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Ronnie Wood confirms Tattoo You anniversary reissue

1981 Stones album next in line for the box set treatment

By Paul Sinclair

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45

Ronnie Wood let slip over the weekend that a reissue of The Rolling Stones‘ 1981 album, Tattoo You, is in the works.

The album features the hit singles ‘Start Me Up’ and ‘Waiting For A Friend’ and was originally issued on 24 August 1981.

Speaking to The Times about his life, and his recovery from cancer, the guitarist said “Me and Mick have done nine new tracks for the re-release of Tattoo You“.

These ‘new’ tracks Wood speaks of will not be totally new. He is referring to the concept of augmenting old material (outtakes) with new vocals and instrumentation, a mildly controversial practice.

From the band’s point of view this offers them the chance to actively participate in a reissue campaign by ‘finishing off’ old recordings and not release something that [to their ears] sounds subpar, but some fans argue that this is re-writing history and old material should be released as is. The Rolling Stones have already done this a number of times before, including for the 2010 reissue of Exile On Main St. and the 2011 re-release of Some Girls.

‘Start Me Up’ was the lead single from Tattoo You and was a transatlantic top 10 hit

Last year’s Goats Head Soup reissue broke new ground by including a 5.1 surround mix of the album. We will await details of the Tattoo You box set with interest. There’s have a chance Universal Music could announce it in a month’s time, on the exact 40th anniversary of the UK release.

The most recent Rolling Stones release was A Bigger Bang: Live on Capacabana Beach which was issued 10 days ago.

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45 Comments

45 thoughts on “Ronnie Wood confirms Tattoo You anniversary reissue”

  1. i never heard the tom waits rumor….. but back before the lp was released i got a 90 min maxell cassette from bob clearmoutain that had the best takes ( rough vocals sparse inst etc of tracks that they were going to put on the lp. all were worked on with new vocals guitars etc. the 2 oldest were waiting on a friend and tops that date from goats. i will admit that i was very unhappy with the bonus disc on goats. one track scarlet was recorded after the lp was issued. in fact there were no basic tracks from dynamic sound studios to be found, WHY? i think that by doing the (new versions) that they are damaging the importance of what they once were .

  2. Don’t really get the complaints about adding instrumentation or whatever to the albums extras as it was a Frankenstein album originally. This was my entry point to The Rolling Stones and the second half contains some of the best stuff they ever did IMHO. I would say it’s the last classic Stones album with only Steel Wheels coming close. What does concern me though is the mastering as I can’t get on with the 2009s or anything I’ve heard since. My go to for this album is the 94 Virgin CD.

  4. Question for Stones collectors: was this one of the albums where the band hired Tom Waits to record the guide vocals? I’d definitely pay for an SDE with those recordings. Back in the day the rumor was that the band wiped the guide tracks once the final vocals were done.

  5. It would be great if they could warm up and fatten the mix as I find it quite a brittle cold unfashionable 80’s mix… of it’s time but not lasting well. John Lennon’s gimme some truth set was remixed then put through some 60’s tube processing that fattened out the sound so that the tracks sound so much better than the ultimate mix’s. So the ultimate mix’s are not not that ultimate anymore lol well done Sean!

  6. this is another bad move by the stones. it was bad enough that the whole 2 nd cd of exile was RUINED by new vocals,guitars etc. most of us old stones collectors have a nice cache of REAL outakes from all periods without any new overdubs.. this lp was a thrown together collection dating back to goats head. i have no need for this as my time frame of the stones ended with its only rock n roll. when ronnie joined full time imo it became just another band, far from the creative band they once where.

  8. As an increasingly older bloke myself, I could see the merit in a rewrite of ‘Waiting on a Friend’ as an ode to intermittent urinary flow issues.

  9. I think release is much more likely for 2022.We’ll get it before the new album I can safely predict.Blue And Lonesome came out of those sessions and that was a few years back.
    As for live content to fill out the big version of the box they are going to have to come up with something a bit special.There have already been 2 shows released from this tour in the vault series.Maybe the Let’s Spend The Night Together movie on the Bluray with the soundtrack on cds?

