Loads of 60s icons struggled to seek out their place within the 80s, however with their second album of the last decade, The Rolling Stones proved, but once more, simply why they’re the Biggest Rock’n’Roll Band In The World. Launched on August 24, 1981, Tattoo You consolidated the best parts of the Stones’ music, demonstrating their willingness to embrace change whereas by no means betraying their roots – and, within the course of, producing an album brimful of power.
By the band’s personal admission, it had been pieced collectively from periods stretching again a number of years. In Rolling With The Stones, Invoice Wyman famous that “some of it was ‘leftovers’ from Emotional Rescue,” whereas a brace of tracks – “Top” and “Waiting On A Friend” – stretched again to the Goats Head Soup periods of 1972. However whereas Mick Jagger later advised Rolling Stone journal, “It doesn’t have any unity of purpose or place or time,” that’s precisely what offers Tattoo You its energy: not have been the Stones the establishment-baiting unhealthy boys of the 60s, or shouldering the load of getting to out-do themselves within the 70s. Virtually casually assembled, the album might stand for what it was: 11 stand-out cuts that give every member a spot to shine.
Even now, “Start Me Up” arguably stays the best opener to any Stones album – no small reward, provided that it has competitors from “Brown Sugar” (Sticky Fingers), “Sympathy For The Devil” (Beggars Banquet), and “Gimme Shelter” (Let It Bleed). However its loosey-goosey riff – the one proof wanted for example how Keith Richards earned his epithet, “The Human Riff” – and handclaps are the proper bedrock for Jagger’s vocals: concurrently at his lascivious greatest whereas being wryly self-deprecating. Infectious, humorous, and totally self-aware, it units the tone for what finally turns into the Stones’ most reflective album.
Earlier than they get there, nonetheless, they show that they’re nonetheless firing on all cylinders. As Rolling Stone famous of their five-star evaluation: “it sounds like the Stones simply decided it was time to challenge themselves again.” Bringing jazz colossus Sonny Rollins in on saxophone, they not solely nod to the pomp of their early 70s masterpieces, however be sure that they collectively rise to his stage. If, on “Neighbours,” as Rolling Stone put it, Rollins performs with “the full-bodied sound of classic R&B – always about to go over the edge,” the Stones have been unafraid to observe, unleashing a efficiency that rivals “Start Me Up” for its infectious cost.
Effortlessly establishing their rock’n’roll credentials with the primary half of the album, the Stones used the second half to, as Billboard famous on the time, discover “the various vocal and instrumental permutations of the ballad form, while retaining the quintessential Stones soul.” And “soul” actually is the watchword – each musically and thematically. Having lined The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” on Some Women, they pay their very own musical homage to the basic 70s soul minimize with Tattoo You’s “Worried About You.” Elsewhere, “Heaven” is awash with reverb, an ethereal oddity that would nearly drift off by itself, have been it not for Charlie Watts’ deceptively easy drumming conserving it grounded.
As Watts is to the Stones, “Waiting On A Friend” is to Tattoo You: the key weapon. Closing the album, it’s a world-weary ballad up there with “Wild Horses” and “No Expectations” within the Stones’ discography. “I’m not waiting on a lady; I’m just waiting on a friend,” Jagger confides, earlier than later acknowledging, “Making love and breaking hearts, it is a game for youth.” Once more, Charlie offers the ballast, whereas the remainder of the band performs a bluesy lament on high; two minutes in, Rollins’ saxophone enters to offer the music its redemptive raise.
Tattoo You stays the final Stones album to hit No.1 within the US charts, peaking on the high spot on September 19 and sitting there for 9 weeks. It additionally gave the Stones their first Grammy, because of the album cowl, designed by Peter Corriston, who was then engaged on his third paintings in a row for the group; a portrait of Jagger, photographed by Hubert Kretzschmar, is made to look closely tattooed, and the picture stays one of the vital memorable album covers within the Stones’ discography.
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