“How ya doing?” Mick Jagger asks the crowd, arriving for a club gig in Manhattan. The crowd, industry folk and VIPs like Elvis Costello and Trevor Noah, had gathered to fete the release of “Hackney Diamonds,” the Stones’ first album of new songs in 18 years. There were hopes, but most didn’t know the band would be playing seven tunes …
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Seven songs into the vigorous new Rolling Stones album, and there it is: the instantly identifiable thwack of Charlie Watts’ snare drum. A slinky yet propulsive disco-rock jam, “Mess It Up” is one of two tracks on “Hackney Diamonds,” the Stones’ first set of original material in 18 years, for which Watts laid down his drum parts before he died …
