The Rolling Stones " A Bigger Bang"

A Bigger Bang is the 22nd British and 24th American studio album by the Rolling Stones, released on Virgin Records in September 2005. It is the follow-up to their previous full-length studio album Bridges to Babylon from 1997; that gap of eight years was up to that time the longest between studio albums of the band's recording career. Released as a double album on vinyl and a single CD, it was produced by Don Was and the Glimmer Twins.

The album used a stripped-down style reminiscent of Some Girls (1978), but with a harder, more contemporary edge. Although initial reports stated that the Stones had "returned to their roots" with the record, the minimal instrumentation, rough mix, tough blues and "garage" rock hybrid bear certain similarities to the style of contemporary artists like the White Stripes and the Black Keys.

Many songs were recorded with just the core band of Jagger, Richards and Watts. Ronnie Wood was absent from many sessions, playing on only ten of the sixteen tracks, with only occasional contributions from outside musicians comprising the recording of the album. This is also the first album where Jagger plays bass guitar on some tracks.


The Stones said in a statement that the album's title reflects "their fascination with the scientific theory about the origin of the universe."

The first single, "Streets of Love"/"Rough Justice", reached No. 15 in the UK singles chart, while A Bigger Bang peaked at No. 2 on the UK charts. Another song from the album was "Sweet Neo Con", which was critical of the conservative Christian movement in American politics.

In August 2005, the Rolling Stones embarked on the 90-show A Bigger Bang Tour in support of the album. It was met with sold-out tickets at every destination, usually within minutes of going on sale. The tour was extended into 2007 because Richards got hurt falling out of a tree in Fiji and required surgery in New Zealand. It concluded on August 2007 at the O2 Arena in London.

Critical reaction was mostly positive. The aggregate score of the album by Metacritic was rated 73 out of 100, categorizing the reviews as "generally favorable." A Bigger Bang was touted as the best Rolling Stones album in years. Nevertheless, all of the Stones albums since 1989's Steel Wheels had been similarly lauded, and many critics and fans felt that the Stones had yet to record a late-period album truly up to their high standards. It was chosen as one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Editor's Picks of 2005, and ranked the second-best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.

A Bigger Bang went platinum in the US and Germany, and gold in Japan. According to Nielsen SoundScan it sold 546,000 copies in the US, and as of 31 March 2006, 2.4 million copies worldwide according to EMI.


In 2009, A Bigger Bang was reissued by Universal Music Group. The US re-release was handled by Interscope Records, while Polydor Records handled all other territories.

The Rolling Stones "Bridges to Babylon"

Bridges to Babylon is the 21st British and 23rd American studio album by British rock band The Rolling Stones, released by Virgin Records on 29 September 1997. It would prove to be the band's final studio album of the 1990s and their last full-length release of new songs until 2005's A Bigger Bang. Released as a double album on vinyl and a single CD, the album was supported by the year-long worldwide Bridges to Babylon Tour that met with much success.

Following the Voodoo Lounge Tour, and Stripped projects of 1994/1995, the Stones afforded themselves a brief respite before Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began composing new songs together in the summer of 1996 with demos to follow as they met in New York in November and London the following month. Another writing session happened in Barbados on January 1997.

In March 1997, the band arrived in Los Angeles to start the recording sessions at Ocean Way Studios. After many albums recorded in isolated islands, working in a big city allowed for the contribution of various musician friends of the band. Bridges to Babylon was recorded until July, and the four month production made it one of their most concise periods of recording in years. The sessions would frequently be all-nighters that lasted until Richards got tired by the morning.

Although Don Was would be the producer again, Jagger arrived before the other Stones to seek local producers. First were The Dust Brothers, who had impressed Jagger with their work on Beck's Odelay and the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. The Dust Brothers' contributions were initially five, but were reduced to three, which mark the only Stones songs to feature sampling. Danny Saber and Babyface were also brought in by Jagger, though the latter's contributions to the track "Already Over Me" were eventually discarded. Richards was not keen on the idea of working with "loop gurus", going as far as expelling Saber from the studio once he found him overdubbing guitars. Richards brought in Rob Fraboni for his solo material, and Was made sure to work with Richards and Jagger in separate rooms. Drummer Charlie Watts would relieve the tense environment by working along with percussionist Jim Keltner, who he would later draft for a solo project. By the final week of recording, the Stones were not in speaking terms, with Jagger boycotting sessions arranged by Richards' crew and Watts leaving Los Angeles as soon as he finished his contributions.

During the album's mastering, the projected lead single "Anybody Seen My Baby?" was found to resemble k.d. lang's 1992 hit "Constant Craving" in its chorus, a discovery brought to Richards' attention by his daughter Angela. Seeking to avoid possible future legal entanglements, lang and her co-writer Ben Mink were credited along with Jagger and Richards on the new song. It reached No. 22 in the UK and also became a U.S. radio rock hit.

A total of eight different musicians played bass on the sessions for the album: Jeff Sarli, Jamie Muhoberac, Blondie Chaplin, Don Was, Danny Saber, Darryl Jones, Me'shell Ndegeocello, and Doug Wimbish.

Once the Rolling Stones picked Stefan Sagmeister to be the album's art director, Jagger told him to seek inspiration from Babylonian art exhibited at the British Museum. Sagmeister was most impressed by a Lamassu sculpture, featuring a lion with a human head and beard, and commissioned artist Kevin Murphy to paint a similar Assyrian lion in an attack stance. The first million units of Bridges to Babylon were encased in a special manufactured filigree slipcase, that gave the impression that the lion was embedded into the design. The desert background of the cover was extended throughout the booklet, featuring ruins that were the basis for the Bridges to Babylon Tour stage design.

