Emotional Rescue was originally released June 24, 1980, it went to #1 in both the UK & US. The album includes the single hits Emotional Rescue and She's So Cold. Most people know the music, so in my reviews I try to give you data on the sessions and interesting facts connected with the songs and the album. Here we go:

Interesting notes include:
.....the vinyl album was released with a large color poster of images taken of the Band with a thermographic camera that imaged the body heat instead of light.....a video was also done with thermographic cameras
.....the tracks on the album were recorded while Keith started his band The New Barbarians to fulfill his drug conviction sentence in Toronto by playing a benefit for the blind, which he did with Ron Wood and the rest of the Stones, and then did a tour (which made no money because the drug expenses were so high)....John Belushi was with the Band for most of the tour
.....Band members Ronnie Wood, Mick Taylor, and Ian McLagan all released albums (with accusations that their best work had gone into their solo efforts)

The sessions for Emotional Rescue were very productive with many unreleased songs. They started in Nassau and continued in Paris with overdub and final mixing at Electric Lady Studios in NYC during Nov & Dec of 1979 and in April 1980.
Jan 18 - Feb 12, 1979 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau
.....She's So Cold
.....All About You
Jun 10 - Aug 25 & Sep 12 - Oct 19, 1979 at Pathe Marconi/EMI Studios in Paris
.....Dance
.....Summer Romance
.....Send It To Me
.....Let Me Go
.....Indian Girl
.....Where The Boys Go
.....Down In The Hole
.....Emotional Rescue

Also recorded during the Emotional Rescue sessions were:
.....Little T & A (released on Tattoo You)
.....Hang Fire (released on Tattoo You)
.....Worried About You (released on Tattoo You)
.....If I Was A Dancer (Dance, Pt. 2) (released as a 12" single)
.....Black Limousine (released on Tattoo You)
.....No Use In Crying (released on Tattoo You)

Tracks from these sessions that were never released included Gangster's Moll, I'll Let You Know, Linda Lu, Lonely At the Top, It Won't Be Long, Still In Love, Sweet Home Chicago, What's The Matter, You're So Beautiful (But You Gotta Die Someday), Break Away, and Sands Of Time.

This information comes from "It's Only Rock And Roll: The Ultimate Guide To The Rolling Stones" by Karnbach and Bernson and from my own collection, with some of the notes from Davis' "Old Gods Almost Dead." Both books are available from amazon.com.

The 1980's opened for the Rolling Stones with their Emotional Rescue album, released three days after my 12th birthday. To say that Emotional Rescue is Some Girls leftovers warmed over is somewhat harsh. Now granted, the two albums have a similar sound, rock with some disco leanings, and Some Girls is a much better album than its successor, but ER isn't an album to be totally dismissed because it pales alongside its parent album.
Far from it, this was better than expected, although I will make references to songs from Some Girls.

"Dance (Pt. 1)" opens with the funky disco beats that coloured "Miss You", but with a harder-edged sound-call it Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" meets Led Zeppelin's "Trampled Underfoot." A strong opener good for dancing and jamming to.
The reggae-flavoured "Send It To Me" seems to be a sequel to "Some Girls." Where the latter described what different kind of girls were like based on ethnicity and skin colour, the other song is kind of like a dating service. There's some humour at the end, when Mick sings "she could be Romanian, she could be Bulgarian, she could be Albanian, she could be Hungarian, she could be Ukrainian, .... she could be the Alien, send her to me." OK, Mick, you can have the Alien, I'll take the Romanian girl.

A rumbling guitar opens the rocker "Let Me Go," which is this album's "Respectable" about a girl who doesn't seem to understand the words, "it's over between us." "Indian Girl" is this album's "Beast of Burden" with some country inflections and some horns, though with the sober topic, nothing singleworthy. It's a portrait of the hardships inflicted on the indigenous population of Latin America by soldiers: " Lesson number one that you learn while you're young/Life just goes on and on getting harder and harder."

The most engaging track is the hard-driving "Where The Boys Go," which is this album's "Lies" with a chanting harmony refrain. This macho guilty pleasure gets raunchy towards the end, where the refrain goes "a little piece of..." Then it's cooling off time with some slow blues of "Down in The Hole" of hard life in the American zone (of Berlin I presume).

