Tattoo You

1	Start Me Up 3:32
2	Hang Fire 2:20
3	Slave 6:32
4	Little T & A 3:23
5	Black Limousine 3:33
6	Neighbours 3:33
7	Worried About You 5:17
8	Tops 3:47
9	Heaven 4:22
10	No Use In Crying 3:25
11	Waiting On A Friend 4:34

Barnes & Noble

The last great Stones album? Leave that judgment to history, but this 1981 effort does seem to be the last time the band was totally in tune with the zeitgeist. Ironically, many of the songs had been written and recorded several years earlier, but TATTOO YOU hardly feels like an album of leftovers. Divided into a rock side and a ballad side, the material is confident and consistent, and there are even hints of a totally new Stones sound in the trashcan rockabilly of "Hang Fire" and "Neighbors." The big hit, of course, was "Start Me Up," a stadium rocker still capable of rousing the blood (even after its inclusion in the Windows 95 ad campaign), but the barrelhouse blues of "Black Limousine" is equally goosebump-inducing. The album culminates in the surprisingly reflective "Waiting on a Friend," a ballad that effectively features jazz tenor great Sonny Rollins and rates as one of the band's best ever. If this is indeed the Stones' last great record, it's not a bad way to go out. Steve Simels

All Music Guide

Like Emotional Rescue before it, Tattoo You was comprised primarily of leftovers, but unlike its predecessor, it never sounds that way. Instead, Tattoo You captures the Stones at their best as a professional stadium-rock band. Divided into a rock & roll side and a ballad side, the album delivers its share of thrills on the tight, dynamic first side. "Start Me Up" became the record's definitive Stonesy rocker, but the frenzied doo wop of "Hang Fire," the reggae jam of "Slave," the sleazy Chuck Berry rockers "Little T&A" and "Neighbours," and the hard blues of "Black Limousine" are all terrific. The ballad side suffers in comparison, especially since "Heaven" and "No Use in Crying" are faceless. But "Worried About You" and "Tops" are effortless, excellent ballads, and "Waiting on a Friend," with its Sonny Rollins sax solo, is an absolute masterpiece, with a moving lyric that captures Jagger in a shockingly reflective and affecting state of mind. "Waiting on a Friend" and the vigorous rock & roll of the first side make Tattoo You an essential latter-day Stones album, ranking just a few notches below Some Girls. Stephen Thomas Erlewine