Bridges to Babylon

Lore & 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.

Reader's Guide

Bridges to Babylon sold well and received mostly positive reviews upon release, though critics were divided on the merits of the band's experiments with then-current trends. The lead single "Anybody Seen My Baby?" became a worldwide top 40 hit and was successful on US rock and alternative radio. The album reached the top 3 in the US and topped charts throughout Europe, though it became the band's first and only album to peak outside the top 5 in the UK. The subsequent Bridges to Babylon Tour, running through 1997 and 1998, was extremely successful, becoming the second-highest-grossing tour at the time. Retrospective assessments remain mixed: some critics commend the band for working within its limitations and developing nuance, while others consider the album hampered by dated experimentation. Rankings of the band's entire discography tend to place Bridges to Babylon near the bottom.

Did You Know?

• Nine different musicians played bass on the album sessions.
• The album's lead single was co-credited to k.d. lang and Ben Mink after its chorus was found to resemble lang's song 'Constant Craving'.
• The first million copies were packaged in a specially manufactured filigree slipcase featuring an Assyrian lion.
• The Bridges to Babylon Tour became the second-highest-grossing tour at the time.