Bridges to Babylon
1997 studio album by The Rolling Stones
Bridges to Babylon is the twenty-first British and twenty-third American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released on 29 September 1997, through Virgin Records. The album contains contributions from a host of producers—Don Was, returning from Voodoo Lounge (1994), as well as the Dust Brothers, Danny Saber, Rob Fraboni and Pierre de Beauport—with all of the tracks also being produced by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (as "the Glimmer Twins"). The album contains a multitude of musical styles, such as rock and roll, blues, reggae, and electronic music, as a result of Jagger's desire to mix the band's traditional sound with the contemporary styles of the day.
Upon release, Bridges to Babylon sold well and received mostly positive reviews. Its lead single, "Anybody Seen My Baby?", was 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 the charts throughout Europe, though it became the band's first (and, to date, only) album to peak outside the top 5 in the UK. Reviewers were divided on the merits of the band's experiments with then-current trends and styles, though certain tracks were consistently singled out for praise. The following Bridges to Babylon Tour ran through 1997 and 1998 and was extremely successful, becoming the second-highest-grossing tour at the time.
Background and recording
Following the Voodoo Lounge Tour from 1994 to 1995, and the album Stripped, 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 took place in Barbados in January 1997.
The public source identifies “Bridges to Babylon” as 1997 studio album by The Rolling Stones. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bridges, Babylon and studio.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q910214. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1994, 1998 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bridges to Babylon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.