Contributing musicians: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood, Darryl Jones, Chuck Leavell, Matt Clifford, Blondie Chaplin, Don Was, Lenny Castro.
 

Rough Justice
Let Me Down Slow
It Won't Take Long
Rain Fall Down
Streets Of Love
Back Of My Hand
She Saw Me Coming
Biggest Mistake
This Place Is Empty
Oh No, Not You Again
Dangerous Beauty
Laugh, I Nearly Died
Sweet Neo Con
Look What The Cat Dragged In
Driving Too Fast
Infamy
 
 
 

I'm not a great lover of the title for this tour and record, but what it conjures up is fantastic, and that's what sold me.

(It'll be) very vibrant and very contemporary, yet hard-hitting... classical Rolling Stones.

We tried to make it very wide-ranging and we tried to make it very hard-hitting, but it's got its sensitive moments.

I think that the songs are very varied and there is a lot of very different musical content. And a lot of different emotional content. I think it's a pretty well-rounded piece, if I say that myself!

It's easier to write about conflict. Try writing I'm at peace with the world in a rock tune. See where that gets you. But if you went into some country singer's songbook, you'd find a lot more heartache than in the Rolling Stones.

It kicks some ass.

A lot of our studio stuff is too overdubbed. (But this) is a very basic record, and I hope people like it, because it will make us do another one like it.

A lot of people say this track reminds them of Exile or that one reminds them of Between The Buttons, or whatever. But (what) they are talking about, more than specific albums, is that these songs capture the spirit that they like about the Rolling Stones. And I wanted that spirit back too. In this band, it's almost a necessity to have new songs we are excited about, otherwise we go out like the Beach Boys and just play the old favorites. Please, no.

You get too close to it (to evaluate it). You have to wait for the reaction. So far I gotta believe (the praise) because nobody has said anything else so it must be cool. For a little while when you've finished them... I wonder.

This is Charlie Watts' finest album. If you listen to the drumming, it's as if he came back and said, A minor flesh wound!

I like hit albums, hit singles, hit anythings. You just want people to hear what you've done. We're pretty excited about this record, we think there's really good stuff on it.

The band is really getting into these songs. I think maybe because we did start the album off in such a Me and Mick area, the stuff is eminently playable onstage. Everybody's really up for it.

There is a certain feeling on this one, an excitement. There were no huge obstacles to overcome, like, What about that tuba part? These songs lend themselves to live work. They are beautifully ready to play, and everybody's ready to play them.

We all like it and now we'll see what the critics think and so far people have said they like it but whether you write that is an entirely different matter. Critics don't tend to write unqualified reviews. And then there's the public acceptance which is kind of hard because I'm not really sure if anyone's going to be that interested. A lot of Rolling Stones people like the old material and are not really interested in what you're doing now. Or maybe they didn't like what you did last time, so fair enough, they're not interested. What we've gone and done is make a Rolling Stones album.

Yeah, we got some good reviews for that. A lot of times we put out a studio album for starters and people are like, Forget about it. I think it's a pretty good record and people responded accordingly, you know. We like to think it works really good. When I listened to it in the end, I thought, Yeah, that's pretty good.

(W)e have a special edition coming out that has the two (songs) we didn't put on there. They're pretty good as well. We finished eighteen, and it was sort of difficult to leave them off.

There's some good stuff on there, but I don't know... There's something about the way it holds together, for me. I don't know if we got the tracks in the right order or something like that. Sometimes, it can make the difference on a record, the way it flows. But I enjoyed making it very much.

