Customer Reviews

Bridges to Babylon

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The best Rolling Stones album in recent years. Although I have every Stones album they have ever made, this is the one that is keeping me company most of the day, when driving, at home, etc. I particularly enjoy "Saint of Me", "Always Suffering", " Gunface" and the great "Out of Control". All other tracks are also inspiring and music travels from fantastic mellow sweet notes to hard beat tunes that you want to get up and danse. The arangement of the songs is fantastic I had the opprtunity to see the Stones concert in Athens, Greece, the other day and it was an experience of a lifetime. As one journalist put it over here, "This band has a great future!!!"

This import version from Japan includes one extra track....a live version of Angie. The extra track is not remarkable, but (as usual) if you want 'em all, ya gotta buy this one too. Here is my review of the album as a whole:

Bridges To Babylon was originally released Sep 30, 1997. It was the 25th studio album. It includes the single hits Anybody Seen My Baby, Out Of Control, and Saint Of Me. It also includes Flip The Switch. Most people know the music, so in my reviews I try to give you data on the sessions and interesting facts connected with the songs and the album. Here we go:

Interesting notes include:
.....titles considered included Blessed Poison and Flip The Switch
.....Keith heard his daughter singing different words to Anybody Seen My Baby and panicked when he discovered Mick had unconsciously used the melody to k.d. lang's Constant Craving.....the Stones got off the hook when k.d. was flattered and accepted credit for writing the Stones track....Keith had feared this kind of mistake for decades and when it finally happened he was so relieved it wasn't him that he insisted that Mick pay k.d. from his own share of the royalties
.....the album tour (also called Bridges To Babylon) included 107 shows to 4,375,000 over 2 years and made three hundred million.

The Bridges sessions started in Nov 1996 at Dangerous Music in Greenwich Village, continued in London during December, and again in Jan 1997 in Barbados. The entire band began recording in March at Ocean Way Studios in L.A. Mick had been working on Saint Of Me and Might As Well Get Juiced for another solo album (since the Stones had not been together for over a year). Mick wanted his tracks done with new techno producers while Keith constantly ridiculed them. This lead to a lot of problems when they tried to work together in L.A. and they ended up using separate studios with Keith stealing tapes to get the final mixes done while Mick boycotted the sessions. In Mick's case, he got so angry he finally mixed one track - Already Over Me - himself, then walked out leaving Keith to finish 3 tracks himself (he promptly overdubbed Mick's techno with rockabilly). As usual with the Stones, the conflict produced some of their best music in decades and Bridges ended up acclaimed as one of their best ever. Because of the dramatic split in who did what, this time I am listing the tracks according to who wrote, played, mixed them, not where they were recorded:
.....Low Down (Keith)
.....Might As Well Get Juiced (Mick and Keith together)
.....Always Suffering (Mick)
.....You Don't Have To Mean It (Mick and Keith together)
.....Anybody Seen My Baby (Mick)
.....Saint Of Me (Mick)
.....Out Of Control (Mick)
.....Flip the Switch (Charlie & Jim Keltner)
.....Gunface (Charlie & Jim Keltner)
.....Already Over Me (mixed by Mick)
.....Too Tight (Keith overdubbing)
.....Thief In The Night (Keith overdubbing)
.....How Can I Stop (Keith overdubbing)

This information comes from "It's Only Rock And Roll: The Ultimate Guide To The Rolling Stones" by Karnbach and Bernson and from my own collection, with some of the notes from Davis' "Old Gods Almost Dead." Both books are available from amazon.com.

In their middle fifties they have produced a new album and a grat topur. I have seen them in Buenos Aires and they have covered all my expectations once again. In Bridges to Babylon they showed to the rock and roll world, that they are still alive because they stil make noise! At their age they still make joung fellows cry. CHEARS!!