Bridges to Babylon (1997)


 


  1.Flip the Switch
  2.Anybody Seen My Baby
  3.Lowdown
  4.Already Over Me
  5.Gunface
  6.You Don't Have to Mean It
  7.Out of Control
  8.Saint of Me
  9.Might as Well Get Juiced
 10.Always Suffering
 11.Too Tight
 12.Thief in the Night
 13.How Can I Stop

 

By the time the mid-1990s dawned, any announcement of a new Rolling Stones album came with a shrug and a sigh. The question on everyone’s lips wasn’t “What does it sound like?” but rather “When does the tour start?” The Stones had, by then, become a lumbering rock’n’roll juggernaut—an enterprise as much about stadium spectacle and merchandising as music. Which is a pity, because with Bridges to Babylon, they quietly delivered their most inventive and cohesive set in well over a decade.

Of course, hardly anyone noticed. By the late '90s, commercial radio had become a wasteland of boy bands and angst-ridden post-grunge, and MTV was too busy airing reality shows to bother with rock videos. So when this record arrived, it slipped out almost entirely under the radar. Even the most ardent Stones fans would likely be hard-pressed to name a single track from it. That’s unfortunate, because the album—like its predecessor Voodoo Lounge—is a deft blend of contemporary production and the band’s indelible stamp. Only this time, they pushed things further.

Take Anybody Seen My Baby? A moody, mid-tempo shuffle with borrowed hip-hop elements, complete with a female vocal hook and—yes—a brief rap break. Purists clutched their pearls, but the track works brilliantly. I Might As Well Get Juiced, by contrast, is a sludgy, synth-laced piece of digital noir—equal parts menace and murk, and one of the darkest grooves they’ve ever laid down. It should be a disaster. Instead, it’s mesmerizing.

Yet they hadn’t lost their grip on what makes them who they are. Saint of Me is a standout—pure Stones swagger with a jagged edge and one of the best choruses they've penned since the Some Girls era. Gunface dips a toe into political waters while managing not to drown in them, and both Flip the Switch and Out of Control are the sort of urgent, propulsive rockers that serve as a reminder: the old fire still burns, even if it flickers now and then.

Keith Richards, meanwhile, gets three solo vocal turns—perhaps one too many. Thief in the Night and How Can I Stop (which close the album) stretch to nearly eleven minutes between them, and while each has its charms, their placement at the end grinds the momentum to a crawl. You Don’t Have to Mean It, a reggae-lite number with Keith in crooner mode, is better, but even then, one can’t help but wonder whether one solid Richards cut would have sufficed.

Still, Bridges to Babylon is that rare thing in a veteran band’s catalogue: a late-period album that neither panders nor pretends. It’s smart, adventurous, surprisingly modern—and still unmistakably theirs. Not a reinvention, perhaps, but a confident restatement of purpose. For those who stopped listening after Tattoo You, this one deserves a second chance. They weren’t just playing the hits anymore. They were still, when they wanted to be, a real band. And a damn good one at that.


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