Eight years separate 2005's A Bigger Bang, the Rolling Stones' 24th album of original material, from its 1997 predecessor, Bridges to Babylon, the longest stretch of time between Stones albums in history, but unlike the three-year gap between 1986's Dirty Work and 1989's Steel Wheels, the band never really went away. They toured steadily, not just behind Bridges but behind the career-spanning 2002 compilation Forty Licks...  (A) bigger surprise is that A Bigger Bang finds that reinvigorated band carrying its latter-day renaissance into the studio, turning in a sinewy, confident, satisfying album that's the band's best in years... (T)here is a big difference between this album and 1994's Voodoo Lounge. That album was deliberately classicist, touching on all of the signatures of classic mid-period, late-'60s/early-'70s Stones - reviving the folk, country, and straight blues that balanced their trademark rockers - and while it was often successful, it very much sounded like the Stones trying to be the Stones. What distinguishes A Bigger Bang is that it captures the Stones simply being the Stones, playing without guest stars, not trying to have a hit, not trying to adopt the production style of the day, not doing anything but lying back and playing. Far from sounding like a lazy affair, the album rocks really hard, tearing out of the gate with Rough Justice, the toughest, sleaziest, and flat-out best song Jagger and Richards have come up with in years. It's not a red herring, either - She Saw Me Coming, Look What the Cat Dragged In, and the terrific Oh No Not You Again, which finds Mick spitting out lyrics with venom and zeal, are equally as hard and exciting... A Bigger Bang doesn't succeed simply because the Stones are great musicians, it also works because this is a strong set of Jagger-Richards originals - naturally, the songs don't rival their standards from the '60s and '70s, but the best songs here more than hold their own with the best of their post-Exile work, and there are more good songs here than on any Stones album since Some Girls.

This may not be a startling comeback along the lines of Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, but that's fine, because over the last three decades the Stones haven't been about surprises: they've been about reliability. The problem is, they haven't always lived up to their promises, or when they did deliver the goods, it was sporadic and unpredictable. And that's what's unexpected about A Bigger Bang: they finally hold up their end of the bargain, delivering a strong, engaging, cohesive Rolling Stones album that finds everybody in prime form. Keith is loose and limber, Charlie is tight and controlled, Ronnie lays down some thrilling, greasy slide guitar, and Mick is having a grand time, making dirty jokes, baiting neo-cons, and sounding more committed to the Stones than he has in years. Best of all, this is a record where the band acknowledges its age and doesn't make a big deal about it: they're not in denial, trying to act like a younger band, they've simply accepted what they do best and go about doing it as if it's no big deal. But that's what makes A Bigger Bang a big deal: it's the Stones back in fighting form for the first time in years, and they have both the strength and the stamina to make the excellent latter-day effort everybody's been waiting for all these years. 4/5

Let's just get this out of the way: A Bigger Bang isn't a good Rolling Stones album considering their age. It isn't a good Rolling Stones album compared to their recent work. No, A Bigger Bang is just a straight-up, damn fine Rolling Stones album, with no qualifiers or apologies necessary for the first time in a few decades... Whether fueled by their notorious competitive camaraderie or inspired by their oldest mate's brush with mortality, the results sound like a genuine band effort - loose, scrappy and alive. A Bigger Bang recalls the best things about rough, underrated Stones albums like Dirty Work or Emotional Rescue, though it's also impressively consistent. The key here comes from surrendering to the groove. Most of the tracks are built around the incomparable spark that's lit when Keith's guitar and Charlie's drums lock into a rhythm. There's never been another team that can drive a band quite like these two, but on their post-Seventies work that magic has usually been buried in the mix. On hard-charging songs like It Won't Take Long or the rave-up single Rough Justice, the Stones reassert themselves as the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band, and not just as the Greatest Show on Earth.

Mick and Keith have always said they want to grow old like the bluesmen they idolize, and on Bang they finally figure out how: The album revels in the Chuck Berry boogie and classic R&B pulse that's always been their lifeblood. The latter-day Glimmer Twins have often felt the need to coat their songs with layers of winking irony or studio gloss. Here, the dance-floor strut Rain Fall Down and the soul ballad Laugh, I Nearly Died are powerful because they're played straight, never turning cartoonish or mannered. Jagger's voice throughout is a knockout, deeper and more forceful than seems possible after forty-plus years of rocking the mike. The subject matter on A Bigger Bang, though, is thankfully a bit less mature. The album mostly sticks to familiar, nasty Stones territory: being heartbroken and breaking hearts, the evils that women (and, sometimes, men) do... Of course a disc that clocks in at sixty-four minutes (just two minutes less than Exile on Main Street) is too long. In their defense, there isn't a single track that's a real lemon... A Bigger Bang may not be a perception-shattering comeback like Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind/Love and Theft combo, but by returning to their roots and embracing their age, the Rolling Stones have come up with an album that's a worthy successor to their masterworks. Jagger and Richards are still standing - grumpy old men, full of piss and vinegar, spite and blues chords, and they wear it well.  4.5/5

