The Rolling Stones have unveiled details of their much anticipated new album, Hackney Diamonds – and lead single Angry – at a star-studded press conference in London.
Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards shared insights at an event hosted by US presenter Jimmy Fallon in Hackney – after many hints about the album in recent weeks.
“I don’t want to be big-headed but we wouldn’t have put this album out if we hadn’t really liked it,” Sir Mick told the audience. “We said we had to make a record we really love ourselves. We are quite pleased with it, we are not big-headed about it, but we hope you all like it.”
Speaking to Sky News on the red carpet outside Hackney Empire, Sir Mick and Wood confirmed that Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder both feature on the album.
On stage, the trio said the record had been made quite quickly after getting together in December last year. They decided on the name, they said, after thinking of titles to do with “Hit And Run, Smash And Grab” – eventually choosing the London slang as The Rolling Stones are “a London band”.
This is their first album of original songs in 18 years and their first release since the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021 – they paid tribute to him at the event, saying it would have been “a lot harder” to make the record without his blessing.
Revealing further details of the record, Sir Mick said it features 12 tracks, with two recorded in 2019 with Watts. Fans can look forward to its release on 20 October.
Making albums and touring are the “Holy Grail” of being a music artist, Richards said, as he discussed what it was like to get back into the studio with his bandmates.
“It is fun, it is where a band can come together, playing live is the other Holy Grail, but to record is where the guys can come together and pass around ideas without any interference. It’s a great place for a band to work it all out,” he said.
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Asked if they think about how fans will react to their music, Richards added: “No, we just cross our fingers.”
Fans lined up outside the Hackney Empire on one of the hottest days of the year to be among the first to hear the news on Wednesday.
During the event, the trio premiered the video for Angry – and revealed it stars Euphoria and The White Lotus actress Sydney Sweeney, who sits in the back seat of a red convertible driving past Stones billboards in Los Angeles.
The star, sitting in the crowd, told Fallon she “freaked out and called my family” after being asked to feature in the video, describing it as “the biggest thing ever” that she has worked on.
Angry is a theme of the album, Sir Mick said, but added that the album also contains “love songs, ballads, country-type” songs.
Fallon also highlighted the long break since their last album of original songs, 2005’s A Bigger Bang, with Sir Mick responding jokily to say they had been “very lazy” – before adding: “We have done something! We’ve been on the road most of the time.”
The advert also included a website and phone number, leading to a recorded message with a greeting from a male voice, with a Cockney accent, which said: “Welcome to Hackney Diamonds, specialists in glass repair. Don’t get angry, get it fixed.”
Over the weekend, another website – dontgetangrywithme.com – also appeared, with details of today’s event confirmed on Monday.
“New album, new music, new era,” the band promised, revealing a short video skit featuring Fallon being summoned to the UK via a “Stones phone”.
The Rolling Stones formed in the early 1960s and have had eight number one singles in the UK, including (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Paint It Black, and Honky Tonk Women.
In 1989, they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and they marked their 60th anniversary with a European tour in 2022, covering 10 countries including a performance at British Summer Time (BST) festival at London’s Hyde Park.
Zayn Malik paid tribute to former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he kicked off his solo tour.
Payne died last month of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, according to a post-mortem.
Images from Leeds’s O2 Academy on Saturday showed Malik – who delayed his Stairway To The Sky tour due to Payne’s funeral on Wednesday – shared a tribute.
A message was displayed with a heart on a large blue screen behind the singer reading: “Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro.”
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Rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit that alleges he strangled a model on the set of a music video.
Warning: This story contains details that readers may find distressing
The lawsuit alleges the musician shoved his fingers in the claimant’s mouth at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in 2010, in what it refers to as “pornographic gagging”, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.
The model who brought the case – which was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York – was a background actor for another musician’s music video that Ye was guest-starring in, NBC said, citing the lawsuit.
She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the 47-year-old.
A representative for Ye was approached for comment by NBC News on Saturday.
The New York City Police Department said it took “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors”.
The lawsuit alleges that a few hours into the shoot, the rapper arrived on set, took over control and ordered “female background actors/models, including the claimant, to line up in the hallway”.
The rapper is then believed to have “evaluated their appearances, pointed to two of the women, and then commanded them to follow him”.
The lawsuit adds the claimant, who was said to be wearing “revealing lingerie”, was uncomfortable but went with Ye to a suite which had a sofa and a camera.
When in the room, Ye is said to have ordered the production team to start playing the music, to which he did not know his lyrics and instead rambled, “rawr, rawr, rawr”.
The lawsuit claims: “Defendant West then pulled two chairs near the camera, positioned them across from each other, and instructed the claimant to sit in the chair in front of the camera.”
While stood over the model, the lawsuit clams Ye strangled her with both hands, according to NBC.
It claims he went on to “emulate forced oral sex” with his hands, with the rapper allegedly screaming: “This is art. This is f****** art. I am like Picasso.”
Universal Music Group is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant and is accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC.
Jesse S Weinstein, a lawyer representing the claimant, said the woman “displayed great courage to speak out against some of the most powerful men and entities within the entertainment industry”.
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
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The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November