Tattoo You - the Rolling Stones - EMI Stamping - Collectors Quality - CUNS 39114

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Tattoo You - the Rolling Stones - EMI Stamping

Tattoo You is generally regarded as the Rolling Stones' last great album

Topping the US charts for nine weeks, Tattoo You was number one for longer than any other Stones album

The Album: Tattoo You is the 16th British and 18th American studio album by the Rolling Stones, released in 1981. The follow-up to Emotional Rescue (1980), the album is mostly composed of studio outtakes recorded during the 1970s, and contains one of the band's most well-known songs, "Start Me Up", which hit second place on the United States's Billboard singles charts. The album proved to be both a critical and commercial success upon release, reaching the top of the Billboard charts, selling more than four million copies in the United States alone and over 8.5 million copies worldwide. It was also the final Rolling Stones album to reach the top position of the US charts, thus concluding the band's string of number-one albums there, dating back to 1971's Sticky Fingers.

History

Tattoo You is an album primarily composed of outtakes from previous recording sessions, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and overdubs. Along with two new songs, the Rolling Stones put together this collection to have a new album to promote for their worldwide American Tour 1981/European Tour 1982 beginning that September. Guitarist Keith Richards commented in 1993: "The thing with Tattoo You wasn't that we'd stopped writing new stuff, it was a question of time. We'd agreed we were going to go out on the road and we wanted to tour behind a record. There was no time to make a whole new album and make the start of the tour."

Recording

The album's associate producer, Chris Kimsey, who'd been associated with The Stones dating back to Sticky Fingers (1971) said "Tattoo You really came about because Mick [Jagger] and Keith were going through a period of not getting on. There was a need to have an album out, and I told everyone I could make an album from what I knew was still there." He began sifting through the band's vaults: "I spent three months going through (the recording tapes from) like the last four, five albums finding stuff that had been either forgotten about or at the time rejected. And then I presented it to the band and I said, 'Hey, look guys, you've got all this great stuff sitting in the can and it's great material, do something with it." Many of the songs consisted at this point of instrumental backing tracks for which vocals had not been recorded. Jagger said in a 1995 interview, "It wasn't all outtakes; some of it was old songs... I had to write lyrics and melodies. A lot of them didn't have anything, which is why they weren't used at the time – because they weren't complete. They were just bits, or they were from early takes".[4]Despite the eclectic nature of the album, the Rolling Stones were able to divide Tattoo You into two distinct halves: a rock and roll side backed with one focusing on ballads. The earliest songs used for Tattoo You are "Tops" and "Waiting on a Friend". The backing tracks for both songs were cut in late 1972 during the Goats Head Soup (1973) sessions and feature Mick Taylor, not Ronnie Wood, on guitar. Taylor, who was not credited, later demanded and received a share of the album's royalties. The album opens with "Start Me Up", originally rehearsed under the working title "Never Stop" and as a reggae-influenced number in 1978 during the Some Girls sessions, and the balance of it was recorded during these particular sessions in Paris (at Pathé Marconi studios) sessions where the more rock-infused track was recorded. Dating from the Black and Blue sessions are the backing tracks for "Slave" and "Worried About You". They feature Billy Preston on keyboards and Ollie E. Brown on percussion. Wayne Perkins plays the lead guitar on "Worried About You". "Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and "Black Limousine" were worked on during the 1978 Pathé Marconi recording sessions for Some Girls.

• The basic tracks for "No Use in Crying", "Little T&A", "Neighbours", "Heaven" and "Hang Fire" came from the Emotional Rescue(1980) sessions.

• The vocal parts for the songs on Tattoo You were overdubbed during sessions in October–November 1980 and April–June 1981. Mick Jagger was the only member of the band present at some of these sessions. Other overdubs, such as Sonny Rollins' saxophone parts on "Slave" and "Waiting on a Friend", were also added at these sessions. The album was mixed at Atlantic Studios, Electric Ladyland, Hit Factory and Power Station in New York City.

