Making the Case for The Rolling Stones’ Disco-Rock Hybrid Album, ‘Emotional Rescue’

Get up, get out, get into something new, Mick Jagger shouts near the beginning of “Dance (Pt. 1),” the relentlessly funky opening salvo on The Rolling Stones’ 1980 album Emotional Rescue. Perhaps the band’s attempt to force their fans into a new listening experience is part of what makes this album one of the less-esteemed in the band’s wonderful catalog.

Let’s be honest here: You won’t often see Emotional Rescue high on too many lists of the Stones’ finest works. Just in case you’ve packed it away in some forgotten bin, though—either in your basement or your memory banks—we’re here to tell you it deserves another listen. But before we sing its praises, we should explore some possible reasons why this album suffers from an unfortunate, undeserved reputation.

Middle-Child Syndrome

There are times when albums are denigrated simply because of the context of when they were released. Emotional Rescue certainly falls prey to that. The album preceding it, Some Girls (1978), was a smash hit, both as an album and in terms of the individual songs it spawned. Mick Jagger prowled the urban landscape throughout the record, which was expertly dressed up with citified sounds (including disco) that proved the band could hang prevailing trends without losing their identity.

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In 1981, Tattoo You put the Stones back on top of the charts and the rock world at large. Most of the listening public had little idea that the album was actually a collection of leftover tracks that the band had recorded over the previous decade before cobbling it all together and polishing it up. Ironically, it came off sounding as unified as they’d been in decades.

Settled in between those two records, Emotional Rescue doesn’t have the thematic hook of Some Girls or a unique story behind its making like Tattoo You. As a result, it gets written off by some as just another Stones record. But a deeper dive uncovers anything but that.

What About the Single?

Another reason behind the album’s poor standing could be the fact that the lead single and title track went down a musical road that some diehard fans didn’t want to travel. The Stones had already broken the ice with disco on the big single “Miss You” from Some Girls. But returning to that well with “Emotional Rescue” seemed to signal to some people that they had turned their back on rock.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, of course, as one listen to the album would have revealed. It’s also a shame that “Emotional Rescue” isn’t given a fair shake by some, because it’s one of the band’s most engaging singles. Ronnie Wood filled in for Bill Wyman on bass and laid down a funky strut, which is accentuated by Charlie Watts’ just-right rat-a-tat. Jagger indulges gleefully in both his falsetto and his knight in shining armor shtick in the closing moments.

“Emotional Rescue” was a Top 5 hit on both sides of the pond, a deserving success for a band willing to follow its muse no matter to what genre it led. That willingness also played out over the other nine songs on the album of the same name.

A Little Bit of Everything

Listening to Emotional Rescue today, the worst that can be said about it is that it doesn’t deal with anything too weighty. The closest thing to social commentary is “Down in the Hole,” and even that doesn’t get too specific about its dire warnings. For the most part, this is meant to be a feel-good album that shows off the band’s versatility.

Those looking for brash rock will find it on the ravers “Let Me Go” and “She’s So Cold.” Reggae lovers will enjoy “Send It to Me.” Fans of the band’s bluesy beginnings will find them waist-deep in the murk on the sensational “Down in the Hole,” with Ronnie Wood’s and Keith Richards’ guitars intertwining thrillingly around the sludgy rhythm laid down by Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, all while Jagger ominously growls. “Indian Girl” is a quirky but charming mélange of a song that gently closes out Side One.

Even seeming throwaways like “Summer Romance” and “Where the Boys Go” sound like the boys were having a blast in the studio. Yet the final song on the record, which is also one of its finest, reveals that there was still some bad blood lurking.

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That final track is “All About You,” on which Richards takes lead vocals and soulfully pours out all his frustrations with Jagger. Well if you call this a life / Why must I spend mine with you? he asks in a tortured moan. Those simmering tensions would come to the surface in the middle of the ‘80s and very nearly torpedo the band before they pulled it back together for Steel Wheels.

Emotional Rescue also earns points for involving old Stones buddies like Bobby Keys, Ian Stewart, Nicky Hopkins, and Jack Nitzsche in the sessions, tethering the album to the band’s history even as they boldly tried au courant sounds. If you’ve forgotten about this record or have some kind of bad association with it based on some of the reasons we listed above, we implore you to spin it again. It’s The Rolling Stones at their versatile best—not exactly reinventing the wheel, but certainly rolling that wheel down the road with trademark gusto.

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