The Rolling Stones have rocketed to the top of the iTunes chart more than 40 years after their last number one hit.

The single 'Living In A Ghost Town' - the

The Rolling Stones have rocketed to the top of the iTunes chart more than 40 years after their last number one hit.

The single 'Living In A Ghost Town' - the band's first for eight years - beat stars including Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Drake to the peak of the US table.

The legendary group, made up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, both 76, Ronnie Wood, 72, and Charlie Watts, 78, released the song on Thursday.

It's got mixed reviews from the critics with some saying it sounds remarkably similar to The Specials' 1981 hit 'Ghost Town. 

The single 'Living In A Ghost Town' - the band's (pictured last year) first for eight years - beat stars including Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Drake to reach the pinnacle

The NME said: 'Living In A Ghost Town', despite being The Stones' first original song since 2012, is a… rushed and half-baked comment on our current predicament.'

'Aiming at The Specials' 'Ghost Town' and ending up like a deep bluesy take on Hard-Fi's 'Cash Machine', it finds Jagger tremulous, forlorn and a little angry that humanity is no longer free to amass at his electrified gates.'

It is the first time they have had a number one on iTunes, which was only created in 2001 - and comes eight years after they released their last original single, One More Shot, in 2012.

The legendary group, made up of Mick Jagger (pictured), Keith Richards, both 76, Ronnie Wood, 72, and Charlie Watts, 78, released the song on Thursday

The hitmakers made the announcement separately on social media (Keith pictured L, Ronnie pictured R)

Their latest track was recorded in LA and London last year, but Mick says they shared the song earlier than expected due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The star DJ Zane Lowe: 'It wasn't written for now but it was written about being in a place which was full of life, and then now there's all bereft of life, so to speak.

'And when I went back to what I'd written originally lyrically, it was all full of plague terms and things like that. I never actually used that, but it was all there.

'It was very close to the times that we're living through now. But Keith Richards and I both had the idea that we should release it.'

The musician admitted he decided to tweak the lyrics as he believed some messages within the single were 'a bit too weird a dark'.

He continued: 'I don't know what frame of mind I must've been in. I mean it was semi-humorous, then it got less humorous and I don't know.

'Sometimes these things take a long time to write but this, I just wrote it really quickly in like 10 minutes.'

'We played this song just Keith Richards and myself and a friend of ours, Steve. We routined it together after I've done it and we worked some parts out. And then we went and recorded it with a band.

'Then last week I redid the vocals for this. And it's just open to own interpretation to a certain extent of course.

'But yeah, no, it was a little strange because the original was so much apropos of the times we were living through already.'

Artist Keith reassured listeners there is more music to come as Living In A Ghost Town is one of the 'several other tracks' featured in their forthcoming studio album, their first original collection of singles since A Bigger Bang in 2005.

On ensuring the LP is 'greater' than their others, Mick, who insisted he's 'lucky' to be in a profession in which he can still work, explained: 'I think one of the problems I personally have with it is that it's suddenly that you want it to be really good.

'So I don't just want it to be a good album, I want it to be great. You know? Yes, I'm very hard on myself.

'If I write something or if I write something with Keith Richards or whatever, it's going to be great. It can't just be good.'

The superstar also discussed bouncing back from his successful heart surgery in April 2019, which saw him return to stage in just three months.

He explained: 'Well first of all, after I had this heart operation, after two weeks I went to get a check-up and I spoke to the doctor to say, 'Look, I know you've got this tour on, but really you should take the summer off.' 

'And the guy said to me, 'Okay, so you can go on tour now.' I said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Do I have to take it easy?' He said, 'No, you do anything you want.' 

'I thought I was going to get the summer off at this point. I asked, 'Is there any restrictions?' He said, 'No, there's no restrictions. Just do what you'd normally do.' So I did. So that made me feel good in a way. So I just did what I did.'

The Rolling Stones 15-date No Filter summer tour was due to kick off in San Diego, California on May 8 and end in Atlanta, Georgia on July 9.

They released their last single, Doom and Gloom, in 2012, four years before dropping their cover album, Blue & Lonesome (pictured together last week)

During an interview with Zane Lowe (R) on Apple Music, singer Mick and guitarist Keith touched on their upcoming album and the current climate of the music industry

But the future of their performances are still up in the air due to rampaging coronavirus.

Mick said: 'Postponing tours is really bad and the whole touring thing, we don't know what's going to be happening.

'We don't know when there's going to be the next football match. We don't know when the next tour outside's going to be.

'You would imagine that playing outside would be more healthy than playing inside, one would imagine, but you don't know.

'And people are saying, 'Well are you going to be playing in a stadium that's 40,000 people?

'You're going to have 20,000 people in there,' for instance. But this is all in the realm of conjecture.'