Doom and Gloom and Living in a Ghost Town: Late-Career Stones Under Critical Lens

Most critics didn’t call “Doom and Gloom” a creative revival, but they did call it respectable. Rolling Stone described it as a “solid, if unremarkable” blues-rock track that recalled the band’s ’90s sound without trying to push anywhere new. A few dismissed it as a contractual obligation for the GRRR! compilation, but the guitar work—especially Keith Richards’s riffs—was widely praised as still sharp. The consensus: not essential, but far from embarrassing.

“Living in a Ghost Town” landed in 2020 with a built-in advantage: its pandemic-era lyrics about isolation and empty streets felt instantly relevant. Critics like The Guardian called it “eerily prescient” and noted the band hadn’t sounded this urgent in years. Others pointed out that the song was actually written years earlier and only retooled, which undercut the spontaneity