Disco, Punk and Swagger: How Some Girls Saved The Rolling Stones
Disco, Punk and Swagger: How Some Girls Saved The Rolling Stones
- Some Girls combined disco rhythms with the Stones' signature bluesy swagger, creating a hit single in 'Miss You'.
- The album balanced danceable tracks with hard-driving rockers that matched the energy of the punk movement.
- Some Girls was a commercial and critical success, cementing the Stones' status as one of rock's greatest bands.
When The Rolling Stones released Some Girls in June 1978, they were a band with something to prove. Punk rock had exploded, disco dominated radio, and many critics were beginning to wonder whether the world’s greatest rock and roll band had become a relic of an earlier era. Instead of fading quietly into nostalgia, The Rolling Stones responded with one of the strongest albums of their career.
Some Girls was both a comeback and a reinvention. The album embraced the musical landscape of the late 1970s without surrendering the band’s identity. The clearest example was Miss You, a song built around a danceable groove that drew heavily from disco. At the time, some longtime fans were surprised to hear Mick Jagger and company venturing onto the dance floor. Yet the song never felt like a cynical attempt to chase trends. It still sounded unmistakably like The Rolling Stones, combining disco rhythms with bluesy swagger and sharp songwriting. The result was a massive hit that reached No. 1 in the United States.
But Some Girls was much more than its disco-infused lead single. The album also delivered hard-driving rockers such as Respectable, When the Whip Comes Down, and Shattered. These tracks crackled with an energy that seemed inspired by the punk movement while retaining the band’s trademark attitude. Rather than competing with younger artists, The Rolling Stones showed they could match their intensity.
Commercially, the album was a triumph. Some Girls spent multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and became the best-selling studio album of The Rolling Stones’ career. In the United States alone, it has been certified more than six million times platinum. Critics praised it as the band’s best work in years, and many still rank it alongside classics such as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St.
The success of the album carried directly into the 1978 U.S. Tour, a lean, aggressive series of shows that restored the band’s reputation as one of rock’s greatest live acts. Unlike the massive stadium spectacles that would become common in later years, these concerts felt raw and urgent. The set lists were packed with songs from Some Girls, and the band performed with a hunger that reflected the album itself.
Looking back, Some Girls stands as one of rock’s great reinventions. It was a disco record, a rock record, and a comeback record all at once. More importantly, it proved that The Rolling Stones were not merely surviving changing musical trends, they were still capable of defining them.
