The album is mostly composed of studio outtakes recorded during the 1970s, and contains one of the band's most well-known songs, "Start Me Up", which hit number two on the US Billboard singles charts.
As a result, the band's production team combed through unused recordings from prior sessions, some dating back almost a decade.
[2] Tattoo You is an album primarily composed of outtakes from previous recording sessions, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and overdubs.
"[4] He began sifting through the band's vaults: "I spent three months going through (the recording tapes from) like the last four, five albums finding stuff that had been either forgotten about or at the time rejected.
The backing tracks for both songs were cut in late 1972 during the Goats Head Soup (1973) sessions with Mick Taylor and not Ronnie Wood.
[4] "Start Me Up" was released in August 1981, just a week before Tattoo You, to a very strong response, reaching the top 10 in both the United States and UK, and number 1 in Australia.
The album cover for Tattoo You had concept origination, art direction and design by Peter Corriston and illustration by Christian Piper.
Debra Rae Cohen commented in Rolling Stone: "Just when we might finally have lost patience, the new record dances (not prances), rocks (not jives) onto the scene, and the Rolling Stones are back again, with a matter-of-fact acceptance of their continued existence – and eventual mortality …"[3] Robert Palmer of The New York Times wrote that "remarkably, Tattoo You is something special...None of [the tracks] are Chuck Berry retreads, none of them are disco, and none of them are reggae – they are all rock-and-roll, with more than a hint of the soul and blues influences that were so important in the band's early work...The new album's lyrics are also a surprise.
"[16] Mark Moses, in The Boston Phoenix, said that the album "has its moments of gratuitous star-mongering, but more often you hear the Stones shirking that stardom.
"[17] Robert Christgau gave the album a good review but criticised "Start Me Up" in his Pazz and Jop essay in 1981, saying, "Its central conceit – Mick as sex machine, complete with pushbutton – explains why the album it starts up never transcends hand-tooled excellence except when Sonny Rollins, uncredited, invades the Stones' space.
"[18] Patty Rose, in Musician, said, "The feel of the album … is more one of rediscovered youth, of axes to play, not grind, of the latest cope, not dope.
… The Stones have shed yet another layer of self-consciousness and their shiny vinyl new skin tingles with an open, early-decade kind of excitement.
"[3] Writing in Creem, Nick Tosches expressed contempt for what he felt was the Stones' gratuitous sexism and general negativity in their lyrics.
After pointing out examples of what he considered misogyny in "Slave", "Little T+A", "Hang Fire" and even "Waiting on a Friend", he added: "Let it never be said that the Stones have a one-track mean streak.
'Neighbours', for example, is quite catholic in its grimacing, directed as it is towards the whole family of man, with nary a mention of race, color or creed.
'No Use in Crying' contains the imperative phrase "Stay away from me," addressed to no one in particular, more times than I could count ...."[19] In a 2018 retrospective for The Guardian, music critic Alexis Petridis ranked Tattoo You as the band's thirteenth best album out of 23, stating that it "has no right to be as good as it is.
[21] It featured close up black and white photos of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with tattoo illustrations on their faces.
The 1994 remaster was initially released in a Collector's Edition CD, which replicated in miniature elements of the original vinyl album packaging.
The 40th anniversary reissue of Tattoo You was released on 22 October 2021, with 9 unreleased tracks and a live album recorded at Wembley Stadium, London in 1982.