Release and Aftermath

Start Me Up" was released in August 1981, just a week before Tattoo You, to a very strong response, reaching the top 10 in both the United States and UK, and number 1 in Australia. Widely considered one of the Stones' most infectious songs, it was enough to carry Tattoo You to No. 1 for nine weeks in the United States, while reaching No. 2 in the UK with solid sales. It's been certified 4x platinum in the United States alone. The critical reaction was positive, many feeling that Tattoo You was an improvement over Emotional Rescue and a high-quality release. "Waiting on a Friend" and "Hang Fire" became Top 20 US hits as well. "Start Me Up" would prove to be The Rolling Stones' last single to reach as high as No. 2 in the US, while Tattoo You is their last American No. 1 album to date. The album title was originally planned to be simply Tattoo. Jagger claims to this day that even he has no clue how the "You" became attached to the title. The title caused friction between Jagger and Richards, with Richards suspecting that Jagger had changed the title without seeking his input. The album cover for Tattoo You had concept origination, art direction and design by Peter Corriston and illustration by Christian Piper. The album cover won the Grammy award in 1982 in the Best Album Package category. It was the first Grammy award for the Rolling Stones.

There were several videos directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for this album including:

• Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and "Worried About You": Consisting of a standard band performance setting, miming to a backing tape.

• "Neighbours": An homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window, it features the band playing in one apartment of an apartment building with various happenings seen in the windows of the other apartments: A working-class couple relaxing and making love, a t'ai chipractitioner exercising, and most notoriously, a man putting bloody body parts in a suitcase. This video was heavily censored when presented on television.

• "Waiting on a Friend": Filmed on location in New York City's East Village, it consists of Richards walking down the street, meeting Jagger, who's sitting on the front steps of 96-98 St. Mark's Place (the same building used by the designer Peter Corriston for cover art of Led Zeppelin's 1975 album Physical Graffiti) with several other men, one of whom is the late reggae musician Peter Tosh, who also shakes Keith's hand. They then proceed down the street and enter a bar where the rest of the band is waiting. The video also features Wood, rather than Mick Taylor on guitar (similar to the videos for "Hot Stuff" and "Worried About You" in which Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins respectively actually played).

Legacy - Critical Reception

Reviews for Tattoo You were largely positive, proclaiming the album a return to form and ranking among the Rolling Stones' finest works. Debra Rae Cohen commented in Rolling Stone: "Just when we might finally have lost patience, the new record dances (not prances), rocks (not jives) onto the scene, and the Rolling Stones are back again, with a matter-of-fact acceptance of their continued existence – and eventual mortality …" Though Robert Christgau gave the album a good review, however, when criticizing "Start Me Up" in his Pazz and Jop essay in 1981, said, "its central conceit – Mick as sex machine, complete with pushbutton – explains why the album it starts up never transcends hand-tooled excellence except when Sonny Rollins, uncredited, invades the Stones' space. Though it's as good in its way as 'Street Fighting Man', how much you care about it depends entirely on how much you care about the Stones' technical difficulties."[15] Patty Rose, in Musician, said, "The feel of the album … is more one of rediscovered youth, of axes to play, not grind, of the latest cope, not dope. After Emotional Rescue, it seems the Stones couldn't make it anymore with the theme of life getting harder and harder. The old themes are not invalidated by the new, but rather taken for granted, like knowing how to tie one's bootlace. The Stones have shed yet another layer of self-consciousness and their shiny vinyl new skin tingles with an open, early-decade kind of excitement."

Accolades

In 1989, it was ranked No. 34 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 213 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[16] Peter Corriston, who was responsible for the album cover's concept origination, art direction and design, won a Grammy Award for Tattoo You in the category of best album package. In the 1995 Rolling Stone interview during which editor Jann Wenner called Tattoo You the Stones' "most underrated album", Jagger said, "I think it's excellent. But all the things I usually like, it doesn’t have. It doesn’t have any unity of purpose or place or time."

