Mick Jagger's Solo Detour and the Stones' Mid-'80s Rift

By the mid-’80s, the Rolling Stones had been a functioning band for over two decades, but Mick Jagger was restless. While Keith Richards was deep in his own heroin struggles and solo experiments, Jagger dove into his first proper solo album, She’s the Boss (1985). It wasn’t just a side project — it felt like a declaration. Jagger co-wrote with outside musicians, brought in session pros, and chased a slick, new-wave sound. To Keith, it looked like Jagger was trying to build a parallel career, and the band’s creative trust took a direct hit.

Keith didn’t hide his feelings. In his memoir Life, he describes the period as a “Third World War” inside the band. Jagger followed up with Primitive Cool (1987), which barely charted, while Keith released Talk Is Cheap (1988) — a sharp, critically praised record that made Jagger’s solo work seem directionless by comparison. The two weren’t speaking much, and for a couple of years the Stones essentially didn’t exist. The dynamic had fractured so badly that the band’s 1989 reunion for Steel Wheels had to be negotiated through lawyers and management, not handshakes.