How Punk Pushed the Rolling Stones to Get Mean and Lean on Some Girls and Emotional Rescue

When punk exploded in 1976–77, the Rolling Stones looked bloated next to snarling bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash. The Stones had spent the mid-70s on prog-tinged, decadent records like Black and Blue and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, and suddenly they were the establishment. So they stripped down, sped up, and got mean.

Some Girls (1978) is basically the Stones fusing punk’s aggression with their own blues riffs and a sharp shot of disco. Songs like “Shattered” rip along with frantic, almost spoken-word vocals, while “Miss You” takes the four-on-the-floor beat punk hated and twists it into a paranoid, street-level groove. The whole album is lean—no horns, no long jams, just piss and vinegar.

Emotional Rescue (1980) is a weirder, more scattered follow-up, but the punk influence still shows in songs like “Dance (Pt. 1),” which doubles down on the disco-punk hybrid, and “Let Me Go,” a snarling dismissal of fame and pressure. The Stones didn’t become punk—they were too old and too rich—but the movement scared them into making two of their most urgent and vital records in years.