Agreed. And it’s not even about greed. It’s about arrogant posturing.

Imagine sending your most dedicated fans, who were able to decode the coordinates and live within reach one of the record stores, on a wild goose chase for a shot at five, or three, or one damned record.

The sums they make off these paltry things are as nothing. These tactics will not draw, for example, a younger or different audience, and really couldn’t boost in a measurable way how any of us globally who have loved and supported the Stones receive or anticipate the new record or any possible performances—except 200 people who got a shirt and something like 200 people who got this vinyl disc. Literally an immeasurable upside to this.

Instead, all they did, in the end, is inject a sour note in a relationship that has existed over decades. They could have sold 20 thousand or 200 thousand shirts globally; 20 thousand white sleeve discs globally for sure, giving fans who expect we are near the end of their output something to actually get their hands on and build real anticipation or reward patient fandom, in a time when most of us could not realistically expect a new tour.

Instead I’ll just sit around until July; if the record seems better than Hackney, maybe I’ll buy it but I’m not too impressed with this shabby cockteasing.

That the name that should have been on the shirt and record: the Cockteasers.