A Bigger Bang
The Rolling Stones' stripped-down hard rock album from 2005.
A Bigger Bang, the Rolling Stones' 2005 studio album, was their last with original material recorded entirely by Charlie Watts. The band aimed for a stripped-down hard rock sound, a shift from their previous eclectic album. It was co-produced by Don Was, with basic tracks cut as a trio of Jagger, Richards, and Watts. The album reached number one in eleven countries, and its two-year tour became the highest-grossing of all time.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- the Rolling Stones
- Released
- 5 September 2005
- Recorded
- November 2004
- 7–9 March 2005
- 6–28 June 2005
- Studio
- Château de Fourchette in Pocé-sur-Cisse, France; Ocean Way Recording and The Village Recorder in Los Angeles
- Genre
- Hard rock; blues rock
- Length
- 64:23
- Label
- Virgin; Rolling Stones
- Producer
- Don Was
- The Glimmer Twins
- Matt Clifford
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rough Justice | 3:11 |
| 2 | Let Me Down Slow | 4:16 |
| 3 | It Won't Take Long | 3:54 |
| 4 | Rain Fall Down | 4:54 |
| 5 | Streets of Love | 5:10 |
| 6 | Back of My Hand | 3:32 |
| 7 | She Saw Me Coming | 3:12 |
| 8 | Biggest Mistake | 4:06 |
| 9 | This Place Is Empty | 3:12 |
| 10 | Oh No, Not You Again | 3:46 |
| 11 | Dangerous Beauty | 3:48 |
| 12 | Laugh, I Nearly Died | 4:54 |
| 13 | Sweet Neo Con | 4:33 |
| 14 | Look What the Cat Dragged In | 3:57 |
| 15 | Driving Too Fast | 3:56 |
| 16 | Infamy | 3:47 |
| Total length | 64:23 | |
Track listing from the source article.
History
The Rolling Stones stripped back their sound for this album, recalling the style of 1978's Some Girls but with a tougher, more modern feel. While early reports claimed the band had gone back to basics, the record's sparse instrumentation, raw mix, and blend of hard blues and garage rock actually echo groups like the White Stripes and the Black Keys. Most tracks were cut by just Jagger, Richards, and Watts, with Ronnie Wood appearing on only ten of the sixteen songs. For the first time on a Stones album, Jagger played bass guitar on several tracks. The band explained that the title comes from their interest in the Big Bang theory.
Writing and recording
In June 2004, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the songs for this album at Jagger's château in Pocé-sur-Cisse, France. While there, they found out drummer Charlie Watts had throat cancer. They considered delaying the songwriting but went ahead, since Watts wasn't needed until later. Jagger handled drumming on early guide tracks; Watts later re-recorded all but one, though Jagger's original drum part stayed. The two musicians also split duties on guitar, bass, and keyboards. Don Was produced the record, Krish Sharma engineered it, and Jack Joseph Puig and Dave Sardy handled mixing. The track "Sweet Neo Con" takes aim at the conservative Christian movement in U.S. politics. "Dangerous Beauty" is generally seen as referencing Lynndie England, a U.S. Army Reservist convicted for her role in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
Release and reception
The Rolling Stones launched their A Bigger Bang tour in August 2005, a 90-show run that sold out every stop, often within minutes. The tour was pushed into 2007 after Keith Richards fell from a tree in Fiji and needed surgery in New Zealand, finally wrapping up that August at London’s O2 Arena. The album itself hit No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart, while its first single, "Streets of Love"/"Rough Justice," reached No. 15 on the UK Singles Chart. Critics were mostly kind, with Metacritic giving it a 73 out of 100, calling the reviews "generally favourable." It was hailed as the band’s best work in years, though many fans and critics noted that every Stones album since 1989’s Steel Wheels had received similar praise, and the group still hadn’t made a late-career record that truly met their own high bar. Rolling Stone ranked it the second-best album of 2005, behind Kanye West’s Late Registration, and Amazon.com included it in their Top 100 Editor’s Picks. The Associated Press called it "a winner" that proved the Stones still had "it." Commercially, A Bigger Bang went platinum in the US and Germany and gold in Japan. Nielsen SoundScan reported US sales of 546,000 copies, while EMI claimed worldwide sales of 2.4 million as of March 2006. In 2009, Universal Music Group reissued the album, with Interscope handling the US release and Polydor covering other territories.
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