Bridges to Babylon, containing an unprecedented three solo vocals by Richards, was released to mixed reviews. It reached No. 6 in the UK, No. 2 in France and No. 3 in the US, where it was certified platinum by the RIAA in November 1997. As of January 2010, Bridges to Babylon has sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. Further singles "Saint of Me" and concert staple "Out of Control" were also minor hits.

The Stones had become a touring phenomenon by this point. The Bridges to Babylon Tour in 1997 consisted of 108 shows, with an elaborate stage design Jagger aimed to make similar to U2's PopMart Tour.

In 2009, Bridges to Babylon was remastered and reissued by Universal Music.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.

1. "Flip the Switch" 3:28
2. "Anybody Seen My Baby?" (writers: Jagger, Richards, k.d. lang, Ben Mink) 4:31
3. "Low Down" 4:26
4. "Already Over Me" 5:24
5. "Gunface" 5:02
6. "You Don't Have to Mean It" 3:44
7. "Out of Control" 4:43
8. "Saint of Me" 5:15
9. "Might as Well Get Juiced" 5:23
10. "Always Suffering" 4:43
11. "Too Tight" 3:33
12. "Thief in the Night" (writers: Jagger, Richards, Pierre de Beauport) 5:15
13. "How Can I Stop" 6:53

The Rolling Stones "Voodoo Lounge"

Voodoo Lounge is the 20th British and 22nd American studio album by British rock band The Rolling Stones, released in July 1994. As their first new release under their new alliance with Virgin Records, it ended a five-year gap since their last studio album, Steel Wheels in 1989. Voodoo Lounge is also the band's first album without long-time bassist Bill Wyman. He left the band in early 1991, though the Stones did not formally announce the departure until 1993. In 2009, the album was remastered and reissued by Universal Music. This album was released as a double album on vinyl and a single CD and cassette.

Following the release of Keith Richards' Main Offender and Mick Jagger's Wandering Spirit in 1992 and 1993, respectively, both leaders of the Rolling Stones began composing new songs in April 1993, deciding upon Don Was (who has produced several Grammy-winning records) as co-producer for the upcoming sessions. In November, after rehearsing and recording at Ronnie Wood's house in Ireland that September, the Stones shifted to Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin and began cutting Voodoo Lounge. Although not joining the band officially, Darryl Jones would be taking Bill Wyman's place as the group's regular bassist, at the suggestion of drummer Charlie Watts.

Don Was, noted for his retro rock production sensibilities, was reportedly responsible for pushing the band towards more conventional territory in an attempt to reproduce the archetypal "Rolling Stones" sound. Although this approach pleased critics and the Stones rock-oriented fan base, Jagger in particular expressed some dissatisfaction with Was's aesthetic, commenting in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone:

... there were a lot of things that we wrote for Voodoo Lounge that Don steered us away from: groove songs, African influences and things like that. And he steered us very clear of all that. And I think it was a mistake.

Was responded that he was not "anti-groove, just anti-groove without substance, in the context of this album. They had a number of great grooves. But it was like, 'OK, what goes on top of it? Where does it go?' I just felt that it's not what people were looking for from the Stones. I was looking for a sign that they can get real serious about this, still play better than anybody and write better than anybody."

The result was an essentially classicist recording that drew on the blues, R&B, and country that had informed the Stones classic late 1960s/early 1970s recordings. Jagger would insist on a more diverse, contemporary production cast for the subsequent Bridges to Babylon (1997). Nevertheless, Was remains the Stones producer to this day. After a period of recording in Los Angeles in the first few months of 1994, Voodoo Lounge was complete and The Rolling Stones moved onto the rehearsals for the (yet another massive, worldwide) Voodoo Lounge Tour which would begin in August.


During the recording of the album, Richards adopted a stray cat in Barbados which he named Voodoo, because they were in Barbados, and the kitten had survived the odds. He dubbed the terrace of the house, Voodoo's Lounge. "Sparks Will Fly" was written by Richards after a blow up with Jerry Lee Lewis in Ireland. Richards invited Lewis to Wood's home to jam on a few songs. Lewis took it seriously and thought they were making an album, and upon playback of the session, he started to pick apart Richards' band, which outraged Richards.

Released in July 1994, Voodoo Lounge received strong reviews and debuted at #1 in the UK (their first chart-topper there since 1980's Emotional Rescue) and #2 in the US where it went double platinum.

Writing for Vox magazine in August 1994, Steven Dalton thought that the album's strongest tracks were filled with "echoes of the band's halcyon days", most notably 1972's Exile on Main Street and 1978's Some Girls. He went on to surmise that Voodoo Lounge "reminds us why we liked the Stones in the first place", and singled out "New Faces", "Out of Tears" and "Blinded by Rainbows" as the album's highlights, despite also stating that the record contained "too many sketchy, arsing-around-in-the-studio jobs" to be considered one of the group's overall best albums.

Robert Christgau commented: "world's greatest roots-rock band".

In early 1995, while the Voodoo Lounge Tour was still underway until August, Voodoo Lounge won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.


In 2009, Voodoo Lounge was remastered and reissued by Universal Music.