Fourteen years and 14 albums into their career, The Rolling Stones released their best-selling album ever. Why 1978’s Some Girls earned that honor is a bit of a mystery. It did produce two top ten hits (‘Miss You,’ which hit #1, and ‘Beast of Burden’) but otherwise doesn’t feature any songs a casual fan would know.

The album also came in the midst of a critical slump for the band, following three straight albums that failed to live up to their great work from the late 60s and early 70s. Some Girls shifted that conversation, and was hailed by many as The Stones’ best work since Exile on Main St.

Keith Richards was facing legal troubles during the recording of Some Girls, and found himself trying to kick his heroin habit both for his health and to stay out of jail. Jagger took the reins for much of this album, though Keith did contribute the classic ‘Beast of Burden’ and today’s SOTD, about his run-ins with the law.

This album saw the band going back to basics in the studio, eschewing the lineup of supporting players who showed up on previous albums in favor of performances by the core members. But musically, Jagger treaded new ground, proving that a veteran rock band could learn new tricks by embracing elements of the newly popular disco and punk sounds.

That said, descriptions of Some Girls as The Rolling Stones’ “disco album” are wildly overblown. Only ‘Miss You’ bears that influence. The rest of the tracklist features rock, R&B, punk, and country — the usual laundry list of styles the band so effortlessly adopts.

Through nearly three weeks of this deep dive, that’s the thing that most impresses me about The Stones — their ability to write and perform so many different genres and still sound like themselves.