I am very surprised that so many people like Bridges to Babylon.
From my point of view there are three great songs on this album:

-Out of Control which is *incredible* when played live
-Saint of Me
-Flip the Switch

For me, the rest is crap and is awfully produced.

I respect your tastes but would like to understand: What makes B2B a good album ?

"For me, the rest is crap and is awfully produced."

Can't agree, nmaillot. "Already Over Me" is an excellent ballad. I love "Too Tight", is a very underrated song. The whole stuff has good level. I am not dying for B2B, i think ABB is cleraly better, but can't hear "crap" on it...

The only great song is How Can I Stop. 3 or 4 more average songs. The rest is crap.

What are u guys talkin' bout? "Low down" is just GREAT,"Too tight" is wonderful, "Thief of The night" just GREAT and as well SOM, OOC, there is no weak song on B2B.

@#$%& blues, if there is no weak song on B2B, can you give me examples
of weak songs (from any album) ?

Nmailot, good question may be: Sweethearts together, Dancing with Mr. D, Neighbors, Break the spell....but I know its all subjective taste.

So you consider Dancing with Mr. D, Neighbors, Break the spell weaker than any song of B2B. I respect your tastes.
It's incredible to see how tastes can be different from one person to another !

I'll never forget my early listenings to "Bridges." I was working at a magazine in Manhattan and wrangled an advance copy. I would sit at my desk writing and just listen to the thing forever. Almost a decade later, it just sounds better and better:

1. "Flip The Switch" with its brutally hard and fast sound. Also the exotic-sounding (Moroccan?) vocals and what still sounds to me like a irreverent response to the then-current "Dead Man Walking" songs of Springsteen and Johnny Cash.

2. "Anybody Seen My Baby?" Off the beaten blues-rock track, but a very cool number nonetheless. I love these kinds of diversions. If everything sounded like "Brown Sugar," where the hell would we be? Miles better than "Love Is Strong," anyway.

3. "Lowdown" Love those grinding guitars. Excellent vocals.

4. "Already Over Me" Probably my least favorite on the record, but they did a commendable job with it on the second night at MSG 1998. Any doubts about the tune are dispelled when Jagger closes with "...what a fool I've been." Great delivery.

5. "Gunface" A murder tune, just like all those ancient blues--but with a hard, techno delivery. Tradition and innovation. Not just that canned retro bullshit of "Voodoo Lounge."

6. "You Don't Have To Mean It" Sweet tune that gets better with age. "Sit on my shoulder like a little bird..."

7. "Out of Control" Brilliant and this was only the beginning of what it would become on stage. "In the hotel room, I'm excited by the smile on her face, but I wonder how time is gonna change her..." I really hate it when people imagine Jagger's stuff to be autobiographical, but so spooky to hear the compulsive womanizer sing this as his thing with Jerry was falling apart.

8. "Saint of Me" Not really a favorite of mine, actually. But I'm in the minority and it's certainly rousing.

9. "Might As Well Get Juiced" An amazing update of the suffocating sound on "Exile." When Jagger starts blowing his harp through that techno sludge...so ballsy. Dying to hear the "Keith's Revenge Mix" which he claims is so much better. I wish the Stones had pursued this type of direction a little more becuase to me, this is the real successor to "Exile On Main Street"--not a lame rehash.

10. "Always Suffering" Gorgeous. "Cause life is but a chance/On a wind swept hill/And the seeds of love are swirling around/Let them be still..." Again with the compulsive womanizing. I can't figure out why people object to this tune...just for the hell of it, I wish they'd done a country single and video for CMT. A Jerry Lee Lewis move. Would have freaked everybody out...

11. "Too Tight" Great little throwaway with some real snap and pop to it. Fun guitars.

12. "Thief In The Night" Holy shit. Not really a conventional song, but a soul/reggae chant with cool words--"I'm gonna steal what's mine"...think about how badass this really is. For once, I agree with Don Was: Keith was at a creative peak.

and then:

"How Can I Stop?" Great romantic idea, but with obvious applications to the music and the Stones. Rivals "Moonlight Mile"--as fine an album closer as there ever was. Wayne Shorter's sax heads skyward and then clenches up before swaying back down to close out the record with Charlie's drums.

