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The Rolling Stones released their new studio album today. The legendary rock band has been celebrating success since the 1960s – also thanks to a special marketing strategy.
After about seven years, the Rolling Stones are back with a new album. The 31st studio album Hackney Diamonds will be released on October 20, the legendary rock band announced in London today. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood also presented their new single “Angry”. There had already been numerous speculations about a new album by the British cult band.
The last studio album “Blue & Lonesome” was released in 2016. “We were very lazy,” joked frontman Jagger in an interview with US talk show host Jimmy Fallon. “Maybe we were a bit too lazy. So we said: Let’s set a deadline and make an album.”
Fans take children and grandchildren to concerts
The British rock veterans have been on stage in various constellations for more than 60 years. “The Rolling Stones are simply brilliant artists who, thanks to their extraordinary talent, have managed to be successful since 1962,” says Michael Herberger, business director and managing director of the Baden-Württemberg Pop Academy, in an interview with tagesschau.de. Retaining such an “iconic hero status” for such a long time despite ups and downs is incredible.
Because of the long span of time, the band has a huge crowd of fans – young and old. “The old Stones fans from the sixties and seventies still come to the concerts and sometimes bring their children or grandchildren with them,” says Herberger. That is a huge marketing effect. However, the authenticity of the band and the preservation of their identity also play a role: “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are not known for their conformity, but for rock ‘n’ roll.” That’s a big part of their popularity, says the expert.
Other observers also see the appearance of the Rolling Stones as a secret of success – and as a marketing strategy. “The British band had (…) acquired a reputation that unfolded an even greater potential for scandal than that of the Beatles. The Fab Four had been staged as a group that appeared in smart outfits, avoided controversial lyrics at first and performed in concert halls themselves of the royal family, the Rolling Stones, founded by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, consciously built up a ‘bad boy’ image,” writes pop culture expert Bodo Mrozek in his book “Jugend – Pop – Kultur. Eine transnationale Story”.
Only James Last more successful in the German charts
According to Mrozek, her manager Andrew Loog Oldham set new marketing impulses. “In order to significantly distinguish the band he was promoting from the Beatles, he early on built up an image as a counter-Beatles and stylized them as prototypes of ‘rebellious’ young people,” says the researcher from the Institute for Contemporary History. The “face-lift” gave the band a negative image and the slogan as the “toughest band in the world” – with success.
In the official German charts alone, the Rolling Stones have been placed with 46 singles and 81 albums, according to the market research institute GfK tagesschau.de communicates. Only James Last was more frequently represented in the charts with 112 albums. In all, the band has had seven number one hits and ten number one albums. In addition, according to GfK 2020, they set two records with the number 1 hit “Living In A Ghost Town”: Not only are they the oldest artists to have ever sat on the throne of the single hit list, but they also recorded the widest range between two number 1 hits (52 years).
The Rolling Stones’ last album, Blue & Lonesome, contained only blues covers. The last record with his own compositions – “A Bigger Bang” from 2005 – comes from a time when streaming services like Spotify didn’t even exist. In the meantime, the musicians also earn their money from it, but probably only a fraction of the income from concerts.
22 million concert tickets sold since 2018
“The Rolling Stones have almost 25 million monthly listeners on Spotify,” says Herberger. A million streams bring in around 3,500 euros for the authors, the record company and the artists. All in all, streaming via Spotify means a monthly turnover of around 90,000 euros for everyone involved. “That’s not nearly comparable to the income on the tour,” said the expert. This is also due to the fact that the ticket prices for concerts by international top stars are sometimes astronomically high.
According to concert promoter Pollstar, the Rolling Stones took in a total of $115.5 million from their 2021 tour. British singer Harry Styles ($86.7 million) and the “Hella Mega Tour” by American rock bands Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer ($67.3 million) followed at a certain distance in second and third place. “These amounts of sold-out arenas cannot be reached in streaming,” says Herberger.
The Stones sold 516,624 tickets for their tour two years ago. According to Pollstar, concert tickets have totaled 22 million since 2018. According to the publication, the band has made more than two billion dollars since then. Last summer alone, the British rockers earned more than 8.5 million dollars per night with a 15-city tour of Europe. That’s $127.5 million in revenue.
Band members have amassed a fortune
Added to this are the proceeds from physical sales. The last album “Blue & Lonesome” sold 106,000 copies in the first week alone and debuted at number 1 in the British album charts. In addition to the UK and Germany, it topped the album charts in over a dozen other countries and was certified gold or platinum in several countries.
With their successes, frontman Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, who wrote most of the songs, are said to have amassed a fortune of around 445 million euros each. Drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021 and can still be heard on two of the twelve new songs, is said to have owned 221 million euros. With an estimated 177 million euros, guitarist Ronnie Wood is behind his bandmates.
Financially, the Rolling Stones definitely don’t need a new album anymore. But since the last composition, there have only been a few new songs, including the pandemic single “Living In A Ghost Town”. “Hackney Diamonds” is already a rock’n’roll sensation – especially in view of the advanced age of the musicians. Together, frontman Mick Jagger (80), guitarist Keith Richards (79) and Ronnie Wood (76) have 235 years under their belt.