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We counted down the Stones’ complete 1970’s studio catalog, and now we take on the band’s output during the decadent decade of the 1980’s. This period found the Stones sometimes funky, sometimes fiery, but always feisty. Keep in mind, the countdown

The complete list to date.

The Last Eight:

53. “Back To Zero” (from Dirty Work)

52. “Where The Boys Go” (from Emotional Rescue)

51. “Had It With You” (from Dirty Work)

50. “Feel On Baby” (from Undercover)

49. “Continental Drift” (from Steel Wheels)

48. “Fight” (from Dirty Work)

47. “Pretty Beat Up” (from Undercover)

46. “Hold Back” (from Dirty Work)

45. “Winning Ugly”

From Dirty Work

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It’s one of the few songs on Dirty Work with something on its mind besides brute force, so “Winning Ugly” gets points for that. Mick Jagger bemoans the win-at-all-costs MO of the ME generation, drawing parallels between greedy businessmen and slick politicians. What a waste, Jagger seems to say, when “Beauty is staring me in the face.”

It’s too bad that the song is mired in the musical excess that marked the time period almost as much as the “Greed is good” ethos that the lyrics bemoan. The keyboards give the song the sheen of some of Jagger’s soundtrack work of that time period, but at no point does it seem like a Stones’ team effort.

Keith and the boys are essentially reduced to Jagger’s sidemen here, which is a waste of talent to the utmost degree. As a Mick solo effort it’s passable, but here it just reveals the growing chasm at the time between the two group leaders, which was as ugly as anything this song was deriding.

44. “Too Much Blood”

From Undercover

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A truly bizarre effort from Undercover, “Too Much Blood” finds Jagger doing a quasi-rap over skittery guitars, exotic percussion by Sly Dunbar, and horns that become a tad intrusive by song’s end. Sound-wise, it’s of a piece with what the band was trying to pull together on that 1983 album, with varying degrees of success.

What’s notable is what Jagger was rapping about. The first verse retells the highly publicized case of a man named Issei Sagawa who murdered and then ate his girlfriend in France. The second finds Mick musing about violent movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and how near to reality they are.

While the parallels may be less than subtle, it’s still a hoot to hear Mick shouting, “Don’t saw off me leg, don’t saw off me arm.” This song is just too wacko to condemn too much, but never seems like anything more than a novelty.

43. “Send It To Me”

From Emotional Rescue

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The lead character in this amusing little lark has very few standards for the mail-order bride he’s awaiting, such is his loneliness. At the end of the song, as the guitars drop away and it’s just Jagger improvising over Charlie Watts’ hiccuping beat, we find out that even Bubarians are welcome.

It’s a fun song, if completely inconsequential. The reggae beat is fine, and Ronnie Wood solos expertly to complement the interplay between Watts and Bill Wyman. In the end, though, “Send It To Me” seems like little more than the by-the-numbers reggae track needed to fill the quota on Emotional Rescue.

42. “Hold On To Your Hat”

From Steel Wheels

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This track off Steel Wheels comes at you hard and leaves subtlety behind. It’s as if the Stones wanted to remind everyone that, even though they were getting along, they also weren’t exactly touchy-feely. “Hold On To Your Hat” takes a sledgehammer to that notion.

There’s a little bit of Bo Diddley in the grinding rhythm and Jagger’s taunting lyrics. And even though it’s one of the least memorable numbers on what was a fine comeback album, there is still some good news to be had. The aggression in the music seems to be coming from a unified place directed outward, as opposed to the previous albums, when that aggression seemed to be directed at each other.

41. “No Use In Crying”

From Tattoo You

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Tattoo You was famously an album full of leftovers that miraculously came together. Alas, even though it has its charms, this song feels like one which the boys weren’t quite able to transform into something better.

Jagger advises a lover to give up any hope for reconciliation over a soulful, stuttering rhythm. It’s an attempt to recapture the magic of past soul-man glories from the band’s catalog, like “Time Is On My Side” or “I Got The Blues.” But, save for the sweet harmonies, it comes up short of those milestones. Yes, I know most songs do, but part of the Stones’ burden is having to live up to their own impossibly high standards.

The complete list to date.

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