The Rolling Stones – Bridges to Babylon Review

Three years on from Voodoo Lounge, and The Rolling Stones had hardly healed. Bridges to Babylon is another effort from the band worth engaging with just the once and then forgetting about it soon after. The Mick Jagger-fronted group failed to keep pace with their contemporaries. Bob Dylan’s return to form on Time Out of Mind, which was released the same day as Bridges to Babylon, is a death knell for The Rolling Stones’ longer-term tone. Not one of these songs is going to ever feature in their live set. Paul McCartney, Neil Young, and countless others were having success in reforming themselves into a pop-friendly or rock provocateur role with the decades of work behind them acting as a metric for which others should be judged, not the artist who made the work. The Rolling Stones were late to such a party but managed to limp on because the volume of hits behind them warranted listening to them still. Bridges to Babylon does not have that.  

What it offers instead is a tranquilised, modern sound for a band which had sounded uncomfortable since the Steel Wheels live tour. There’s a slightly edgier funk sound at play for parts of Bridges to Babylon. Opener Flip the Switch does little to kindle such a sound, but the follow-up, Anybody Seen My Baby?, is about as strong as the album gets. Groovy, cool, and exactly the sound that suits the band at the time of release. Anybody Seen My Baby? appears in a few live recordings, but it’s so upbeat there, completely changed from this time capsule-like sound, that it might as well be a whole new song. True to form, though, even The Rolling Stones at their middling, stagnating period is better than much of the contemporary material from the late-1990s. A song like Already Over Me could do with a gutsier push, and it gets it, eventually. Charlie Watts and Keith Richards kick the song up to that next level but Jagger sounds happy cruising with the slowed tempo.  

Some of the songs featured on Bridges to Babylon feature the punchy instrumental thrill necessary to The Rolling Stones, but they lack the emotional or lyrical style that so often carries those moments. Songs like You Don’t Have to Mean It and Out of Control are nice paths to follow The Rolling Stones down. Both are solid listens but once they reach the end of the road, there’s nothing to do but shrug your shoulders and head back the way you came. There’s not much to be uncovered across Bridges to Babylon despite the consistencies found in the instrumentals and vocal range. Bridges to Babylon is a bit all over the place and there’s often the sense that Jagger and the band are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Not much is, though, that’s the problem for this lopsided but occasionally enjoyable piece of work.  

At the very least, The Rolling Stones are piecing together music that feels experimental. They’re touching on new sounds and stylings that, ultimately, benefits the band brilliantly. Always Suffering is sweet enough work from the band but it lacks that finality, the killing blow that Jagger lost somewhere in the mid-1980s. Latter stages of Bridges to Babylon do hold up well, with Too Tight a nice riff on the blues-rock that brings out the best in Richards and Ronnie Wood. It’s not necessary for The Rolling Stones to replicate that tone all the time but they do well to remember their roots and bring out the best in one another when they do. Jagger slips up with the lyrics on Bridges to Babylon a little too often, though when he lands a solid line, he does knock it out of the park. Too Tight is a testament to his writing, as is the album to follow Bridges to Babylon.