The 'Bridges to Babylon' divide: underrated or overproduced?

The split over Bridges to Babylon (1997) comes down to one thing: the Rolling Stones trying to sound modern. They brought in hip-hop producers the Dust Brothers and looped in a sample of k.d. lang—without realizing it, leading to a last-minute co-writing credit and a song (“Anybody Seen My Baby?”) that feels more like a slick pop artifact than a Stones track. That’s exactly why some fans love it: the band leaned into studio tricks, wah-wah pedals, and drum loops, and it produced genuine highlights like the menacing “Saint of Me” or the loose, funky “Out of Control.”

Critics hear a band overreaching, burying Keith Richards’ guitar in polish and chasing a sound that wasn’t theirs. The tour that followed was massive and well-received, but the album itself often gets lumped with the mid-’90s “dad rock” curse. Twenty-five years later, the production doesn’t feel as dated as fans feared—and “Anybody Seen My Baby?” is a weirdly perfect time capsule of a band refusing to just coast on its legacy.