The title track, which reached #3, is the analogue of "Miss You," featuring some disco beats and Mick's falsetto, and is arguably one of the two best tracks. The other one, the rocker "She's So Cold," is this album's "Shattered," with the same quick-paced drums and drums. "I'm so hot for you and you're so cold," comparing her to an ice cream cone, and lines of his hand freezing when he touches her are featured in this ice queen song. This bettered "Shattered" by peaking at #26.

Emotional Rescue has been reviled alongside Black And Blue, Undercover, and It's Only Rock And Roll as one of the Stones' weakest albums, but maybe that's because it is repeatedly compared with Some Girls or Tattoo You, the albums it is chronologically sandwiched inbetween. With songs like the two singles, "Dance," and "Where The Boys Go," such is not the case. Major reevaluation required.

Damn good. Damn, DAMN good. I have read only one record book so far that rates this as a hot album, and hey, what can I say? I guess in this case I'm sticking up for the underdog. "Emotional Rescue" is hot. It rocks. It varies. The only track I don't care for on the whole collection is "Where The Boys Go", and even then THAT track is merely a mildly disappointing one instead of a major piece of dreck. Once you get over laughing hysterically the first time you hear the Stones trying to impersonate the Bee Gees on the title track, ignore Mick's cracking-all-over-the-place falsetto and check out the musicianship...talk about style and class (LOVE that BASS!!!). "Summer Romance", "Let Me Go" and "She's So Cold" are genuinely blood-pulsing party grooves in the great Stones tradition, "Dance (Part 1)" is genuinely enjoyable AND genuinely narcissistic-sounding (hey, only these guys can make a disco track sound dirty, dangerous and flat-out deliciously NASTY like this...where's "Part 2"???). "Send It To Me" is a real jewel, the most thoroughly addictive song on the album--once you hear it, you WON'T be able to get this impressive chunk of ear candy out of your head for DAYS, trust me. And, of course, the whole thing closes with the wistful sigh of "All About You" one of Keith's finest performances. Fantastically written, endlessly enjoyable and yet grossly underrated, this disc is a classic that deserves more praise and attention than it's getting. Be a nonconformist. But this one and love every moment of it.

It appears it wasn't until 1980 when this record was released that the Stones fully digested the massive disco, funk and soul influences of the 70's. Sure, "Miss You" is their best dance track ever, but the "Emotional Rescue" album has a much stronger overall dance vibe than any Stones record, past or present. "Dance (Pt. 1)" is their noisy, sloppy dance intro, with jagged guitars and rising horns. The disco influences appear again on "Send It To Me" and "Where The Boys Go", but they still always sound like the Stones. Mick's amateur falsetto on the title cut gives excellent weight to their attempt at funk with Wyman's bass laying down a dirty groove (the bass work on this album is considerable overall). And of course, no great Stones album would be complete without a signature Keith Richards ballad, this time Keith closes the record on a somber note.

There are the expected Stones-y tunes though. "Indian Girl" is their usual "lazy country" song, and "She's So Cold" is the obvious crank-it-up rocker. This is slightly a more adventurous album, but a great guitar-slop fest nonetheless from Mick & Co.

Emotional Rescue is easily the worst record the Rolling Stones ever made. From the interminable "Dance", to the mush-for-brains "She's So Cold" to Keith's warbling ballad "All About You", there's barely a moment of fire, or a catchy tune, or anything other than aging rockers stumbling around in the dark, trying to find something that works.

It's hard to be believe that the man who wrote songs like "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Midnight Rambler" could be satisfied with lyrics like "I'm the bleedin' volcano" and "she's so cold... like an ice cream cone." Virtually any high school garage band could have come up with tunes like these.

The only bright spot is the blues "Down in the Hole", which certainly doesn't measure up to what the Stones were capable of before or since, but set next to the mumbling material that makes up the rest of this album it sounds pretty good.

Keith's singing has always been problematic, especially on the tender ballads he has unfortunately acquired a taste for in his declining years, but he really scrapes out the bottom of the barrel here.

Fortunately the Stones would rebound out of this creative black hole, but when this turkey was released, we hard-core Stones fans were hard pressed to justify buying it, let alone actually forcing people to listen to it.

Anyone other than Stones fanatics should give this one a wide berth. The rest of us can enjoy the thermal photographs on the cover.