Emotional Rescue

Untitled

Emotional Rescue is an album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1980. As the follow-up to 1978's acclaimed best-seller Some Girls, it was a commercial success but is generally seen as an inferior product and a deliberate attempt to replicate its more famous predecessor.

Recorded throughout 1979, first in Nassau, Bahamas, then Paris, with some end-of-year overdubbing in New York City, Emotional Rescue was the first Rolling Stones album recorded following Keith Richards' exoneration from a Toronto drugs charge that could have landed him in jail for years. Fresh from the revitalization of Some Girls, Richards and Mick Jagger led The Rolling Stones through dozens of new songs - some of which were held over for Tattoo You - picking only ten for Emotional Rescue.

While several of the tracks featured just the core band of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood and Bill Wyman, keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart, sax player Bobby Keys and harmonica player Sugar Blue joined The Rolling Stones on Emotional Rescue.

The album cover, designed by Peter Corriston, features a sombre selection of band photos which had been taken by a thermo camera, a device which measures heat emissions. The original release came wrapped in a huge colour poster featuring more thermo-shots of the band, the whole being wrapped in a plastic bag. The music video shot for "Emotional Rescue" also utilized thermo-shots of the band performing.

Released in June with the disco-infused hit title track as the lead single, Emotional Rescue was an immediate smash. The title track along with the tracks "Dance" and "She's So Cold", hit #9 on Billboard's Disco Top 100 chart. The album gave The Rolling Stones their first UK #1 album since 1973's Goats Head Soup and spent seven weeks atop the US charts. While sales were strong, the critics were tepid on the album, finding it weak over all (at least compared with Some Girls) and noting the odd sequencing that appeared to place its strongest songs at the end of the running order. The follow-up single "She's So Cold" was also a Top 30 hit, while Richards' "All About You" would be the first of several album closers featuring his increasingly gravel-sounding voice on lead vocal. Subsequent critical evaluation of the record has been somewhat kinder, placing it in the context of the Stones' eclectic, so-called "silver age," running roughly from 1976's Black and Blue to 1981's Tattoo You, though its reputation has never qualified the album as a definitive Stones record.

In 1994, Emotional Rescue was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records.

Track listing

All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.

1. "Dance (Pt. 1)" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards/Ron Wood) – 4:23
2. "Summer Romance" – 3:16
3. "Send It to Me" – 3:43
4. "Let Me Go" – 3:50
5. "Indian Girl" – 4:23
6. "Where the Boys Go" – 3:29
7. "Down in the Hole" – 3:58
8. "Emotional Rescue" – 5:39
9. "She's So Cold" – 4:14
10. "All About You" – 4:18

Musicians

• Mick Jagger - Vocals, Backing Vocals, Electric Guitar, Piano, Electric Piano
• Keith Richards - Backing Vocals, Electric Guitar, Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Piano
• Charlie Watts - Drums
• Ron Wood - Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals, Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Slide Guitar, Pedal Steel Guitar, Bass
• Bill Wyman - Bass, Synthesizer
• Sugar Blue - Harmonica
• Nicky Hopkins - Piano, Xylophone
• Bobby Keys - Saxophone
• Billy Preston - Clavinet
• Max Romeo - Backing Vocals
• Michael Shrieve - Percussion
• Ian Stewart - Piano, Electric Piano, Percussion

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1980	UK Top 75 Albums	1
1980 1981	Billboard Pop Albums Billboard Pop Albums	1 77

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Position
1980	"Emotional Rescue"	UK Top 75 Singles	9
1980	"Emotional Rescue"	The Billboard Hot 100	3
1980	"Emotional Rescue/Dance Pt. 1/She's So Cold"	Club Play Singles	9
1980	"She's So Cold"	UK Top 75 Singles	33
1980	"She's So Cold"	The Billboard Hot 100	26