By 1976, the Rolling Stones' popularity was in decline as the charts were dominated by disco music and newer bands such as Aerosmith and Kiss. In the UK, the punk rock movement was a rising force and made most artists connected with the 1960s era seem obsolete. The group had also failed to produce a critically acclaimed album since 1972's Exile On Main St.
At least as important for the band's re-invigoration was the addition of Ronnie Wood to the line-up, as Some Girls was the first album recorded with him as a full member. His guitar playing style meshed with that of Keith Richards, and slide guitar playing would become one of the band's hallmarks. His unconventional uses of the instrument featured prominently on Some Girls and he contributed to the writing process. In addition, Jagger, who had learned to play guitar over the previous decade, contributed a third guitar part to many songs. This gave songs like "Respectable" a three-guitar line-up.
Jagger is generally regarded as the principal creative force behind Some Girls. Richards was in legal trouble for much of 1977, which resulted in the band being inactive on the touring circuit during that year, except for two shows in Canada during the spring for the live album Love You Live. He was able to attend the recording sessions for the album. Jagger claimed in a 1995 interview to have written a great number of the album's songs (though when the amount was pointed out to him he denied that the record was mostly his own), including its signature song, "Miss You". In addition to punk, Jagger claims to have been influenced by dance music, most notably disco, during the recording of Some Girls, and cites New York City as a major inspiration for the album, an explanation for his lyrical preoccupation with the city throughout.
The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town. I think that gave it an extra spur and hardness. And then, of course, there was the punk thing that had started in 1976. Punk and disco were going on at the same time, so it was quite an interesting period. New York and London, too. Paris—there was punk there. Lots of dance music. Paris and New York had all this Latin dance music, which was really quite wonderful. Much more interesting than the stuff that came afterward.
For the first time since 1968's Beggars Banquet, the core band — now Jagger, Richards, Wood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman — would be the main musicians on a Rolling Stones album, with few extra contributors. Ian McLagan, Wood's bandmate from the Faces, played keyboards, and harmonica player Sugar Blue contributed to several songs. In addition to saxophonist Mel Collins and Simon Kirke, who played percussion. Jagger's guitar contributions caused the band's road manager, Ian Stewart, to be absent from many of the sessions as he felt piano would be superfluous, making this a rare Rolling Stones album on which he did not appear.
A serious concern was Keith Richards's highly publicised heroin possession bust in Toronto, Ontario in early 1977. This resulted in the possibility that he might be sent to jail for years. However, due to the judgement that Richards was separate from the usual theft and anti-social culture that was associated with heroin use, he was sentenced lightly. He was ordered to perform a charity show for The Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
The sessions for Some Girls began in October 1977, breaking before Christmas and starting up again after New Year's before finishing in March 1978. Under their new British recording contract with EMI (remaining with Warner Music Group in North America only), they were able to record at EMI's Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris, a venue at which they would record frequently for the next several years. The Rolling Stones ended up recording about 50 new songs, several of which would turn up in altered forms on Emotional Rescue (1980) and Tattoo You (1981). Chris Kimsey was the engineer for the sessions. His approach to recording breathed life into the somewhat dense sounding recordings like Goats Head Soup (1973) and It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974) albums. Kimsey's direct method of recording, together with the entrance of the then state-of-the-art Mesa/Boogie Mark I amps instead of the Ampeg SVT line of amps, yielded a bright, direct and aggressive guitar sound.
There was some controversy surrounding the lyrics to the title song, an extended musing on women of various nationalities and races. Atlantic Records attempted to persuade the band to drop the song from the record, but Jagger maintained the song was intended as a parody of racist attitudes, saying "I've always said, you can't take a joke, it's too fucking bad". The line "Black girls just wanna get fucked all night" drew strong protests from various groups, including Jesse Jackson's PUSH, which sought a boycott of the song on black-oriented radio.
The album cover for Some Girls was conceived and designed by Peter Corriston, who would design the next three album covers. with Illustrations by Hubert Kretzschmar An elaborate die-cut design, with the colours on the sleeves varying in different markets, it featured the Rolling Stones' faces alongside those of select female celebrities inserted into a copy of an old Valmor Products Corporation advertisement. The cover design was challenged legally when Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (representing her mother Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe threatened to sue for the use of their likenesses without permission. Similarly, Valmor did take legal action and were given a monetary award for the use of their design.
The album was quickly re-issued with a redesigned cover that removed all the celebrities, whether they had complained or not. The celebrity images were replaced with black and punk style garish colours with the phrase Pardon our appearance - cover under re-construction. Jagger later apologised to Minnelli when he encountered her during a party at the famous discothèque Studio 54. The only celebrity whose face was not removed was ex-Beatle George Harrison. As with the original design, the colour schemes on the redesigned sleeves varied in different markets.
A third version of the album cover with hand-drawn women was found on the 1986 CD reissue.
In May 1978, the first single from the album, "Miss You", a prowling, moody number built on a stripped-down disco beat and bluesy pop harmonies, was released to very strong response, garnering the Rolling Stones their last US #1 hit and reaching #3 in the UK. Some Girls appeared in June to a very welcoming audience, reaching #1 in the US and #2 in the UK, becoming their biggest-selling studio album in the process with over 11 million copies sold worldwide. "Beast of Burden", was released as second single in the US and it reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Respectable" (in the UK) and "Shattered" (in the US) would follow as the next singles, both becoming Top 40 hits as well.
The Stones embarked on their summer US Tour 1978 in support of the album, which for the first time saw them mount several small venue shows, sometimes under a pseudonym. This was shorter and less ambitious than previous Stones tours, with only 26 shows performed over one and a half months, all of them in the US.
In 2003 Some Girls was ranked number 269 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In 1986, the first compact disc version of the album was issued by the Stones' new label distributor, Columbia Records, as Rolling Stones/Columbia CK-40449. In 1994, with the acquisition of the Rolling Stones Records catalogue by Virgin Records, Some Girls was remastered and re-issued. The first pressing was packaged in a replica of the die-cut vinyl packaging, representing the redesigned 1978 cover in a pale color scheme. In 2009, the album was remastered and reissued by Universal Music; the reissue restored one of the brighter color schemes of the redesigned 1978 cover.
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