For Those About to Rock: 2012

The new Rolling Stones single is out, and it's a rocker.

Whew. It feels really good to write that. In the barometer-setting "Beatles versus Stones" argument, I come down heavily on the side of the Stones, but I haven't been able to confidently say that about a new Stones single in at least two decades. (Listen below.)

Called "Doom and Gloom," the new Stones track is one of two from a forthcoming multi-disc greatest hits package called "GRRR!," and constitutes the first new music from the Stones since 2005's "A Bigger Bang." It's also the first song the band's recorded since guitarist Keith Richards portrayed singer Mick Jagger in less than flattering terms in his bestselling autobiography, "Life."

Fortunately, the Stones -- which these days feature Jagger, Richards, drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ronnie Wood -- offer nary a hint of musical disharmony on "Doom and Gloom." Starring Wood's and Richards' ringing interplay and that mystical guitar tone featured in such Stones classics as "Street Fighting Man," "Tumbling Dice" and "Miss You," "Doom and Gloom" is an uptempo dance number in the most rocking sense of the term.