Day 405: The Rolling Stones – Tattoo You
I wanted something to listen to on a drive that’s not new to me but that I don’t really listen to very much, and this time that was Tattoo You by the Rolling Stones. I wrote about them on day 275 and said that it’s just not a band that I ever put on, and that’s still true, I just don’t have an occasion where I think “I should put on an album by the Rolling Stones”, even though I enjoy it every time I do. So today was that occasion.
Album cover courtesy of Rolling Stones Records
Tattoo You was released in August 1981 as the group’s sixteenth album in the UK and eighteenth album in the US, as their US distributor had released albums that were unique to the United States market. It was recorded at a time where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were not getting along, and the latter was affected by his heroin-related legal trouble.
The group weren’t really finding the time or effort to start writing new songs for their upcoming tour, so their associate producer Chris Kimsey went through the recording tapes for their last five albums to find songs they’d worked on but which hadn’t made it to an album. He presented them to the band and told them that they could cobble together an album from their old stuff, which they did.
People say that this is the last great album by the Rolling Stones so my expectations were sky-high, but honestly, I think it’s just not that special. I’m sure that’s a bit of a hot take and this is supposed to be an album that I love, but I just can’t muster up the energy to think that this is the band at their peak. It’s a collection of good songs that’s nice to listen to, but that’s about it. I just think there’s clearly a reason why something like “Little T&A” didn’t originally make the cut.
Sorry to the purists of the world, but it’s mostly just on the better side of fine to me, the second side with the ballads is more enjoyable than the first. My even hotter Rolling Stones take is that some people unnecessarily huff the farts of Keith Richards because he’s a great guitarist, but if anyone else released a song where they wailed off-key that bitches keep bitching and snitches keep snitching but your girlfriend is tits and ass with a soul, people would rightfully call it garbage. Tattoo You gets a 7.5/10.