The Rolling Stones have slipped out an announcement about their new album using a cryptic local newspaper advert.
The surviving members of the band, now in their 70s and 80s, chose London’s Hackney Gazette to reveal details of the new record to their knowing fans.
To the uninitiated, the advert may look like an unremarkable notice for a new local store.
“Hackney Diamonds, specialists in glass repair, opening September 2023,” it told readers on page 3 of the paper.
But underneath there are more clues to the advert’s true meaning. It says: “Our friendly team promises you satisfaction. When you say gimme shelter we’ll fix your shattered windows.”
Fans have realised the advert was a teasing promotion for the band’s 31st studio album, out in September.
Stones aficionados have been enjoying sharing the many knowing references in the advert to the band’s history, lyrics and iconography.
The i in (Hackney) Diamonds is dotted with the band’s tongue and lips logo. Diamonds is also a reference to the Rolling Stones’s 60th anniversary tour, which began last year in Madrid.
References to at least three of the band’s best-known hits are included in the text of the advert: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Gimme Shelter and Shattered.
According to the NME, the font used for the words Hackney Diamonds is the same as the one used on their 1978 album Some Girls. And “Est 1962”, at the foot of the advert, is a reference to the year the Rolling Stones were formed.
A web link takes users to a site to register their interest. The conditions list Universal Music Group, which handles the Rolling Stones’ back catalogue.
Earlier this month bronze figures of the band’s frontman, Mick Jagger, and guitarist Keith Richards were unveiled in their home town of Dartford, Kent, where the pair met in 1961.
The new album will be the first to be released since the death two years ago of drummer Charlie Watts.