  10. I have absolutely no problem with the band polishing off (very) old songs. I don’t listen to demos or skeletal studio recordings that have yet to be finished too often. I’d much rather hear the songs in a more full form. That said, perhaps they could release BOTH the original versions and the updated versions. Might keep everyone happy. (Oops. Now I have “Happy” playing in my head even though no pun was intended.)

  11. Giorgio, with respect and in the nicest way, I don’t see tampering with a completely finished movie (which can be a bit revisionist) as in any way comparable with finishing off an unreleased work, be it a movie or a song that has never been released. I don’t think there are any “rules” where art is concerned. Just what the artist wants to do, and we can like or dislike, surely. The former can be more like messing with “art”, where the latter is creating new art, but over a VERY long time period. No one had a go at Kate Bush’s Aerial being made up of tracks recorded at various points in the 12 years since The Sensual World for example, or Macca using much older “When Winter Comes” on McCartney III. Even in the former case, original versions of movies are usually still available. For example, Star Wars franchise in particular the new versions of IV, V and VI was partly to take advantage of the spectacular developments in CGI of which Lucas was a pioneer, plus tying those original movies to the newer movies and presumably giving the old movies a buff for a new audience raised on the prequels. When we get a 2019 remix of Abbey Road, the 1969 version still exists, there is just a new one too, with differences that perhaps let us here interesting details previously buried in the mix, and if necessary pick a side as to which we prefer. It’s valid, of interest to many and commercially a successful practice. In The Stones’ case we get to hear some new finished songs which otherwise wouldn’t have existed or we’d have played the unfinished backing track once only. I’m very happy to have those new finished songs.

  12. The Stones frequent method of recording, where they “jam” ideas and riffs in the studio until things fall into place has led to many pretty decent ideas being unused. It seems some songs have no vocal or a very scratchy idea at best. If you look at the Exile On Main St Deluxe Edition from about 10 years ago, a song like “Title 5” was released with no vocals and Soul Survivor (alternate take) had a scratchy Keith vocal, which is interesting (once), but you wouldn’t play either very often. But then we look at “Plundered My Soul” with 2010ish Mick J vocals and Mick T guitar over an old 1971/72 Keith, Bill and Charlie rhythm track and we have something very special indeed; a new Stones song with the swagger of 1972, but a complete polished song. Ditto “Following The River” with a lovely Nicky Hopkins piano performance. Mick’s vocals DO sound different now, he’s more of a caricature of his old self, but I would say hands down he has the most well preserved voice of all his peers, in range / tone and similarity to the way his voice once was. The Stones mainly (except on a few occasions) don’t come up with songs as good those in the “prime”, so having an otherwise great backing track being finished off to create a new complete song is very worthwhile in my view. They are also still alive, so we don’t have to speculate about whether they would have sanctioned such a release, as we do with say Bowie’s new instruments version of Never Let Me Down. When they get it right, these Stones re-issues are far better repeat entertainment than the ones which simply play umpteen versions of unfinished songs. Lennon re-issues and in many cases all the Beatles stuff, tended to have a decent guide vocal on alternate takes, so they were at least partially finished and releasable as is. The Stones usual work method doesn’t often take that approach, so I think this solution is a valid one. There are many artists who finish older recordings and put them on new albums without any fanfare and we just accept those (unknowingly) on merit as a new track unaware of how long they’ve been kicking around.

  13. It’s their songs. Why release something substandard because it’s historically authentic? Pop music is primarily supposed to be enjoyed, not pored over like some ancient scroll.

    1. 2016! ha! But, that album was just blues covers. I’d say The Rolling Stones’ last good studio album, was 1989’s “Steel Wheels”. It sounds like The Stones and it has (mostly) very good songs. Before that, I’d say “Tattoo You”.

      1. Agreed on all counts. Interesting that for both the Stones and R.E.M., output quality takes a nosedive when Bill from the rhythm section leaves(!)