Tattoo You was remastered and reissued in 1994 by Virgin Records, and again in 2009 by Universal Music. It was released on SHM-SACD in 2011 by Universal Music Japan. The 1994 remaster was initially released in a Collector's Edition CD, which replicated in miniature elements of the original vinyl album packaging.

Vinyl LP Album Details
Release Date in UK: September 1981
Release Date in US: August 24, 1981
Record Date: November 1972 - June 1981
Catalog Number: Rolling Stones Records ?– CUNS 39114, Rolling Stones Records ?– OC 064-64 533
Format: Stereo
Speed: 33-1/3
Binding: Vinyl
Genre: Rock
Length: 44:17
Language: English
Media: LP
On Label: CUNS 39114A
On Label: CUNS 39114B
Matrix / Runout (Runout, A-side, stamped: CUNS 39114 A-2 121
Matrix / Runout (Runout, B-side, stamped: CUNS 39114 B-2 124
Published By: EMI Music Publishing Ltd.
Phonographic Copyright (p): Promotone B.V.
Manufactured By: EMI Records Ltd.
Distributed By: EMI Records Ltd.
Produced For: Wonderknob Ltd.
Recorded At: Studio Pathé Marconi EMI, Paris and Compass Point Studio, Nassau, Bahamas
Mastered At: Masterdisk
Pressed By: EMI Records

Credits

Art Direction - Peter Corriston
Engineer [Recording], Producer [Associate Producer] - Chris Kimsey
Mastered By - Bob Ludwig
Mixed By, Remix - Bob Clearmountain
Painting - Christian Piper
Producer - The Glimmer Twins (Alias used by Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger & Keith Richards for their production work)
Written-By - Jagger-Richards, Wood (tracks: A5, B4)

EMI

EMI (officially EMI Group Limited, originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries and often known as EMI Records and EMI Music) was a British multinational conglomerate founded in March 1931 and was based in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, it was the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and was one of the big four record companies (now the big three). Its EMI Records Ltd. group of record labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records and Capitol Records. EMI also had a major publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing - also based in London with offices globally. The vinyl's were produced at a 16 acre campus located at Hayes-Middlesex with a reputation of producing the highest standard of recorded music.

Bob Ludwig

This is a Bob Ludwig mastered album. Bob Ludwig’s reputation for mastering is a style of incredible clarity and balanced channel separation, vivid and spacious “ambience” sound, as well as wide dynamic and frequency range of the sound spectrum.

Track listing
A1 Start Me Up 3:32
A2 Hang Fire 2:21
A3 Slave 4:58
A4 Little T & A 3:24
A5 Black Limousine 3:34
A6 Neighbours 3:33
B1 Worried About You 5:17
B2 Tops 3:48
B3 Heaven 4:22
B4 No Use in Crying 3:29
B5 Waiting on a Friend 4:34

Album Condition: The album cover is in vey good condition with some very minor wear on the top spine and on the corners and no ring wear. The original liner is included and is in very good condition without any tears or seem splits.  This pressing is a superb vinyl which has retained its amazing glossy sheen and finish. There is no dulling anywhere and overall it is in great condition for an LP of this age. On side A under an incandescent light bulb there are no scratches and is in near mint condition. On side B there are is also no scratches. Per the matrix, this is the original, authentic, first pressing. The record labels are clear and crisp with no writing, markings or spindle wear. I have been the only owner of this album which I purchased in London.

This Transaction: Your album will be shipped in a 200 lbs test corrugated cardboard mailer box with a 32 lb. edge crush rating. The buyer pays for handling, packaging and shipping in the US by USPS Media Mail at a flat rate of $4.50. PayPal accepted as payment. Payment is expected within three (3) days from the close of the auction. For international shipping, we use EBay Global Shipping Services exclusively. This item is guaranteed to be as described above. If you do not agree with my description then you may return this vinyl albums for a refund (less fees, shipping and handling) within 14 days. No return if the album, liner or cover has been damaged in any way.