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The Rolling Stones appear to have revealed the title and artwork for a long-rumoured new album across a series of Instagram posts by Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood.
Each of the three remaining members of the band’s classic line-up (Jagger and Richards were founding members in the early 1960s, with Wood joining in 1975) posted one-third of the image, beneath the words “Rolling Stones Foreign Tongues”.
Is this the cover of the new Rolling Stones album?The Rolling Stones/CompositeThe artwork features slivers of caricature-style likenesses of the three members, which presumably will go to make a composite cover image.
The approach draws from a game devised by surrealist artists in the 1920s, in which a folded sheet of paper is passed around, with each artist contributing a drawn element without reference to the work of the artist before. When unfolded, the work reveals a composite image unfettered by logical connections or sequences of imagery, in line with the surrealists’ fascination with the workings of the subconscious mind.
The game was known as The Exquisite Corpse, and it’s perhaps fitting that the Stones would reference it, deliberately or otherwise.
As early as the 1990s, their knockers were referring to them as The Strolling Bones (a name later taken up by various tribute and cover bands). Decades on, Jagger and Richards are 82 and Wood a relative sprig of a thing at 78, yet they are undeterred and seemingly determined to rock until they drop.
The website thecockroaches.com (for the band The Cockroaches) includes a poster that clearly references the lips and tongue imagery that has served as the logo of The Rolling Stones since 1971. The CockroachesThe band has been teasing a new release since April, when posters appeared in London for an outfit called The Cockroaches (a name Richards has used in the past, and most definitely not the precursor band to Australia’s The Wiggles).
Those posters included a QR code that directed the curious to a website, thecockroaches.com, with an image that included a calendar clock stuck on April 11 and a poster featuring a neon version of the iconic lips and tongue imagery the band has used as a logo since 1971.
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A limited-edition single on 12-inch white vinyl was released by The Cockroaches on that date. It was available only in record stores (incidentally, a week before Record Store Day), and has not been made available in full online. But a teaser snippet released by the band – and various bootleg uploads of the song in full – make it pretty clear Rough and Twisted is the Stones in finest dirty-blues form.
Foreign Tongues will be the 25th Rolling Stones studio album (excluding compilations and rebadged titles for the US early in their career), and their first since Hackney Diamonds in 2023. Some English media outlets are reporting as fact a release date of July 10.
The band also appear to be gearing up for a live concert tour, with a tab on the website directing fans to “check back for all the latest tour dates”. The Stones last played live in July 2024, with plans for further dates in 2025 being abandoned.
The artwork appears to be inspired by the surrealist art game The Exquisite Corpse. The Rolling Stones/CompositeIf the campaign until now has been shrouded in mystery, that could soon change. According to Hang Fire, a podcast dedicated to all things Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger is slated to appear as a guest on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show on Tuesday, May 5.
Those famous lips, which have been strategically sealed until now, are sure to loosen then.
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Karl Quinn is a senior culture writer at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X, Facebook or email.From our partners