Bridges to Babylon

Background

Following the Voodoo Lounge Tour and the album Stripped, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began composing new songs in the summer of 1996, with demos following in New York and London. Another writing session took place in Barbados in January 1997. Recording began in March 1997 at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, a departure from isolated island studios that allowed for contributions from various musician friends. The four-month production was one of the band's most concise recording periods in years, though tensions ran high: by the final week, the Stones were not on speaking terms, with Jagger boycotting sessions arranged by Richards' crew and drummer Charlie Watts leaving as soon as he finished his contributions.

During mastering, the chorus of the projected lead single "Anybody Seen My Baby?" was found to resemble k.d. lang's 1992 hit "Constant Craving," a discovery brought to Richards' attention by his daughter Angela. To avoid legal entanglements, lang and her co-writer Ben Mink were credited alongside Jagger and Richards. The album's art director, Stefan Sagmeister, was inspired by Babylonian art at the British Museum, commissioning a painting of an Assyrian lion in attack stance. The first million units were encased in a specially manufactured filigree slipcase.