What on earth is Fremmede Sprog and what has it got to do with the Rolling Stones?

Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard of The Rolling Stones perform during the final night of the Hackney Diamonds '24 Tour at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena
(Image credit: Gary Miller/Getty Images)

The Rolling Stones seem to have revealed the title of their upcoming album, via a cryptic global billboard campaign.

In the last few days, posters in major cities around the world have been seen with the familiar Stones lips logo and the same phrase, but in various different languages. Posters have been seen in Manchester, Warsaw and Paris, advertising, variously: ‘Fremmede Sprog’, ‘Vreemde Tongen’, ‘Langues Etrangues’ and others.

(That last one is French, bien sur. And ‘Vreemde Tongen’ apparently means ‘a tongue you are not accustomed to’ in Dutch. So now you know).

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And then it was officially confirmed - the new album will be called… Foreign Tongues.

It comes a couple of weeks after the Stones teased the album’s first single, via a series of posters asking ‘Who the F*** are The Cockroaches?’ Answer: they were the Stones in disguise and a week or so later, a new vinyl-only single Rough & Twisted went on sale under that name, that you have to assume is the lead single.

Don’t bother trying to find it in a record store - it’s already sold out. There are copies going on ebay. If you’re willing to part with a figure north of £2000, that is.

You might as well wait until the album, then. It’s been confirmed that Foreign Tongues will be released on July 10, and will be the second Stones album to be produced by Andrew Watt, after its predecessor, 2023’s Hackney Diamonds.

This far into their career, every new Stones album is rumoured to be the ‘last one’. But according to the Times, whatever happens regarding Mssrs Jagger, Richards and Wood’s personal health, there is more to come from the band. Apparently, they have written another ten songs since Foreign Tongue was put to bed.

As yet, there’s no news regarding live gigs. Late last year, the Stones scrapped plans for a UK and European tour, officially because Keith Richards was unable to “commit” to the schedule. You hope the Stones haven’t played their final gig, though with Jagger and Richards both turning 83 this year, that has to remain a possibility. We shall see.

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Beth Simpson
News and features writer

Beth Simpson is a freelance music expert whose work has appeared in Classic Rock, Classic Pop, Guitarist and Total Guitar magazine. She is the author of 'Freedom Through Football: Inside Britain's Most Intrepid Sports Club' and her second book 'An American Cricket Odyssey' was published in 2025.

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