The Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue has been hailed by fans as an album that has “aged really well” despite two songs.
Two bad songs don’t make a bad album, and for many fans of the Mick Jagger-fronted group, it seems Emotional Rescue still stands up. Emotional Rescue was released in June 1980 and would precede Tattoo You. Fans on the r/RollingStones subreddit believe Emotional Rescue is one of their better releases from the post-Some Girls period, with some members of the public even suggesting it has some of the strongest songs from the band. A post to the forum had fans share their thoughts on Emotional Rescue, with many believing the album is not as bad as its reputation may suggest. One fan has suggested that despite the two “disco songs” it’s an album that has “aged really well.”
They wrote: “Despite having two disco songs on it, the album has aged really well. It’s probably a little like Goats Head Soup in the sense that it will always be compared to the album that came before it (Some Girls, in this case).
“And while there was probably some overlap there, some of the songs starting as Some Girls ‘leftovers’ most likely, well that argument falls apart when a year later, they would release an album that was literally ALL leftovers, and that one sounded pretty damn good too!
“It’s actually a tragedy how little attention The Rolling Stones themselves pay to this album, as far as playing the songs live. Let Me Go and She’s So Cold were both on the ’81 – ’82 setlist, but rarely heard since then. Dance and Emotional Rescue wouldn’t get any live performances until thirty years or so after the fact.
“And Keith might have done All About You a few times. Don’t think the rest of the album has ever been heard live at all, though they did rehearse Summer Romance meven before it was offically recorded, during the SNL rehearsals in 1978. Did not make the actual performance, of course. Really would have loved to hear a live version of Down in the Hole or Send It To Me.”
Another suggested Emotional Rescue is the core of a three album set from The Rolling Stones. The listener explained: “Love it. It is the core of a group of three albums that I look at as a set. Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, and Tattoo You.
“My other favourite set is Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, and Sticky Fingers. This is just representative of a couple of different eras that really stand out. I love so much of the whole catalogue and it spans so many albums and so many decades. The Rolling Stones are so prolific.”
A third added: “Honestly, their most underrated album. It’s very off-hand and a little sloppy, obviously indebted to the NYC punk scene that Jagger was witnessing in real time, and there’s some refreshingly unserious and fun moments, the type of which would shortly disappear completely from their output.”
Emotional Rescue would top the US and UK charts, though is not as highly regarded as the likes of Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed.
Discover more from Cult Following
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
