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Emotional Rescue is the fifteenth studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released on 23 June 1980 through Rolling Stones Records. The album followed the successful Some Girls (1978) and continues that record's mix of rock music, blues, punk rock, and disco influences.
Upon release, the album topped the charts in at least six countries, including the United States, UK, and Canada. Hit singles from it include the title track, which reached No. 1 in Canada, No. 3 in the United States, and No. 9 in the UK and "She's So Cold", a top-40 single in several countries. The recording sessions for Emotional Rescue were so productive that several tracks left off the album would form the core of the follow-up, 1981's Tattoo You.
Several of the tracks on the album featured just the core Rolling Stones band members: Jagger, Richards, Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman. On others, they were joined by keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and co-founder Ian Stewart, sax player Bobby Keys and harmonica player Sugar Blue.
Songs left off the album appeared on Tattoo You ("Hang Fire", "Little T&A" and "No Use in Crying"). "Think I'm Going Mad", another song from the sessions, was released as the B-side to "She Was Hot" in 1984. A cover song sung by Richards, "We Had It All", was released on the 2011 deluxe Some Girls package.
Critical reception was relatively muted, with most reviewers considering the album somewhat formulaic and unambitious, particularly in contrast to its predecessor. Writing in Rolling Stone, Ariel Swartley stated that "as far as the music goes, 'familiar' is an understatement. There's hardly a melody here that you haven't heard from the Stones before". The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau summarized it as "an ordinary Stones album" in an essay accompanying the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll of 1980's best albums, in which Emotional Rescue finished 20th, a result which he deemed "so far out of the money" for "the world's greatest rock and roll band".
Retrospective assessments have been kinder, with several critics praising the band's performance, despite the sometimes lightweight material. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic states that the album "may consist mainly of filler, but it's expertly written and performed filler". In (1990), Christgau said that, while not "great", the album boasts a "mid-'60s lyrical charm" in "such tossed-off tropes as 'Where the Boys Go' and 'She's So Cold'", alongside a musical style "looser" than other less-than-great Stones records like It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974): "The far more allusive and irregular and knowing: for better and worse its drive isn't so monolithic, and the bass comes front and center like Bill was James Jamerson."
In 1994, Emotional Rescue was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records, and again in 2009 by Universal Music. In 2011, it was released by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese-only SHM-SACD version. The 1994 remaster was initially released in a Collector's Edition CD, which replicated many elements of the original album packaging, including the colour poster.
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| +1980 weekly chart performance for Emotional Rescue |
| +1980 year-end chart performance for Emotional Rescue ! Chart (1980) ! Position |
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