How 'Emotional Rescue' Pushed The Stones Further into Disco and New Wave

By 1980, The Rolling Stones had already proven they could pivot to disco on Some Girls, but Emotional Rescue doubled down — especially on the title track. That song is basically Jagger doing his best falsetto over a Giorgio Moroder-esque synth pulse, even though the band was still rooted in guitars. It’s a weird, sleazy, slightly uncomfortable track that sounds more like a lost club b-side than a Stones single.

The synthesizer use here was new for them. While Some Girls relied on handclaps and four-on-the-floor drumming, Emotional Rescue brought in actual keyboard textures — mostly played by Ian Stewart and occasional session guy Nicky Hopkins. The title track’s drone-y synth line and treated percussion gave it a chilly, robotic feel that the band never fully embraced again. Jagger’s falsetto was the real shocker; he’d never sung that high on record before, and it made the song feel almost like a parody of disco excess, though he insisted it was sincere.

Critics at the time were mixed — some loved the risk, others thought the Stones were chasing trends. In hindsight, Emotional Rescue feels like a bridge between the punk-disco hybrid of Some Girls and the more polished, pop-conscious Tattoo You that came the next year. But that title track remains a fascinating outlier: a Stone trying to sound like a Bee Gee on a drug-budget synth.