Black and Blue - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

Released in April 1976—with "Fool to Cry", a worldwide Top 10 hit, as its lead single—Black and Blue reached #2 in the UK and spent an interrupted four week spell at #1 in the US, going platinum there. Critical view was polarized: Lester Bangs wrote in Creem that "the heat's off, because it's all over, they really don't matter anymore or stand for anything" and "This is the first meaningless Rolling Stones album, and thank God"; but in the 1976 Creem Consumer Guide Robert Christgau rated the album an A-.

While all the album's songs except "Cherry Oh Baby" were officially credited to Jagger/Richards as authors, the credit for "Hey Negrita" specifies "Inspiration by Ron Wood" and "Melody" lists "Inspiration by Billy Preston". Bill Wyman would later release a version of "Melody" with his Rhythm Kings, crediting Preston as author.

The album was promoted with a controversial billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood that depicted the model Anita Russell, bruised and bound by Jagger under the phrase "I'm Black and Blue from the Rolling Stones — and I love it!" The billboard was removed after protests by the feminist group Women Against Violence Against Women, although it earned the band widespread press coverage.

Two extra tracks recorded in the Rotterdam sessions were later released on 1981's Tattoo You—"Slave" and "Worried About You".

In 1994, Black and Blue was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records, again in 2009 by Universal Music, and once more in 2011 by Universal Music Enterprises in a Japanese only SHM-SACD version.