Black and Blue was released on 23 April 1976. The album reached No. 2 in the UK and spent an interrupted four-week spell at number 1 in the United States, going platinum there.
Controversy The promotional campaign involved a brutal display coordinated by Mick Jagger. He wanted an ugly model to look bruised and battered while she is bound with her legs spread above an image of the band. The image was accompanied by the tagline, "I'm
Black and Blue from the Rolling Stones – and I love it!". In Jagger's view, a lot of women "want to be chained up".
Atlantic Records also recorded a series of radio ads featuring a woman responding to the crack of a whip, "Ooooh, beat me, beat me, make me 'Black and Blue'...I love it." The visual campaign ran in print media and most notably on a 14x48-foot billboard on
Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The billboard inspired a multiyear protest by
Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW). The billboard was removed and the radio ads were canceled, but the print ads were already in circulation. WAVAW canvassed record stores and found plenty of album art that was similarly problematic. Examples included the covers of
Cold Blood's
Thriller and
Eric Gale's
Ginseng Woman, as well as titles like
Kiss'
Love Gun which conflates sex with violence. The label's formulaic assurances that it was not condoning violence did not satisfy WAVAW who responded with a boycott. Their pressure campaign continued until November 1979, when Atlantic's parent company,
Warner Communications, Inc., issued a joint statement with WAVAW announcing a policy of screening its releases for any depictions of violence against women. The band's early 70s run included some of their best work, but the middle of the decade featured much less esteemed albums. Critics were preoccupied with the band's age and frequently wondered if it was possible for men in their 30s to remain relevant to rock and roll. If there were a critical consensus, it could be summed up by the review in
Street Life, "It's another Stones' album, that's all..."
Lester Bangs expounded in
Creem, "the heat's off, because it's all over, they really don't matter anymore or stand for anything...this is the first
meaningless Rolling Stones album, and thank God". In
NME,
Charles Shaar Murray moaned, "
Black and Blue is a letdown of hideous proportions, totally devoid of either the epic sense of sleazy grandeur or the galvanic bejewelled tension which are the Stones' twin ace cards." Of the sappy "Fool to Cry", he deadpanned, "Look, I know Mick and Keith used to write for
Gene Pitney, but this is ridiculous." Murray did have praise for the "ultra-crisp, clean and sharp" sound the engineers created and asserted that Charlie Watts played "the best white reggae drums I've ever heard". For
Circus,
James Wolcott called the album a "soulless...depressing vacuum", lamenting that Keith Richards "hasn't been a vivid musical presence since
Exile. And his fade into misty luminosity has made for good theater, but bad rock. He's faded grievously as a guitarist..."
Phonograph Record praised "Memory Motel" as "the most powerful piece of music The Stones have made in four years, recalling the great '
Moonlight Mile'..." In
Rolling Stone,
Dave Marsh concurred, musing that it would be "material [Jagger] can sing with pride until he's 50." However, Marsh felt the album's mediocrity was the result of the Glimmer Twins running too loose a production, "it took them too long to make the record, and the weariness shows."
Robert Christgau quipped, ""diagnosis: not dead by a long shot" and commended the album's musical risks. He also felt that the album represents the Stones' biggest exploration of
black rhythms and styles since ''
December's Children (1965). Barbara Charone raved for Sounds, "Make no mistake about it, Black And Blue'' is a great record" and the "album you've been waiting for since
Exile On Main Street first appeared."
The Miami Herald remarked on its eclecticism, "
Black and Blue is not a rock album. It is a sampler, of sorts, a musical term paper. In it the Stones examine the several influences on pop music today:
salsa,
disco, reggae. By and large, they do so superbly. But in committing themselves to exercises in musical formulae as tight as these, the Stones attach their music to styles subject to rapid eclipse." Retrospectively,
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
AllMusic praised the album for being "longer on grooves and jams than songs", which he felt was inevitable as it captured the audition process for Taylor's replacement. ''
Uncut's'' Rolling Stones guide calls the album an "unlikely triumph" and "one of the Stones' most underrated albums – the only Stones LP to focus primarily on feel rather than subject matter."
Colin Larkin of
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music called it "less than impressive." Nevertheless, he ranked it #536 in his
All Time Top 1000 Albums. In
The Great Rock Discography,
Martin C. Strong said the album was notable for Wood's addition and "a half hearted attempt at reggae stylings".
The Rolling Stone Album Guide points to "Fool to Cry" and "Memory Motel" as the album's high points. In 1977, Keith Richards admitted the album "wasn't very good – certainly nowhere as good as
Let It Bleed". Mick Taylor praised the album in a 1979 interview. In the 1990s,
Mick Jagger reflected on
Black and Blue, "It was a bit of a holiday period. I mean, we cared, but we didn't care as much as we had, not really concentrating on the creative process." ==Reissues==