The Stones' real news isn't the tour: it's that they're still making albums

Is the most interesting thing the Rolling Stones can do in 2026 really another tour? We don't think so. The tour is the predictable part. The surprising part is that a band this old is still making albums, and that changes how the road should be judged.

On this week's Sunday Sitdown, TODAY.com reports, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood sat down with Willie Geist to discuss the band's 27th studio album, "Foreign Tongues." They also talked about how they came together and about losing drummer Charlie Watts, and they offered their theory of longevity. In an earlier installment from June 14, 2026, Jagger discussed the record, his bond with Richards over the blues, and his plan to keep making music.

That is most of what the documentation gives us. We have no track list, no release date and no tour details, so we won't pretend to have them. What we do have is context: "Hackney Diamonds" in 2023 was, per Rolling Stone, their first original studio album since 2005's "A Bigger Bang."

The long gap is over, and that's the story

For nearly two decades, a new Stones record was a rumor. The band was a touring institution with a catalog, and the catalog did the work. Now there is a new album arriving after a comeback record. Whatever "Foreign Tongues" turns out to be, another album after such a long drought suggests, in our view, that the 2023 record wasn't a one-off commemorative gesture.

That matters because one late album can be a victory lap. More than one starts to look like a working band. Working bands make worse records sometimes, and that's the point: they risk something.

Camaraderie is a better pitch than "legacy"

When the band promoted "Hackney Diamonds," CBS News quoted Jagger saying he challenged Richards to set a deadline for an album. Wood said making records now was no different from 20 or 40 years ago, because you can't lose camaraderie and live music. Richards said the thrill of writing is the hint that "this could be fantastic," even if the song turns out lousy.

We find that more convincing than any talk of heritage. Deadlines, riffs and a room full of people are a creative method. A brand strategy would never admit that a song might be lousy.

The same interview also shows the other pull. Jagger was pleased that an AI-assisted video for "Angry" required nothing from the band ("we didn't have to do anything," he said), and on a hologram show he said "It's going to happen, I'm sure." That is the brand-renewal temptation in plain sight: make the Stones scalable and let the image outlive the people. It's honest of him to say it, but it's the opposite of urgency.

What the road should prove

Touring is where the Stones can easily slide into the tribute-act trap. A Substack critic, Wayne Robins, praised a live album for sounding "enthusiastic and fresh-sounding" rather than like "bored zombies," and he mocked the band's endless compilations. We'd borrow the test, not the verdict: do the new songs share the stage with the hits, or do they get squeezed into one polite slot while "Start Me Up" runs the show?

Our prediction, clearly a guess, is that the set will lean hard on the classics anyway. That's fine, as long as the new material isn't treated as a merchandising excuse. The most telling signal will be how many songs from "Foreign Tongues" make a setlist once tour details emerge, since the documentation gives us none.

Listen to the record first, buy the ticket second

Be excited, but about the right thing. The story is a band still making new albums, because it suggests, in our opinion, that they still need to make things, not just be things. If the tour backs that up with real risk, it will matter. If it becomes a lap around the catalog with a new T-shirt, it won't. For now, listen to the record first and buy the ticket second.