The Rolling Stones
Emotional Rescue

THE REVIEW

Published in 1980, "Emotional Rescue" represents a remarkable creative slump in the discography of the Rolling Stones. The album desperately tries to chase and repeat the great commercial success achieved two years earlier by "Some Girls". While "Some Girls" marked a decisive return to the rock mentality of the better times, "Emotional Rescue" presents itself as a predictable, limping, commercial work with few noteworthy elements. Just looking at the insipid cover, where the musicians’ bodies are captured using thermographic technology—an example of the electronic fashion prevalent in productions of the time—gives you an idea of its contents.

The album has plasticized sounds that at times make it boring. Without stirring unnecessary comparisons with the masterpieces of the early seventies, here is missing that sense of unpredictable, grab-and-go dictated by the guitars present in several pieces of "Some Girls". The tracks are all executed with great expertise and with a good dose of craftsmanship that always manages to overshadow a certain lack of compositional creativity and an increasingly marked commerciality. The surprise effect and the attitude to vary the sounds are completely absent. "Emotional Rescue" is a flat and interlocutory album that suffers too much from the fashionable influences of the period. At the time, Mick Jagger, perhaps consumed by the fever of Saturday night, would have done better to spend less time with his American disco friends to focus more on the blues roots that in a glorious and distant past sprouted from the delta of Dartford. On the other hand, even Keith Richards, strangely, fails to have creative insights to give the right grit to a subdued work. But he can be forgiven for everything.

The album opens with a composition by Jagger-Richards-Wood, "Dance (Part I)". It is a funky track, tight, quite clear in its execution. "Summer Romance" and "Let Me Go" seem like leftovers from the "Some Girls" sessions, but they are lively and instantly catchy songs. "Send It To Me", thanks to the awkward friendship with Peter Tosh, is contaminated by the reggae sounds so loved by the band, while "Indian Girl" is a sugary ballad with Jagger's voice in the foreground. "She's So Cold" is essential and has a relentless rhythm, while "Where The Boys Go" is characterized by a sound that is too tight and hard. "Down In The Hole" is a good, powerful, and convincing blues, and "All About You" is a touch of Richards. It's a delicate soul ballad played with feeling and sung with spirit, placed at the end. Probably the best moment of an barely decent album. A separate mention deserves the track that titles the album. "Emotional Rescue" is a brazen dance song with Jagger skillfully deploying all his vocal tricks from falsetto to whisper. Perhaps more suited to the Bee Gees’ "Spirits Having Flown" than to the Rolling Stones. A heavy and sly track that surely at the time was liked by those who regularly frequented the trendy nightclubs of New York. Yet, too dancey for the die-hard fans.

The album "Emotional Rescue" still achieved the usual success in sales and chart rankings. However, the critics were cold and harsh with the Stones and their tendency to produce rather commercial songs. Only the following "Tattoo You", released the year after, would bring back glory and esteem to the band thanks to a rediscovered compositional enthusiasm.