  16. So they’re finishing track for an album already made up of similarly finished tracks. Considering that the “new” tracks on Goats Head Soup postdated that album, will these be Undercover outtakes?

  18. Great news but I have to be honest, I’m not impressed by these Stones’ boxes. The 5.1 mix on Goats Head Soup was a step up but personally I don’t think the Stones music does a whole lot better on 5.1. Still nice to have. Compare the Beatles’ boxes to the Stones’. There is no comparison.

    1. I prefer the Stones boxes. The Beatles boxes are done more thoughtfully, but the main problem is that the music is by the Beatles.

      1. I prefer the Beatles boxes. The Stones boxes are done less thoughtfully, but the main problem is that the music is by the Stones.

  19. This album and the ’81 tour are pretty special to me. My very first concert at age 11 just 4 days before my birthday back on November 24th 1981! My Dad won tickets on our local Chicago radio station, The Loop WLUP-FM 97.9 – still have all the radio station promo buttons and swag from that night. I’m excited for this reissue.

    1. Cool! I love the still life album from that tour. Going to a go-go is one of the first stones singles I was into. Unfortunately my first stones concert was only in 2018.

      1. Hoping any live material included in this special edition is not simply a re-hash of the Still Life recordings. I love that album too, but they need to step up the offering for this one.

      2. I would imagine that the 2018 concert was much better than the 1981 tour. Never thought much of ‘Still Life’ or other concerts from that tour, but that’s just me. Of course, I’ve bought the album three times in various formats!

    2. Great memory that! I remember the advertisements in music mags like Circus and Rolling Stone for these big late 70’s/early 80’s Stones tours. Didn’t they partner with a fragrance company for one? Unfortunately I lived in a very rural area growing up, so going to a RS show was out of the question logistically and financially.

  20. I appreciate them putting the finishing touches but honestly Mick doesn’t sound the same. Imwould,prefer that they do what The Beatles have done-put it out as is. Here’s hoping the mastering is better than Goat’s Head which sucked.

    1. On the “Some Girls” 2-CD expanded edition it was not clearly audible which vocals were from 1978, 1995 or in the 21st century. The 1995 vocals were for a never-released boxed set, and one track (“So Young”) was released on a CD single. Yes, it is true that the 21st century vocals and lyrics added to “Exile on Main Street” outtakes sounded odd, but this was partly due to producer Don Was speeding up Mick’s voice to make it sound “Younger”.
      It will be interesting to see if the nine songs which Ronnie Wood worked on towards the “Tattoo You” box are really entirely new to avid Stones fans, especially after the recent release of a 3-CD Japanese bootleg called “Fully Finished Studio Outtakes”, which had 60 master fidelity unreleased Stones songs; mostly from the Ronnie Wood years (with a few with Mick Taylor and one with Brian Jones). With few exceptions, the songs had never been bootlegged in any form before, or had never been heard with vocals before. If avid Stones fans had been clamouring for new songs (from a new album that the group have claimed to be working on for years), “Fully Finished Studio Outtakes” gave Stones fans “Satisfaction”. The unofficial Japanese set gave Stones fans more “New” Stones songs than The Stones themselves had released in the past 25 years.

      1. I got a box set called ” Who the f#*§$ is Mick Jagger. Sixty new outtakes & the auction masters & more “, on 7 cds. Fantastic stuff.

  21. Finishing off old tracks with new vocals and instrumentation, conceptually, suits Tattoo You near perfectly. The original album itself is a collection of outtake tracks from the 70’s.

    1. I would love an extended version / respectful remix of ‘waiting for a friend’. Just because I want it to be longer. And the instrumental parts are so nice.

      1. That would be a nice addition to this reissue! Different period I know, but was there ever an extended or instrumental version of Beast of Burden released? That’s one of my favorite Stones tracks.

    3. But the material was then just a few years old. Who wants to listen almost 80 years old Mick Jagger trying to sing like he’s a young man?

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