At the end of the 70s, The Rolling Stones had made their mark on the world as the most iconic rock band on the planet. In 1978, the group took an unexpected path and launched into disco. In preparation for the release of their fourteenth studio album, Some girls, the first single “Miss You” hit the scene. This shocked fans, critics and even the band themselves because the song is different from the hits they had previously released. Gone was the familiar blues-driven rock, replaced with a groovier, sexier tune that sounded better on the dance floor than through bedroom speakers. The Rolling Stones were synonymous with rock and roll, but their genre-curious “Miss You” was no betrayal of it. He embodied a blurring of boundaries that was, slowly but surely, a sign of the times.
How the Rolling Stones Transformed Disco into “Miss You”
In the mid-’70s, the Rolling Stones began experimenting with disco, and it didn’t come out of nowhere. Rock and roll’s dominance was fading, so curiosity met necessity. The Stones had made a name for themselves as a blues guitar band, but had to adapt to stay at the top both commercially and creatively. Disco dominated, and their advantage was blunted by the sudden arrival of punk. So they changed it a little.
But the Rolling Stones’ stylistic shift wasn’t a one-time quest. By the time “Miss You” was released, rock had been around long enough to fragment in a rapidly changing musical landscape. New wave, punk, and disco itself showed the extent to which music was falling outside the strictures of rock’s original mold. Newer, perhaps cooler bands like Blondie embraced the genre and released one of the greatest rock-disco fusions with “Heart of Glass” a few months after the release of “Miss You.” Rock’s disco tropes weren’t just a fad, it was a serious cultural moment.
With “Miss You,” the Stones had clearly changed things up a bit. But they did it in a way that, to me, didn’t feel like they were selling out or losing touch with the roots of their original sound. But it’s easy for me to say it with a retrospective perspective. I wasn’t there and I wasn’t even born. “Miss You” captures the vivacious energy of the Rolling Stones and also captures the band embrace developments in pop culture and its evolving sound.
Disco Division: disagreement and legacy
The Rolling Stones had undeniably created something new for them, but not everyone in the band agreed on the role disco played in it. “Miss You” still contained a host of Stones classics: crunchy guitars and Mick Jagger’s unmistakable wailing voice. Jagger and Ronnie Wood insisted that “Miss You” was never intended as a disco song, but the “oohs” of the choruses, organ and rhythm construction build on what disco had established as its own characteristics.
On the other hand, the drummer Charlie Watts said that “‘Miss You’ was a damn good disco record; it was calculated to be one. A lot of those songs, like ‘Miss You’ on Some girls …were heavily influenced by nightclubs. You can hear it in a lot of those floor fours and Philly style. “Hey, disco subliminally got into the Rolling Stones’ heads, and what was happening in the clubs in the ’70s found its way onto the record. It shouldn’t be a bad or shameful thing for “Miss You” to be a capsule of the era, representing how disco made waves and how rock and roll was successfully adapted.
“I miss you” went up to #1 spot in the USA, but that was the last time The Stones never got there. Perhaps this was a sign that disco wasn’t the best choice for their long-term identity, and that an innocent flirtation with the genre was more than enough. Or maybe if they had looked into it more, they would have stayed in the front row longer.
Whether deliberate or not, “Miss You” and its dance with disco perfectly embody a decade where genre restrictions imploded and boundaries became blurred and liberated. “I Miss You” showed that The Rolling Stones weren’t too stagnant or fear of welcoming an evolution in their sound, which actually showed them to be more rebellious than if they always stuck to the same song. Their willingness to experiment in the studio mirrors their activity in nightclubs, which have maintained their cultural relevance and credibility for so many years. The Rolling Stones are iconic because they never stopped learning and could find their own rhythm in almost anything.
