I picked up Emotional Rescue along with Some Girls and Tattoo You from the newest Universal Music remasters series and was pleasantly surprised at how well the recent remastering enhances my enjoyment of this album. The remastering tops any previous CD version of this album by a wide mark and I don't even remember the vinyl version sounding this good. The Stones tried out a lot of echo effects on this album as well as instrumentation mixes that usually sounded cheesy and muffled. Now the mixes are crystal clear and the album emerges as a laid back but stylish effort by the Stones that deserves more notice than typically given it. The rockers are effortless and cocksure and the more experimental tracks such as the title cut shimmer with clever instrumentation. Emotional Rescue along with It's Only Rock and Roll, really benefitted from the new remastering by Universal Music. I really have high expectations for Exile on Main Street as well.

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 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.

Also recorded during the Emotional Rescue sessions were:

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.

Emotional Rescue is basically a sequel to Some Girls and if it is not quite as good as that landmark, more in the same vein is not at all a bad thing. Song for song it is not as good as Tattoo You but probably a notch above Undercover and miles better than Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge or Bridges to Babylon.

1. Dance Pt.1 is a disco-rock song of its era with some funny Mick jive vocals. The kind of thing Mick probably felt compelled to create to impress his Studio 54 pals. Interestingly, the band resurrected this track for their Licks Tour club shows and it still sounds pretty good (just don't tell Keith he is playing disco).

2. Summer Romance is a fun rocking song. Sort of a throwback to a 50's-style rocker with a fast tempo echoing the punk rock of the time. Overall, very enjoyable.

3. Send It To Me: A not at all bad pop rock song with a bit of a groove to it. In the tradition of songs like Luxury that attempt Reggae, miss the mark, but end up enjoyable anyway.

4. Let Me Go: Okay, the version here is a fine if not too memorable pop rock song. However, for the 1981 tour the band goosed the tempo and really made this one come alive. See the Still Life live album for the definitive version of this song.

5. Indian Girl: I cannot defend this one. In my opinion, Indian Girl ties In Another Land from the SMR record for weirdest Stones song of all time. It is a lazy, sleepy ode to the female child of a mother / father team of Cuban guerrilla fighters battling somewhere in Angola. Huh? I had no idea Keith and Ronnie were so skilled in the art of Mariachi.

6. Where The Boys Go: A fast, punkish,rocker featuring faux cockney vocal stylings from a slumming Mick Jagger. The good fun quotient is upped a notch by the squealing girl-group backup singers

7. Down in the Hole: Very good, introspective blues song trippy in that the blues the protagonist has seems to be brought on by the fact that he is living in occupied West Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WWII! A total downer in a really good way

8. Emotional Rescue: A big hit that the band seems to disown. This is an epic dance groover ala Miss You. Nifty dreamy talk-sing section where Mick goes on about romantic knighthood in the Arabian desert! This one screams for inclusion on their upcoming tour. Dust this one off boys

9. She's So Cold: My favorite track on the album. Classic Stones rocker that stands toe to toe with their best. It was a great addition to the '81 tour but for some reason they did not include it on Still Life and have never played it since. Love Wyman's bass and Charlie's cymbal clash's on this song and throughout the record.

10. All About You: Fine world-weary Keith ballad

So there you go. Give this one another chance it has hidden depths.

This is one of my favorites because of the title track and She's So Cold (which for some reason is not on the new Forty Licks hits collection). Like Goat's Head Soup this gets overlooked. Yes this album has filler but from all the albums that came out right before and after (Some Girls, Tattoo You and Undercover of the Night) I listen to this album the most. It is a real fun album by the Stones which makes it cool to listen to.

As Robert Christgau predicted in his "Consumer Guide" 25 years ago, the first Rolling Stones album of the 1980s will likely sound a lot fresher than "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" (1974)when we compare and contrast in our respective retirement homes. On first impression ER seemed rather empty and frivolous coming after 1978's powerful "Some Girls", which had real impact as a major statement from the Stones, had also been seen as a comeback of sorts, coming after with two years in which Keith Richards had been busted several times, and faced a long jail sentence due to the famous Toronto incident. Also, the punk movement changed 'real' rock 'n' roll, thus the Stones (or Led Zep, The Who, etc) but disco seemed an even more controversial (and popular) movement.

Once you forget "Some Girls" and listen, what we have in "Emotional Rescue" is a good record by a great band taking chances, and sounding not at all like the Stones of 1965 or 1971. Keith Richards and Ron Wood really do blur the rhythm/lead roles, much more than Keith and Mick Taylor did. The way they play off each other, darting in and around the beat, is masterful, and due to one or the other's various battles with addictions, medical problems, and band dynamics this hasn't always been the case. With "Steel Wheels" and the 1989 - 90tours for example, the band would lose some of this intuitive, almost jazz-like playfulness. The funk ("Dance") is vital, but the rockers are slight, punk influenced, laconic, Jagger playing with and parodying personae when he's got nothing to get worked up about, yet 'Summer Romance' and 'Where The Boys Go' are great fun, with dirty guitars and Ian Stewart, and the funkiest rhythm section in rock and roll. And if as Jagger said once, you can smell the cocaine off the grooves in the vinyl, well they end this album with an unexpected emotional wallop: Keith's lead vocal, "All About You" seems like a country ballad, with bitter, haunting lyrics ("You're the first bitch to get laid/Always the last bitch to get paid...I'm so sick and tired/hanging around with dogs like you") assumed at the time to be directed at longtime partner Anita Pallenberg, who had been in the news when this record was being made. (It almost recalls Marianne Faithfull's acerbic send-off "Why'd ya DoIt?" from 1979's "Broken English") Only "Indian Girl", with its affected spoken interludes, seems off, alternately poignant and confused. ("Think I'm Going Mad," an outtake finished and issued as a b-side in 1984, would have given this album much more heft - sometimes one or two songs can utterly alter perceptions of an album.) As it stands, this album feels disconnected at times, though the band hardly sounds jaded. The mix and the tracks sounnd terrific, and the eighteen months' work shows the Stones at a new level of mastery, yet without a lot to say. Finally, the music is alive. The rock and roll swings, the funk and reggae grooves are deep and satisfying. And with recording taking place before AND after the New Barbarians' tour, how could this not be a great guitar album, if hardly a major statement?

If you dismissed this as Some Girls redux - listen again.