Foreign Tongues, the Rolling Stones’ newest album, marks another entry in the band’s late-stage discography that ends up bigger and bolder than anyone anticipated. It dropped in July, and the rollout continues to unfold.
Foreign Tongues does not include the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards duet “Bad Luck Hideaway”—a track the group cut with their late drummer Charlie Watts, who passed away in 2021. The track did surface as a digital bonus but had not been released on streaming services before.
Yesterday, the Stones issued “Bad Luck Hideaway” in a proper release, serving as a kind of B-side to their Foreign Hands cut “Mr. Charm,” which now has its own music video. The band themselves do not appear in the Henry Scholfield–directed “Mr. Charm” clip. Instead, it becomes another Stones video featuring a glamorous, alluring film star. (Previously, the clip for “In The Stars” featured Odessa A’zion.) This time around, the star is Alexander Skarsgård, who continues to be the go-to image for tall, blond, middle-aged white guys. Hats off to him.
Skarsgård has a busy year ahead. He has already hosted SNL and starred in Pillion and Charli XCX’s The Moment, and he’s set to appear in Wicker and a project titled The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands. (Pillion is technically a 2025 movie, but it didn’t see a wide release until this year.) He also has a track record in music videos, having appeared in clips for Lady Gaga, Cut Copy, and most recently These New Puritans.
The “Mr. Charm” video unfolds in one of those sun-baked, retro desert-diner environments that seem to exist only in cinema, ads, and music videos. Skarsgård, often seen shirtless, grooves among a crowd of equally striking people in the heat. If he’s meant to be the title character, he’s a well-chosen casting. Below, watch both “Bad Luck Hideaway” and the “Mr. Charm” clip.
Foreign Tongues is out now on Capitol.
