Tattoo You

Tattoo You
An black and white image of a man with tattoos etched in his face and neck in a red background.
Studio album by
Released24 August 1981 (1981-08-24)
Recorded
  • November and December 1972
  • January – March 1975
  • January – March 1978
  • January – October 1979
  • October 1980 – June 1981
Genre
Length44:23
LabelRolling Stones
ProducerThe Glimmer Twins
The Rolling Stones chronology
Sucking in the Seventies
(1981)
Tattoo You
(1981)
Still Life
(1982)
Singles from Tattoo You
  1. "Start Me Up"
    Released: 14 August 1981
  2. "Waiting on a Friend"
    Released: November 1981
  3. "Hang Fire"
    Released: March 1982 (US)[1]

Tattoo You is the sixteenth studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 24 August 1981 by Rolling Stones Records. 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 number two on the US Billboard singles charts.

A combination of touring obligations and personal feuding between band members made it difficult to arrange dedicated recording sessions for the band's follow-up to 1980's Emotional Rescue. As a result, the band's production team combed through unused recordings from prior sessions, some dating back almost a decade. While a few of the songs were used essentially as-is in their original form, most of these earlier recordings were not complete, consisting of song fragments requiring much work. Studio time was booked throughout 1980 and 1981 and band members came in when available to finish off the tracks.

The credited members of the Rolling Stones for the album were vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts while older tracks feature former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor ("Tops"), keyboardists Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston, Black and Blue session guitarist Wayne Perkins ("Worried About You") and founding member Ian Stewart.

The album proved to be both a critical and commercial success upon release, reaching the top of the US Billboard 200. To date, it is the final Rolling Stones album to reach the top position of the US charts, concluding the band's string of eight consecutive number-one albums there, dating back to 1971's Sticky Fingers.

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 211 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, then re-ranked number 213 in the 2012 revised list. Peter Corriston, who was responsible for the album cover's concept origination, art direction and design, won a Grammy Award in the category of Best Album Package.

A remastered 40th-anniversary edition of the album was released on 22 October 2021. It features nine previously unreleased tracks and a 1982 concert at Wembley Stadium.[2]

  1. ^ Great Rock Discography. 10 May 1995. p. 695. ISBN 978-0-86241-541-9.
  2. ^ Aswad, Jem (19 August 2021). "Rolling Stones Unveil 'Tattoo You' 40th Anniversary Edition, With Bonus Tracks and Live Album". Variety. Retrieved 7 October 2021.