The Rolling Stones took a break for the first few years of the 90s. Both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards released solo albums, as did Ron Wood and Charlie Watts, and the band’s original bassist, Bill Wyman, left the band. The Stones also switched record labels from Columbia to Virgin.
When they regrouped, they released their 20th studio album, one that built on the success of “comeback” record Steel Wheels — 1994’s Voodoo Lounge.
Another three years passed before The Rolling Stones dropped Steel Wheels, their final album of the 80s and a return to form after an uneven decade.
The 80s were undoubtedly the band’s least successful decade artistically and critically, and the span where their personal relationships suffered the most. Commercially, though, it was a different story. The Stones released two platinum and three multi-platinum albums during those ten years, and cemented their legacy as the world’s biggest and best rock band.
The Rolling Stones had been putting out an album every year or two (sometimes more than one per year) since their inception in 1964. But the band’s internal turmoil in the early to mid 80s caused their output to slow. The 1986 album Dirty Work dropped three years after previous release Undercover.
Tensions between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were higher than ever, in part because Jagger had embarked on a solo career, releasing his debut album a year earlier. Richards’ full attention was still on The Stones, and he was annoyed by his partner’s wandering eye. At 1985’s Live Aid concert, Jagger performed a set with Tina Turner while Richards and Ronnie Wood played for Bob Dylan.
The 1983 Rolling Stones release Undercover found Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the middle of an ugly spat that kept getting uglier. Returning to the studio after the patchwork construction of Tattoo You, they found themselves trying to pull the band in different directions.
Richards favored the R&B and blues sound of the band’s heyday, while Jagger wanted to experiment with the burgeoning musical styles and production techniques of the new decade. The resulting album was a Frankenstein monster combining both of those dueling approaches.
The Rolling Stones’ 1981 album Tattoo You is an unlikely success.
It was more a product of commerce than art, cobbled together because the band needed a new album to promote on their upcoming tour. Tensions between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards resulted in little interest by either of them in collaborating on new songs, so producers mined the group’s voluminous archives for suitable material.
Meet Me In Montauk 