Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album: Dirty Work
Label: Rolling Stones, Colombia
Released: 24 March 1986
UK Album Chart: 4
US Billboard: 200: 4
Produced: Steve Lilywhite, The Glimmer Twins
File Under: Mid-life crisis album. Lots of squabbling and fall outs but somehow, they got it together! The Stones always do!
📀 Listening Status
In the mid noughties, I began listening to every Stones album. I became quite fascinated by their 80’s output. The in-house fighting and squabbling often took centre stage over the music.
📀 Background
By the mid-80s, The Rolling Stones weren’t so much a band as a dysfunctional family reunion someone forgot to cancel. Dirty Work, released in 1986, was released right in the middle of a turbulent stretch—even by Stones standards.
Mick and Keef could barely look at each other. Charlie Watts was in a personal spiral (heroin and alcohol addiction) and absent from a few tracks.
Ronnie Wood stepped in to help with the writing process and is credited as co-writer on four songs.
The charts were ruled by synths, shoulder pads, and bands who’d only read about the ‘60s in history books.
Still, being the Stones, they soldiered on—through gritted teeth and passive-aggressive studio sessions. What came out the other side was Dirty Work: a snarling, scrappy, gloriously uneven bar-room brawl of a record.
📀 The Good, The Bad, and the Loud
One Hit (To the Body) kicks things off with jagged guitars. It features angsty vocals and the not-so-subtle sense that Jagger and Richards are singing about each other. It’s raw, it’s biting, and hits you smack in the face.
The video to the single had Jagger and Richards seemingly trading blows. There’s nothing better than a band in full-on turmoil!
Fight is even better. You can feel the tension!
Their cover of Harlem Shuffle adds a dose of fun. It is one of the few times the band sounds like they’re enjoying themselves.
Elsewhere, though, it’s 80’s overload. Winning Ugly and Back to Zero dip into the era’s production trends with varying results. Whilst Too Rude – a cover of a 1984 Half Pint ditty – is an ill-advised move into bad reggae. The original is much better!
But, the likes of Had It With You and the title track are worthy additions to The Stones repertoire
Sometimes the results are interesting. Other times, it sounds like the production values of the time got hold of the master tapes.
📝 Final Thoughts
Dirty Work wears its dysfunction like a badge of honour. It’s chaotic, brash, and sometimes sounds like it was mixed during an argument—but that’s the charm.
Reviews were bad and whilst respective reviews have been slightly kinder, this and 1984’s Undercover are usually low down on most fans pecking order of Stones albums.
It’s not Exile on Main St. or Let It Bleed, but it’s a document of survival. The Stones, bloodied but unbowed, trying to stay relevant in a decade that didn’t seem to want them.
It’s not as bad as you might think!
Love it or loathe it, one thing’s certain: Dirty Work is never boring. And for The Rolling Stones, that’s half the battle won.
The Listening Log 
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