I'm obviously not to be trusted, since when I finally pulled out my vinyl on Dirty Work, which nobody else likes, I still loved its booming Steve Lillywhite Charlie, its studious chicken-scratch Keith, its bitterness and cynicism and spiritual desperation. On this one desperation is in remission. But despite its lack of an anthem to replace Start Me Up, it certainly beats Tattoo You or anything else going back to Exile except Some Girls. Long the weak link, Mick--come on: Keith and Charlie are gods, Ron is for sound effects, and Darryl Jones is an improvement--once again proves capable of relating on what we humans pathetically call a human scale. Not that I credit his "vulnerability," but I'm touched that he cares enough to lie about it. Together with clear evidence of prolonged cooperation between or among the principals (meaning two-man songwriting and a living groove, respectively), the effort suffices to provide or simulate the mattering considered so crucial in veteran bands. It also helps that the opener really rocks. As for the anti-Bush song, duh. Next time they should vet their corporate sponsor instead.  A-

(A) certain Carry On spirit seems to permeate much of the album, from the title to a Keith Richards number that reworks the old Kenneth Williams they've all got it infamy gag, to the question raised by Rough Justice: they've certainly pulled it out, but can men of their age keep it up for an hour? The answer is: almost... There's plenty of spirit here but, sadly, the songwriting runs out of puff long before the performances do, lending a hammy tone to the album's weaker moments... There is a sense of finality about A Bigger Bang. It may not be quite the blazing ship to Valhalla they intended, but then nor is it the unmarked grave you might expect. 3/5

Throughout the Nineties, we got used to hearing that the latest Stones album was rather better than one might expect, despite the likes of Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon ultimately being regarded as little more than audio fly-posters for the band's latest globe-girdling tour, each ekeing out the usual one or two decent tracks with acres of half-hearted filler. So it's with a certain trepidation that I welcome A Bigger Bang as, yes, better than one might expect; a lot better, in fact - good enough to put on instead of reaching for the band's former glories again. Let's put it this way: if albums were still only 10 or 12 tracks long, and all the fat was trimmed from the 16 here, the result might well be fit to stand alongside Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. Which is about as good as it gets.  5/5

Un nouvel album tendu et accrocheur. Cette fois, inutile de faire semblant pour se convaincre, A Bigger Bang a de l'allure, du mordant et trouvera sa place de choix dans la discographie du "plus grand groupe rock du monde", marque déposée. Le titre joue sur le double sens du Big Bang et de baiser, to bang. Sur seize chansons, seulement une poignée est relâchée, le reste variant du très acceptable au très bon, emmené, propulsé par endroits par la frappe déterminée de Charlie Watts (profondeur sonore, swing) et les moulinets méchants de Richards. Du Stones post-âge d'or qui tient la route et pourra se réécouter régulièrement pour plus d'une ou deux chansons, comme c'est également le cas pour Some Girls (1978), Tattoo You (1981), Steel Wheels (1989) et, dans une moindre mesure, Voodoo Lounge (1994).

A Bigger Bang is business as usual. It's an improvement on its predecessor, '97's listless Bridges To Babylon. But it blows hot and cold. That the Stones are still a legitimate, fully functioning band 42 years after their inception is a unique achievement. And of their peers, only Bob Dylan still makes great records. But... the Stones have been "the Stones" for so long now that their creative process is essentially a conditioned reflex; an intuitive reversion to old habits. Every new song ends up sounding like one of their old songs, only never quite as good... It's not all bad news, though... Yet for this album to really matter, the Stones needed four or five truly great songs, and there are just two. Back of My Hand is a blues track steeped in the tradition of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker that really wouldn't sound out of place on Sticky Fingers, their most perfectly formed album. And, better still, Laugh, I Nearly Died is their finest broken-hearted love song since 1976's Fool to Cry. Here, especially, Jagger proves what a great singer he can still be... 3/5

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