The Rolling Stones Confirm ‘Foreign Tongues,’ a New LP Featuring Paul McCartney, Robert Smith, and More

The Rolling Stones have formally announced Foreign Tongues, their next studio album, ending weeks of speculation sparked by multilingual billboards carrying the band’s tongue logo and the phrase “Foreign Tongues” in cities across several countries. When Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood reposted those images on Instagram, the rollout felt less like nostalgia bait and more like a deliberate signal: this was an album campaign, not a one-off stunt.

The album arrives July 10 through Polydor/Universal Music. It runs 14 tracks and opens with lead single In The Stars, available digitally today (May 5), with a physical release to follow on May 15. The band is also issuing Rough and Twisted digitally, the same song they previously introduced under the alias “The Cockroaches,” a move that now reads as a playful but calculated prelude to the official launch.

What gives Foreign Tongues added historical weight is its personnel. Alongside the core trio, the album includes one of Charlie Watts’ final recordings before his death in 2021, as well as contributions from Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, The Cure’s Robert Smith, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. On paper, that guest list could look crowded; in practice, it suggests the Stones are still curating across generations rather than merely extending a legacy brand.

Like 2024’s Hackney Diamonds, the new record was produced by Andrew Watt and tracked at Metropolis Studios in West London, reportedly completed in under a month. Jagger described the sessions as compressed and high-intensity, noting that the smaller room sharpened the performances. Richards has framed the album as carrying a “continuity” with Hackney Diamonds, while Wood emphasized how often the band landed takes quickly, describing a studio pace built on instinct rather than over-polishing.

That continuity matters. Hackney Diamonds wasn’t just a late-career commercial win; its North American tour became one of 2024’s highest-grossing global treks, finishing at Number Six for the year. Foreign Tongues appears positioned as an extension of that momentum, but with a more explicitly London-rooted identity and a broader cast of collaborators. At this stage in their career, the Stones seem less interested in reinvention than in sharpening what still works: urgency, chemistry, and selective risk.

The band is expected at a media launch in Brooklyn later today. A full tour announcement, however, is unlikely in the near term. In late 2025, plans for a 2026 UK and European stadium run were reportedly shelved because Richards was unable to commit. For now, the recording itself is the headline—and for a group this deep into its seventh decade, that remains the more revealing story.