Quote Originally Posted by FORD View Post
Sound quality ain't the best here, but at least you can hear what a guitar oriented song this originally was before Clearmountain (or whomever) pussified it with too many keyboards, saxophones and what not. Hopefully a clean copy of this will surface one day, but so far all the boots I've heard of it sound pretty much like this........

Clearmountain jacked up the drums way too loud on this tune for the official release...this actually sounds miles better in terms of overall atmospherics despite limitations in source material sound quality.
Apparently Tattoo You was a Jagger/Clearmountain production in essence, regarding mixes and recording. From what I've read, the recording process was fragmented, largely in part because virtually all of the tracks were taken from previous album sessions, so there was a lot of overdubbing over existing recordings in order to make the album at least sound somewhat like it had been created in 1981. Like, there were virtually no tracks where the entire band was present in the studio laying down parts, since on one track the guitar parts were recorded a few years ago, so all that was redone were the vocals, etc. Rumor has it Richards wasn't even particularly involved in the Tattoo You mixing sessions on nearly the level Jagger and Clearmountain were.
None of this was spoken about by the band at the time, since they were basically (by their silence) engaged in a kind of fiction, pretending that Tattoo You was a fresh effort of new songs by the band. That's why Richards was so insistent their next effort (Undercover) was actually a group effort with nothing but new material on it, recorded by the band at the time specifically for that album.