The Stones' 'A Bigger Bang' – a return to raw rock that couldn't escape the shadow of their own mythology

In 2005, The Rolling Stones hadn’t released a studio album that truly excited critics since Tattoo You (1981), and even that was a compilation of leftovers. Going into A Bigger Bang, the band was 43 years into its career, and expectations were modest but not dismissive. The album was hyped as a “return to basics” — recorded in a small studio in France with just the core four (no outside songwriters for the first time since 1983), and Keith Richards playing bass on some tracks. Commercially, it debuted at No. 1 in the UK and No. 3 in the US (selling about 1.3 million copies stateside), but that wasn’t classic-era numbers — Some Girls alone did 6 million.

Critical reception was warm but measured. Rolling Stone gave it four stars, calling it “their best album in 20 years,” but that is faint praise when the previous two decades included the duds Undercover and Dirty Work. Most reviews highlighted