can do this. It’s still such a joy to play with this band that you can’t really let go of it. So we’ve got to find out, you know?”

 

Indeed, the Rolling Stones continued to break new ground in many different ways, be it their acclaimed exhibition ‘EXHIBITIONISM’, now morphed into ‘UNZIPPED’ travelling the globe or their record-breaking free concert in Havana, Cuba in 2016 to an audience of 500,000, captured by director Paul Dugdale with two films. ‘Havana Moon’ and ‘Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America’, a compelling feature-length document of the band’s 14-date América Latina Olé Tour which reached its historic finale in Havana. As Latin America reveals itself to the band and Dugdale’s crew, it is possible to see both these films as a poignant insight into the band’s unparalleled legacy and the wide-ranging influence their music has had on numerous generations across the globe.

 

As it transpired, 2016 proved to be a vintage year for the Stones. The arrival in November that year of Blue & Lonesome was yet further cause for considerable celebration. Recorded intuitively and at speed in just three days, not only was it the band’s first studio album for 10 years, but it put them right back at the very top of the charts, reaching No 1 in 16 countries and winning several key awards – including a prestigious Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album…

 

Even a global pandemic couldn’t stop the Stones. While the world went into lockdown, they released the very cool track “Living In A Ghost Town”. The song was not only a timely comment on the dramatic effects of Covid but soon cemented itself as another Rolling Stones classic.

 

Fire, flood, pandemic… it seemed as though nothing could stop the Rolling Stones. But they are only mortal, and at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, on 30 August 2019, was to be Charlie Watts’ final gig with the band he had drummed with since 1963. His bandmates were devastated by his passing and remembered him with affection, love and total admiration.

 

In 2021, the band decided to carry on touring, while many of their peers hunkered down, the road was where the Stones could be found. They went back to the USA with the ‘No Filter’ stage and old friend of the band Steve Jordan on drums to more packed stadiums and rave reviews.

 

In 2023 they released a new studio album ‘Hackney Diamonds’ to rave reviews only to stun critics and fans alike with a 20 date USA tour in 2024. Led by the fantastic first single ‘Angry’ the Hackney Diamonds album went to number one around the globe. Now in 2O26 a headline from The London Times declares ‘The Stones Will Be the Sound of the Summer’ as the band prepare to release a brand new studio album titled ‘Foreign Tongues’ produced by Andrew Watt who is back in the saddle, Album to be unleashed in early July.

 

A new world throws up new challenges. As ever, the Rolling Stones plan to face it head-on: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, underpinned by the powerhouse rhythm section of bassist Darryl Jones and drummer Steve Jordan, will be on call with half a century of classic hits when the time is right to tour. The Rolling Stones  are as hungry as ever and out to prove that they still have a few surprises up their sleeves as another challenge beckons.