Bridges to Babylon by The Rolling Stones

Bridges to Babylon, the Rolling Stones' 1997 album on Virgin, finds Mick Jagger itching to drag the old warhorse into the present. The credits read like a crowded studio lobby: Don Was, back from Voodoo Lounge, plus the Dust Brothers, Danny Saber, Rob Fraboni and Pierre de Beauport, with Jagger and Keith Richards co-producing every track as the Glimmer Twins.

The record lurches between rock and roll, blues, reggae and electronic textures, the familiar Stones strut rubbing up against the studio tricks of the day. Critics split over whether the experiments worked, though most notices were kind and a handful of songs kept getting singled out. "Anybody Seen My Baby?" went top 40 around the world and found a home on American rock and alternative radio. The album made the US top 3 and ruled the charts across Europe, yet became their first to stall outside the UK top 5, and the tour that followed was, at the time, the second-highest-grossing ever.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.