The Rolling Stones: Tattoo You (Rolling Stones Records)
Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1981
LIKE THE countless cruel-belching flotskies who sit in the countless unferned and uncedared bars of this one-horse universe grimacing into mirrors, not so much at themselves, reflected in those mirrors, but rather at the idea of those mirrors, and even then only because no more palpable object for their grimacing can be found, and even if it could, well, fuck it; like them, the Rolling Stones make it extremely difficult to perceive their — I borrow here from Dear Meg — nice sides. But unlike those barroom flotskies, the Stones have parlayed their collective mean streak into a fame and fortune beyond the most fantastic dreams of Croesus and Kramden combined.
Total word count of piece: 522