Hear The Rolling Stones’ Secret New 7″ Single “Rough And Twisted”

The Rolling Stones are almost certainly the most famous currently-active rock 'n' roll band on the face of the planet, and all the surviving members are roughly one billion years old. They don't need to hype up a new record by doing viral-marketing stunts, but they're doing it anyway.

The Stones released their Andrew Watt-produced album Hackney Diamonds in 2023, and we've heard rumblings about another LP that they recorded with Watt for months. Recently, posters for a band called the Cockroaches have been popping up in London's Camden Town, and that's an old alias that the Stones used to use. According to The Times, the posters are part of the rollout for a new Rolling Stones album that's set for a July release. After teasing the release of a single called "Rough And Twisted," the Stones, using the Cockroaches name, released it as a super-limited white-label vinyl single over the weekend. Fortunately, someone has posted it online.

As early reports suggested, "Rough And Twisted," which the band previewed on Instagram last week, sounds very much like a late-period Rolling Stones song. Mick Jagger really sinks his fangs into the phrase "acrid and toxic." The single was reportedly pressed up on 1,000 numbered copies and sold at independent record stores over the weekend. It's not on streaming, but someone posted almost the entire thing on TikTok. Listen now, before it gets taken down.

The Stones only just acknowledged this stunt on their own channels.