Rolling Stones - Tattoo You (Half Speed Master) (Exclusive Picture Disc)

40 years after it’s original release, Tattoo You returns with an all-new 2021 master in celebration of it's anniversary. This album features the singles `Start Me Up', `Waiting On A Friend' and `Hang Fire'.

In the wake of the release of Emotional Rescue in 1980, the future of the Rolling Stones seemed in the balance. Sure, they’d survived the wild 1960s and even wilder ’70s, but as the new decade dawned, they were in uncharted territory. No rock and roll band had lasted nearly 20 years. Still, plans were afoot.

With preparations proceeding for a massive tour of the United States at the end of 1981 and another the following year in Europe, a new album was urgently required. But the band’s future was anything but certain. Reflecting on the relationships between the various Stones during the Tattoo You period, Mick says, ‘The difficulty in growing up in a rock and roll band, I think, is that you start with this gang of people and, as anyone knows that’s been in a gang, that gang simply can’t last forever.’

The Stones, however, were determined to carry on. With everyone on a much-needed break after the completion of Emotional Rescue, but with an album owed to the powers that be, the band hit on a novel approach to make it. ‘For Tattoo You,’ recalls Ron Wood, ‘we realized that there was a lot of great music that we had recorded in the past that had never been released, particularly from all the material we had amassed during the Some Girls and Emotional Rescue sessions’. ‘The music had to age like good wine,’ Keith adds with a chuckle.

40th Anniversary Edition. Exclusive Heavyweight PICTURE DISC vinyl produced by Polydor Records in 2021. Lacquer cut by Bernie Grundman and Bernie Grundman Mastering.