Emotional Rescue

History

Recorded throughout 1979, first at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, then Pathé Marconi in Paris, with end-of-year overdubbing at The Hit Factory in New York City, Emotional Rescue was the first Rolling Stones album recorded after Keith Richards' exoneration from a Toronto drugs charge. Fresh from the revitalization of Some Girls, Richards and Mick Jagger led the band through dozens of new songs, picking ten for this album. Several tracks featured only the core band: Jagger, Richards, Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman. Others included keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and co-founder Ian Stewart, sax player Bobby Keys, and harmonica player Sugar Blue. Songs left off the album appeared on Tattoo You (1981), including "Hang Fire", "Little T&A", and "No Use in Crying". "Think I'm Going Mad" was released as the B-side to "She Was Hot" in 1984, and a Waylon Jennings cover sung by Richards, "We Had It All", appeared on the 2011 deluxe Some Girls package.

Packaging and artwork

The album cover had concept origination, art direction, and design by Peter Corriston, with thermographic photos taken by British-born, Paris-based artist Roy Adzak using a thermal camera. The original release came wrapped in a large colour poster featuring more thermo-shots of the band, with the album itself wrapped in a plastic bag. The original music video for "Emotional Rescue" used the same type of shots; a second video for the song was directed by David Mallett, produced by Paul Flattery and Simon Fields, as was one for "She's So Cold".

Release and reception

When the Rolling Stones dropped Emotional Rescue in June 1980, its disco-tinged title track shot straight to number three on the Billboard Hot 100, making the album an instant commercial success. It became the band’s first UK number one album since 1973’s Goats Head Soup and held the top spot on the US charts for seven weeks. The follow-up single “She’s So Cold” cracked the top 30, while “Dance Pt. 1” climbed to number nine on Billboard’s Dance chart.

Critics, however, were less enthusiastic. Many found the record formulaic and lacking ambition, especially compared to the band’s previous work. Rolling Stone’s Ariel Swartley noted that the melodies felt overly familiar, claiming there was hardly a tune on the album that hadn’t been heard from the Stones before. In the Village Voice’s 1980 Pazz & Jop critics poll, Robert Christgau called it “an ordinary Stones album,” and when it finished 20th in the year’s best-album rankings, he dismissed that result as “so far out of the money” for a band often hailed as the world’s greatest rock and roll act.

Over time, opinions softened. Retrospective reviews have praised the band’s performance even when the material felt lightweight. AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as mostly filler, but added that it was “expertly written and performed filler.” In his 1990 guide to the decade, Christgau himself reconsidered, noting that while the album wasn’t great, it carried a “mid-’60s lyrical charm” in throwaway tracks like “Where the Boys Go” and “She’s So Cold.” He also pointed out that the music felt “looser” than other lesser Stones records such as It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, with a more allusive and irregular drive and a bass sound that pushed Bill Wyman front and center like James Jamerson.

The album has seen several reissues. Virgin Records remastered and re-released it in 1994, followed by another Universal Music remaster in 2009. A Japanese-only SHM-SACD version came out in 2011 via Universal Music Enterprises. The 1994 remaster was initially offered as a Collector’s Edition CD that replicated much of the original packaging, including the color poster.