Dirty Work (The Rolling Stones Album) - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

In March 1986, The Rolling Stones' cover of "Harlem Shuffle" (their first lead single from a studio album not to be a Jagger/Richards original since the earliest days) was released to a receptive audience, reaching #13 in the UK and #5 in the US, though it did not receive the same amount of exposure as previous hits. The follow-up single "One Hit (To the Body)" was a top 30 hit and featured a revealing video of Jagger and Richards seeming to trade blows.

Dirty Work was released a week after "Harlem Shuffle," reaching #4 in the UK and US (going platinum there), but the critical reaction was less than enthusiastic. Some reviewers felt the album was slight in places, with weak, generic songwriting from Richards and Wood and puzzlingly abrasive vocals from Jagger. Some felt Jagger was saving his best material for his solo records, though the critical reaction to those releases was muted as well. Dirty Work's critical standing has only marginally improved over the years, perhaps because it lacks any favourable hits.

However, in 1986, Robert Christgau called Dirty Work "a bracing and even challenging record innovates without kowtowing to multi-platinum fashion or half-assed pretension. It's honest and makes you like it." In 2004, Stylus Magazine's "On Second Thoughts" feature assessed the album as "a tattered, embarrassed triumph, by far the most interesting Stones album since Some Girls at every level: lyrical, conceptual, instrumental." The re-evaluation of the album finds that despite its change of style to a then current 80s-style production and experimentation, the album features "the most venomous guitar sound of the Stones' career, and Jagger's most committed vocals."

Keith said every song on this album was structured so it could be played live with a view to touring to support the album. Then Mick decided he wasn't going to tour after all.(One of his reasons is listed below.)

The album produced a hit for the Rolling Stones, their cover of "Harlem Shuffle", and featured a number of guest appearances, including contributions by Tom Waits, Patti Scialfa, Bobby Womack, and Jimmy Page on "One Hit (To the Body)".

In 1994 Dirty Work was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records, and again in 2009 by Universal Music. It was released on SHM-SACD in 2011 by Universal Music Japan.