The Rolling Stones - Bridges to Babylon
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Music CD Cover
Artist: The Rolling StonesEdition: Music CD
Published: 1997
CD Release Date: 1997-09-30
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Soundtracks:
- Flip The Switch
- Anybody Seen My Baby?
- Low Down
- Already Over Me
- Gun Pace
- You Don't Have To Mean It
- Out Of Control
- Saint Of Me
- Might As Well Get Juiced
- Always Suffering
- Too Tight
- Thief In The Night
- How Can I Stop
Free Music Notes for Bridges to Babylon
Free Music Review: A landmark album. That's right, you heard me.
Hit: 5 Stars
Well I am officially obsessed by the Rolling Stones. It's as if all the excesses, selfishness and buried occultism of the entire second half of the 20th century are captured in their music.
The Stones are not often credited with "concept albums" but I can't think of one single Stones album that doesn't have an overarching theme. Exile is the gospel-blues-roots "Mick fights for his soul" album; Beggar's Banquet is the dreamy, floaty, druggy country album; Let it Bleed is a collection of grandiose anthems; Sticky Fingers is the filthy, angry, delusional rock album, kind of like Rolling Stones doing The Doors; Goat's Head Soup is the downer album; It's All About Rock and Roll is the pomp and circumstance, wealthy young man album; Black and Blue is the Caribbean funk album; Some Girls is a bunch of catchy singles; Emotional Rescue is the experimental Stones-go-Blondie album ( and easily better than the grotesquely overrated Some Girls, which may be the most uninteresting thing they've ever done ); Tattoo You was a feint at the "mature" Stones that never was and never will be; Undercover is the Tony Montana does S&M album; Dirty Work is the big 80's yuppie American Psycho album; A Bigger Bang is the back to our roots, "rejuvenated Keith" guitar-centric album, etc.
Bridges to Babylon, among all these albums, really is a bridge. This is a key album, truly, no less than Exile, in a very casual, almost accidental way it has a lot to say. Mick and Keith, who started out cannibalizing the more spiritual forms of black music, like the blues, seem to have opened up Pandora's Box. Bridges to Babylon is the sound of the races colliding, merging, and not in a good way ( check the bizarre cursing sample of Biz Markie in "Anybody Seen My Baby." ) Here the Stones are seduced by the new Babylonian world they helped to create. The ragged spirituals of yore -- that Mick was able to pull off because like the bluesmen he idolized, he has clearly been to the crossroads -- have given way to a shallow urban dream where all the races are united, but only in pursuit of money and sex. If you think about it, there could be no more logical culmination for the Stones' career.
The Stones took real risks here. Very few of these songs, unlike the ones on A Bigger Bang, are calculated to sound good live. Almost all the songs are over five minutes long. And while the notion of the Rolling Stones dabbling in techno and rap is offputting, this is no effort to be hip. These songs are not marketed to youth, and the Stones make no attempt to out-rock Oasis who released the infamously noisy and indulgent Be Here Now in the same year ( also underrated, but that's for another review ). Old men trying to appeal to youth don't enlist Wayne Shorter, okay?
No, Bridges is a tapestry of sound that has been carefully woven, like Bryan Ferry's Mamouna. But while that album is mostly about the one subject Bryan Ferry is compelled by -- the romantic despair of Bryan Ferry -- there is something bigger going on here. This is the sound of America as an Arabian midsummer night's dream that's about to vanish. Almost every song sneaks in a Middle Eastern or Moroccan motif, but in the most evanescent and magical way. The guitars are like vines, and the occasional techno beats are like berries in the hanging gardens of a sweet-scented but spiritually foul Babylon.
The album ends with a pair of Keith Richards songs apparently about compulsive sex and rock and roll, classic Stones subject matter: "Thief in the Night" and "How Can I Stop." These songs really caught me off guard -- they are like updates of the jammier, tabla-strewn moments of Satanic Majesties. It's as if the old man is caught up in a neverending opium dream, occasionally trying to wrench himself out. But falling out of that coconut tree and having his brain siphoned may have finally woken him up, as footage from the Bigger Bang tour proves ( Keith is really at the top of his game right now, an Old Master ).
So here is my wish for the final act of the Stones' career -- a sincere conversion to Christianity! You have to admit, that would be the most shocking move in a career based on shock. Besides, it isn't right that my team gets Charlie Watts while the devil gets the Glimmer Twins. Come on, Mick and Keith, just a little repentance, the tiniest bit, and I'll open those gates. Bill Wyman ain't getting in though.
Bridges to Babylon Poster
It's no use comparing Stones albums to Exile on Main St. anymore; the world's greatest rock & roll band clearly substitutes finances for passion these days. But compared to, say, Soul Asylum or the Black Crowes, the band still produces worthwhile records--"Flip the Switch," "Out of Control," and the closing Keith Richards suite all give Bridges the edge over the Stones' spotty previous Voodoo Lounge. Despite dross like the plagiarized hit "Anybody Seen My Baby," and the underutilization of the talented Dust Brothers production team, the Stones don't deserve our indifference just yet. --Steve KnopperLimited edition of their 1997 album in a special package: astandard jewel case within an etched clear & silver slipcasethat accentuates the graphic of the lion on the cover art.Contains 13 tracks, including the singles 'Anybody Seen MyBaby?' and 'Saint Of
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