Sophisticated, adult, weary, exalted. As soulful as the Stones can be.


"A Bigger Bang" has many fun and exciting moments (along with amazingly lame ones) but I don't see how it tops "Bridges" on any count. "Exile" didn't have to sound like "Aftermath" and "Black And Blue" didn't have to sound like "Exile." "Tattoo You" certainly didn't have to sound like anything that came before it. By what measure is "Bridges" overproduced?

Go back and listen to the old dogs master any style they touch...

nmaillot:

Weak songs? You want weak songs? Got 'em by the armload:

"Suck On The Jugular"
"I Go Wild"
"Baby Break It Down"
"Sweet Neo Con"
"Look What The Cat Dragged In"
"Dangerous Beauty"
"Rock And A Hard Place"
"Can't Be Seen"
"Back To Zero"
"Winning Ugly"
"Highwire"

I could go on forever...

"Under The Boardwalk"
"Come On"
"As Tears Go By"
"Melody"
"Tops"
"Dancing With Mr. D"
"Where The Boys All Go"
"Angie"

I know there are many weak songs. I meant *WEAKER* than the worst songs of B2B.
I don't think there so many such songs.

I would count everything I listed above as weaker than the "Bridges" material.

I feel that B2B is better than ABB. It does not have the filler that ABB does.

I like all these latter-day albums, & think B2B is their most experimental since Satanic - collaborating w/ various musicians & producers, they integrate '90s styles (also jazz, reggae, funk, etc) into their own blues 'n' roll, & still sound like themselves. The performances are strong, & they are pushing forward (quite different from the so called back to basics approach - the Stones are always trying to balance these inclinations, which are both integral to who they are). It does not imo sound dated the way many albums of the era do. The B2B sessions also are responsible for what would become the very cool "Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project" (2000) which I highly recommend to those who haven't heard it!

B2B is the Stones part in Big Beat mode and part in Being Stones mode. The Dust Brothers tracks (ASMB?, Saint Of Me and MAWG Juiced) and Gunface and maybe Thief in the Night, too, is the Big Beat mode, whilst the other songs are a further refinement of the development from Voodoo Lounge onwards, that sometimes works really well (You Don't Have To Mean It, Out Of Control, Too Tight, FTS, Already Over Me) and sometimes is a bit boring (Always Suffering).

I like the Big Beat mode that's on no other Stones album and the other mode as well and I'd have loved to hear more songs with the Dust Brothers' treatment on them, but those compositions in the Being Stones mode are just not well-suited for this. Maybe there are some outtakes, I don't know.

I would love to hear the raw recordings.

I can't imagine there is something like a raw recording of Saint Of Me, because that song is so cut up into snippets and then looped. From listening to it, I'd never thought that's Charlie drumming, if hadn't known. But Juiced might sound better without the electrickery.

I like BtB.

There are strong songs, there are weak songs, and there are two awful songs.

Gunface is one of them. How could they possibly make such awful lyrics? It`s awful, just awful! And it went by without any warning or reaction! People should stop and think. The other one is Flip the Switch. This just isn`t what the Stones is about. Far too fast! Poor melody.

Low Down is the best song on the album. This is the Stones how they shoud be. You can feel the collaboration between Jagger and Richards! It reminds me of Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Tumbling Dice and Start Me Up.

Anybody Seen My Baby is another strong one.

Some of the rest are quite good, some not so good.

The lyrics of Flip the Switch are like Goth Rock, whilst those of Gunface are somewhat Gangsta, but there are brutal lyrics in traditional blues songs as well.

B2B is a diverse album and should not be messed with.On a whole,it´s better than most other releases of 1997.

Bridges is WAY better than the new album. It flows better, has more variety and rocks harder overall. The mix of classic and contemporary styles and production work very well.

I like B2B for the following reasons: Too Tight, Flip The Switch, Out Of Control, Lowdown and Saint Of Me. Imagine my surprise when a different version of SOM was released on the SOM cd single. It was a remix and clocked in at 6 minutes if I'm not mistaken. Worth checking out!