In anticipation of their new studio album Hackney Diamonds, The Rolling Stones have shared their latest single, the Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder collaboration ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’.
After the generic riff-rock of their previous single ‘Angry’, ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’ is a solid reset for the Stones. Dipping into the band’s penchant for gospel and old-school country music, the song finds Mick Jagger in full preacher mode, pleading that “no woman or child go hungry tonight.” Meanwhile, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood trade some phase-heavy guitar licks, not unlike the kinds that the pair traded on Some Girls.
For her part, Gaga does her best to channel the great vocalists that have cycled through the Stones’ work, including Merry Clayton and Lisa Fischer. It’s funny to hear Gaga go gospel – she’s tried her hand at classic crooning through her work with Tony Bennett, but I don’t think she’s ever done a real church stomper before. It fits her vocal style well, especially when she gets to belt her way through the song’s conclusion.
“We did it live in the room, and that was a great experience, her just coming in the room and her just opening up and seeing her bits and feeling her way and then getting more confident,” Jagger explained in a statement. “And then we came back and then did some extra parts that we hadn’t done on the day and then we did some tidying up and we were just in the overdub room, really face-to-face, getting them really tight, the parts really tight, and then being slightly competitive and screaming.”
Assuming that the main keyboard lines belong to Wonder (as he’s credited), it’s a funny thing to hear him not get funky on record. It almost feels un-Stevie Wonder-like. Of course, the main piano line could be Matt Clifford, the album’s other credited keyboard player. But whether Wonder’s on piano, organ, or something else, he adds stateliness and a warm cover to the ballad.
I’m not sure if the Stones have ever gone this far into gospel before, at least not at this level of grandiosity. There’s certainly a lot of ‘Shine a Light’ here, plus maybe some ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, ‘Wild Horses’, or even ‘Far Away Eyes’, if that’s what you’re into. The charming ad-libbed coda, where Jagger and Gaga trade falsetto runs, finds the band at their loosest and most fun that they’ve been in years.
