Mick Jagger Names Favorite Stones Albums and Takes a Shot at Some Girls

The Stones frontman also previews Foreign Tongues, due July 10, and reflects on six decades of making records.

Mick Jagger sat down with TODAY to name his favorite Rolling Stones albums and songs, offering candid assessments of the band’s catalog while also taking an indirect shot at the 1978 release Some Girls. The conversation came ahead of the Stones’ next studio album, Foreign Tongues, scheduled for release on July 10.

Jagger’s Picks From a Catalog Spanning Six Decades

Asked to single out standout albums, Jagger called 1971’s Sticky Fingers and 1968’s Beggars Banquet both ‘really good,’ and described 2023’s Hackney Diamonds as ‘pretty good.’ The praise was selective by design: Jagger made clear that not every era of the band’s output earns equal marks from him.

Some Girls, the band’s commercially successful 1978 record, drew a pointed aside. Jagger said, ‘There’s some Rolling Stones albums that have eight tracks. I mean, you only have eight tracks, and you were like 30 years old? Come on, what were you doing?’ He did not name the album directly, but Some Girls is among the Stones’ most prominent releases from that period with a notably lean track count.

On favorite songs, Jagger acknowledged the difficulty of narrowing things down, noting ‘there are hundreds of songs’ and ‘so many different styles.’ He ultimately pointed to four: ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ from 1968, ‘Honky Tonk Women’ from 1969, 1973’s ‘Angie,’ and ‘Start Me Up,’ released in 1981.

Foreign Tongues: What Jagger and Wood Have Said

The Rolling Stones are set to release Foreign Tongues on July 10. Jagger has confirmed the album includes tracks ‘In the Stars’ and ‘Ringing Hollow,’ with the latter described as being ‘about America as an idea.’

Speaking to MOJO, Jagger reflected on the country’s current cultural moment: ‘The American Dream is intact for some people, and I’m sure we can find some wonderful immigrant stories that happened in the last 12 months, but we read about the decline of the American Empire. It’s not the same place as it was. I lived in New York for 19 years. I’ve seen lots of America that no Americans have seen.’

On BBC Radio 2, Jagger addressed the inevitable comparisons to earlier Stones records, saying simply, ‘Everything’s different because it’s, like, 60 years ago. It’s not going to be the same.’

Guitarist Ronnie Wood offered a warmer take on the studio dynamic. ‘It’s always a laugh, always creative,’ Wood said. ‘That’s hard work in the studio because you got to get your part right in your mind enough to please the songwriter. This album is Mick’s baby, really. He’s kind of been working on these tracks for a long time, just in a demo way.’

Jagger’s Favorite Rolling Stones Songs

From a catalog he described as containing hundreds of tracks across many styles, Jagger named four personal favorites:

• Sympathy for the Devil (1968)
• Honky Tonk Women (1969)
• Angie (1973)
• Start Me Up (1981)

What we know

• Jagger named Sticky Fingers (1971) and Beggars Banquet (1968) as ‘really good’ albums, and called Hackney Diamonds (2023) ‘pretty good.’
• Jagger made a critical remark about a Stones album with eight tracks recorded around age 30, widely understood as a reference to Some Girls (1978).
• Jagger named ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ ‘Angie,’ and ‘Start Me Up’ as favorite Stones tracks.
• The Rolling Stones’ next album, Foreign Tongues, is scheduled for release on July 10.
• Foreign Tongues includes songs ‘In the Stars’ and ‘Ringing Hollow,’ with ‘Ringing Hollow’ described by Jagger as being about America as an idea.
• Ronnie Wood described Foreign Tongues as ‘Mick’s baby,’ saying Jagger had been working on the tracks for a long time in demo form.

The take

Jagger’s apparent dig at Some Girls is worth pausing on, because that album is widely regarded as one of the band’s commercial and creative high points. It reached number one in the United States and produced ‘Miss You’ and ‘Beast of Burden.’ The fact that Jagger seems to view its brevity as a missed opportunity says something about how he measures the band’s output: by density and ambition rather than chart performance. His preference for Beggars Banquet and Sticky Fingers aligns with the critical consensus that places the band’s early-to-mid-1970s run as their artistic peak, a view that has held up across decades of retrospective analysis.

The framing around Foreign Tongues is also notable. Wood’s description of it as ‘Mick’s baby’ and Jagger’s own acknowledgment that the process is fundamentally different after 60 years suggests this is a more deliberate, songwriter-driven record than some of the band’s recent collaborative efforts. For a legacy act operating without founding drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, the pressure to demonstrate continued creative relevance is real. Hackney Diamonds was widely praised for doing exactly that, and the early signals around Foreign Tongues suggest the band is leaning into topical, lyrically ambitious material rather than coasting on nostalgia. That approach has historically served the Stones better than playing it safe.

Why it matters

For Rolling Stones fans and classic rock listeners broadly, Jagger’s candid self-assessment is a reminder that the band’s own relationship with their catalog is more complicated than the reverence audiences bring to it. His willingness to second-guess Some Girls while championing newer work like Hackney Diamonds signals that the Stones are actively engaged with their legacy rather than simply curating it. With Foreign Tongues arriving in July, the band is making a case that six decades in, they still have something to say.

What’s next

The Rolling Stones’ album Foreign Tongues is scheduled for release on July 10. Confirmed tracks include ‘In the Stars’ and ‘Ringing Hollow.’ No additional release details were provided in available reporting.

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