It\u2019s difficult to imagine the rock world without The Rolling Stones, but when you think about it, the last time they were legitimately relevant was Tattoo You<\/i> in 1981. Since that point they have released a handful of albums, some more successful than others but were any of them particularly necessary? Mick and Keith and Co. discovered their gifts a long time ago, but by now they have exhausted the benefits of them as far as it comes to inspired rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. <\/p>\n
You have to hand to The Stones, though; they don\u2019t care. Their tours remain immensely popular and their concerts are sold out all over the globe. A new record is almost immaterial, merely serving as a namesake for a new concert jaunt. The dwindling output of the band since the \u201880s has all but confirmed this; over time, the gap between records has grown from a year, to three, to eight (and as of this writing, that gap is again eigtht years and counting).<\/p>\n
That delay, believe it or not, helps a great deal when examining a Stones record. Were these albums to come out one after the other, the patterns and substance would quickly become tiresome and stale (or as Jimmy Fallon and Jagger would put it, stay-uhl). But when one has to wait close to a decade to hear something new, the familiar isn\u2019t so bad. <\/p>\n
At the time of the release of 1997\u2019s Bridges To Babylon<\/i>, sampling was a practice that was gaining popularity, but it was nowhere as ubiquitous as it was today. So the fact that The Stones used it on the lead single \u201cAnybody Seen My Baby,\u201d courtesy of Biz Markie, was a big deal. It is also not a coincidence that the track is the best of the album, establishing a R&B groove that is a breath of fresh air stylistically. Apparently, Jagger recruited the Dust Brothers for production duties before Richards brought in someone else. Thankfully their influence on the record remains with the standout track.<\/p>\n
There are the more \u201ctraditional\u201d Stones moments that affirm a band that knows exactly how to go about its business and do it professionally. The bluesy rockers \u201cSaint Of Me\u201d and \u201cOut Of Control\u201d harken back to the band\u2019s younger days, and the homage to the Temptations\u2019 \u201cPapa Was A Rolling Stone\u201d in the latter track is an excellent example of emulation rather than a direct copy.<\/p>\n
Jagger sings a few ballads, Keith takes a turn or two at the mic, and the usual fare is represented. It\u2019s not that the songs in themselves are \u201cbad,\u201d but these are the moments that we\u2019ve heard on every Stones records since the \u201870s. The band\u2019s experiments (Their Satanic Majesties Request<\/i>, Some Girls<\/i>) were hit-or-miss, but at least they were trying something different. The brief stabs at innovation on this record are welcome, but it\u2019s a shame they didn\u2019t go further.<\/p>\n
Bridges To Babylon <\/i>has all the trademarks of a latter-day Stones records: it\u2019s far too long for its own good and loses momentum on the back half of the record. Yet it still has moments that justify its existence. Mick and Keith don\u2019t hit as many home runs as they used to, but there\u2019s enough left in the tank to send a few into the gap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":27309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5665],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42965","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-rolling-stones","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42965"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42965"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}